Anyone think McCarthy was rushed back for this? At this point in the season, there’s little to be gained from coming back off the DL just to make a start in a lost season. If he was not feeling great, than maybe starting this game wasn’t a great idea. He didn’t even get out of the first inning, giving up 3 hits, three runs and a walk. Not good by any stretch.
Jamey Wright followed and pitched a “quality start” in relief, going six innings, giving up one earned run on four hits and 2 walks. Struck out three. That’s a pretty decent start. I’m starting to wonder if he’ll be brought back next year to compete for the rotation, or if he’ll try and parlay his relatively decent (if not great) season here into a bigger paycheck and a guarantee elsewhere. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened (Gary Matthews, anyone?) Wes Littleton cleaned up, going the final 1.1 innings, and didn’t give up any runs.
After very few singles in game one, that’s all we got in game two. Seven singles. Four by the first two batters, so it was a spread out offense (aka silent). The only run we got was on a sacrifice fly by Marlon Byrd. Was a pretty flat offense.
That’s usually attributable to the opposing pitcher. The Tigers threw a guy who I think holds the record for most “J’s” in his name. ;) That would be Jarr Jurrjens. He threw five innings, giving up just three hits and one run. In fact, he left the game with only 72 pitches, I wonder why he was cut short. His line indicates he didn’t really need to come out. The rest of the Detroit pen combined for four innings of shutout ball.
Hard to come back against that.