Today's win was nice, although it involved a recurring event on this young season. With much cagrin, I am going to name this event "The Wall". Is it just me, or does it seem that mostly every night one of our fine young gun starting pitchers hits the wall. Just cruising along, 3 inning, 4 innings, maybe 5 innings, then wham! The wall. Gorzo, our alleged all-star, seems to do it every outing. Cruises along, only yielding a run thru 5 or 6 six innings, then he opens batting pratice. He will then leave with a shitty box score to show for it. The wall.
Or maybe it should just be called "The Big Inning". An inning where the starter temporarily departs from an otherwise masterful game to yield a bunch of runs, crushing his stats and greatly reducing the chances of victory. Remember, these aren't the 1927 Yankees. 5 runs are tough for us to muster.
For Zach Duke, today it was the 4th inning. After smoking thru the first 3 frames on 29 pitches and no runs, Duke then got his usual serving of humilation in the 4th. 5 runs. I think 6 out of 7 batters got hits at one point, with the other one getting an RBI sac fly. I'm not sure what word best fits that line, but "disturbing" comes to mind. Somehow, by the graces of the baseball gods, Duke was able to muster some composure and finish out the next two innings strong as the batters got us some suprising late runs. He didn't get the win, and guess what, he didn't deserve it. Guess what else he doesn't deserve...a spot on this roster.
Seriously, what is up with Zach Duke? The guy is lousy. He has actually taken a big
ger step backwards this year than he did last year. He's not even a shell of the hot shot rookie that went 8-2 in 2005. Not even close. Is he just another fish in our pond of below average players that the Top Brass still regard as "potential"? Is this just more denial? Maybe I'm harsh, maybe we should examine stats. Here's his era line from 2005 to 2007: 1.81, 4.47, 5.68. That excalation is great for a mutual fund, but not for a starting pitcher.Somehow, Duke has lost the ability to get guys out. I mean anybody,...lefties, righties, switch hitters, even amputees are smoking him. Batters are hitting nearly .350 against him this year and he's averaging less than two 2 strikeouts a game. Bucco fans, he's not getting better, no matter what he or Jim Tracy would want us to believe. He's still on his rookie contract, so he can still be sent back to the minors. We need to get over the shame of demoting the opening day starter, and just send him down. If anything, he can work out these demons and start winning games again.
But, you know what? This is Father's Day, and baseball is a father kinda sport. We won today, and all is good. We can worry about our pitching tomorrow. Time to open the beer...
5 comments:
Zach will be back. You'll see.
-BUCNUT
Duke makes me puke. Is this Perez all over again? Briwatt, you need to drink the beer before you write.
leave the duke alone. he's going to rebound. he's really cool, btw.
I've been a partial season ticket holder since 1994. Missed the glory years by a couple. My dad took me to a LCS game in 1979. I remember going to the 1971 victory celebration when I was 5. I take my boys to a dozen games a year or so. It really bothers me that my boys are 13 and 10 and they have NEVER seen a winning team. My youngest has become a White Sox fan and he actually wore their colors when we went to the Sunday father's day game. The irony is that Duke was his hero 2 years ago. It's a shame that we are this bad. And not really bad but just consistently below average. I think that may be worse. If there is light in the tunnel I don't know what it is. Just stuffing AS ballots for Bay and Sanchez gets old.
Interesting to know.
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