Some good baseball
Thankfully, the road trip from hell is over and the Angels don't look quite so sorry at home. Maybe its just playing against the Kingless Mariners.
Bartolo looked absolutely outstanding in the first inning. Ichiro doubled off his second fastball, but Bart stranded him at third. Bart has the velocity he had back in his Cy Young season. Sample fastball readings from inning #1:
91 94 94 96 93 93 95. Sweet.
We had a scare when he turned his ankle covering first, but did not have to leave the game. Good Gary Matthews JR showed up today, making a great running catch at the CF wall. Vlad homered again. Please stay healthy, Vlad, because we've seen what the offense looks like without you, and its not pretty.
Joe Saunders gets sent to the minors after winning last night's game for the Virginia Tech Angels. He deserves to be in the majors. I guess it means Escobar is coming off the DL soon as well, which is good. Joe will get his chance when the Angels swing a deal for a bat. Its nice to have extra pitching to insure against injuries, but Dustin Mosely looks like a capable swingman/spot starter, and Nick Adenhart is pitching very well in AA. He's pretty much right where Ervin was at the start of 2005, so if needed he should be able to pitch in the bigs soon.
Time to get a hitter. Would the Reds take Escobar for Adam Dunn? Maybe Santana? They might be able to part with the big guy due to the emergence of Josh Hamilton.
posted by Chone Smith @ 7:01 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Bartolo's game was almost a carbon copy of his only win from 2006, also against Seattle. He pitched great, but struck out only one, and the Mariners did him favors by swinging early and often.
In last year's win, he threw 91 pitches in a complete game, striking out 2 and walking 0. In this one, he made 77 pitches through 7, 1 strikeout and 0 walks.
The difference is his velocity. I have learned not to trust velocity until I see it with my own eyes in an MLB park, and even then you have to be careful if its a fast gun (like the one that had Joe Kennedy hitting 97 out of the bullpen last October - yeah right.)
But Bart's velocity is there. Consistent low 90's, and several at 95-96. You can't consistently succeed striking out only 1-2 guys a game, but as Bart faces less swing-happy ballclubs, he'll run more deep counts and get more K's.
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