Runelvys Hernandez was without his clown perm, but his return to the pitching mound went pretty well, now didn’t it? While I wouldn’t go as far as saying that he thoroughly dominated the Tigers due to a very bad strikeout-to-walk ratio of 1-to-1, the fact that he allowed only one run in seven innings is still very impressive. It’s especially cool because knowing that Wednesday’s start would be his first since his elbow surgery, I was definitely bracing for the worst possible scenario, meaning I thought he’d have a day where he just couldn’t throw the ball over the plate to save his life.
And in the bottom of the third inning, he was starting to make my prediction come true. After walking Carlos Pena, allowing a Craig Monroe single, throwing a wild pitch, and walking Brandon Inge, the bases were loaded with nobody out, and the walls were slowly closing in. However, following Omar Infante’s sacrifice fly that scored Pena and Carlos Guillen’s infield single that loaded the bases again, Elvys really buckled down.
For a guy with pretty bad peripheral statistics in his career, Hernandez has had a pretty solid run of pitching league-average baseball. One primary reason he’s been able to survive without even a passable strikeout rate is his ability to keep the ball out of the middle of the plate. Facing Pudge Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez, Detroit’s two best hitters, Hernandez used his ability to locate the ball on the edges of the strike zone to good use. Rodriguez popped out to Tony Graffanino at second base, and Ordonez hit a harmless fly ball to David DeJesus in center field.
That inning was the only time Hernandez was in the slightest bit of trouble, and that he escaped with only one run crossing the plate speaks to how good his location was, a willingness to attack the strike zone, and, most of all, extremely good fortune. I’m still expecting Runelvys to struggle quite a bit this year, as the first year back for Tommy John surgery patients usually isn’t a pretty one.In typical Royals form, they used up an inning’s worth of outs on the basepaths. I can’t really blame John Buck for getting picked off of first base by a lefthanded pitcher, but I can blame Buck and DeJesus for getting pegged on steal attempts. It’s a mystery to me why a slow, plodding guy like Buck was trying to swipe a bag on the best defensive catcher of all-time, but the bigger mystery is why the Royals keep sending DeJesus.
For his career at all levels, DeJesus succeeds barely 50 percent of the time on his steal attempts, and I think it’s time to accept the fact that he just isn’t good at stealing bases. The Royals would be well-served to accept DDJ for what he is – a guy with very good on-base skills – and stop trying to turn him into a threat to run. This offense is going to have a hard-enough time scoring runs as-is, so they really can’t afford to give away any outs.As discouraged as I was that the Royals ran the bases about as well as Scott Savol sings, I was very encouraged to see them take an outstanding approach at the plate against Tigers starter Mike Maroth. Junkballing lefthanded pitchers like Maroth, Brian Anderson, Jamie Moyer, and Darrell May have carved careers out of making unprepared hitters look foolish at the dish. Take a good approach against pitchers like them by laying off those knee-high fastballs and changeups, however, and they become imminently hittable. Although it didn’t show up in the walk column yesterday, Mike Sweeney & Co. made Maroth use 87 pitches in 3 2/3 innings, and the result of their discipline was tagging him for 11 hits and five runs.I think it’s a little bit messed up that Graffanino got the start over Ruben Gotay at second base. I understand that Tony Pena wants to protect the confidence of his young players, but it seems bizarre that Graffanino spelled the switch-hitting Gotay and not the lefthanded-hitting Mark Teahen against Maroth. After his 4-4 day that had a walk thrown in for good measure, I’m betting that Graffy’s going to see entirely too much playing time for the rest of the season while Gotay rots away on the bench. Mangers who dish out playing time based on who’s “hot” are great, ain’t they?How bad do you think Cleveland Indians fans feel? A year after their team’s bullpen started more fires than they put out in the early part of the season, the only out Bob Wickman recorded in yesterday’s game against the White Sox was Juan Uribe’s sacrifice fly that scored the final and winning run of Chicago’s four-run ninth-inning rally.On a non-baseball note, I saw Sin City last night, and have come up with the following conclusions:
1) Jessica Alba and Brittany Murphy are very, very hot
2) Mickey Rourke’s character is the biggest movie badass in at least five years
3) Stuff that blows up is really cool
4) Clive Owen should be the next James Bond
I’m also fairly certain that Sin’s the most creatively-shot movie I’ve ever seen. The way directors Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez strategically inserted color into an otherwise black-and-white production is fascinating to me.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, April 07, 2005 at 4/07/2005 12:00:00 AM.
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