When the schedule was announced for this weekend’s series, I was jazzed, as originally Barry Zito was to pitch on Saturday night against Kameron Loe, which was a game I had a ticket for, and wanted to see. However, Zito got switched to tonight’s game. While Zito’s numbers don’t show dominance (4ER over 7IP), he looked good. His obscenely good curveball was in show tonight (8 strikeouts). Our only home run against Zito was by a guy whose play has changed my opinion on him, Mark DeRosa. In all, we only managed 5 hits off of Zito, but they were well placed, scoring 4 off of Mr. Teddy bear.
Juan Dominguez was not good. He only went 3.1IP, and gave up 7 hits, 8 runs (5ER), allowing three home runs. Erasmo Ramirez gave up the other run in his 2.2IP. Shouse & Karsay also pitched, not allowing anything.
We tried to make a charge late, scoring four runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by a three run bomb by Mark Teixeira, but it wasn’t enough, and our race towards 500 continues in the wrong direction. Three games under now.

This game happened on the 7th, I’m writing this in the 15th, I don’t remember much about this game, that’s a danger when you let updates slide too long. :)

I watched the first five innings of this game. Things were good. Michael Young got a home run (barely) in the first inning, and then David Dellucci smacked a towering grand slam in the second. Life was feeling good. Kenny Rogers, however, wasn’t crisp, and let the Twins creep back into the game. He gave up two runs in the second, and two more in both the fourth and fifth. That tied the game at 6-6 in the fifth inning. It was at this point I got called away for Daddy duties.
When I came back to the game, I saw we were down 7-6, and then I got bummed, and decided to help out my wife with baby stuff, and washed bottles. During my washing of the bottles, I peeked at the game, and it was at the top of the 9th now, and we were up 10-7. That was a surprise, so I backed up on the TiVo and watched the ninth. All I could think of when Tex mashed the home run off the second level facade of the Metrodome was, “Well, the grand slam wasn’t totally wasted”. It’s always annoying when you hit a grand slam and lose.
But David Dellucci was the star here. He went two for 5 with 5 RBI’s – four of which came on the grand slam. Adrian Gonzalez chipped in with two doubles. The best moment was probably when Michael Young singled in the top of the ninth against Joe Nathan (whom we seem to have a lot of success against) to tie the game. It was a two out (and I think two strike as well) hit, something Young is adept at executing.
John Wasdin was great out of the pen, going 2.1 innings, giving up no runs and no hits. Coco did the same in the 9th for his 31st save, only he got two strikeouts as well.
One game away from being back at .500 – feels like forever since we’ve been there.
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Wow. Kameron Loe talked himself into the rotation a few starts ago, and boy has he delivered. Today he got his third win in a row in the rotation. He went 8 innings, giving up no runs on 5 hits, and one walk (plus 1 strikeout). He looked good. I watched him in Frisco when he was there, and told my wife at the time “This guy is going to be good, pay attention”. Granted, it’s still early, but he definitely has delivered on that promise I made to my wife two seasons ago. He looked great. If he can keep it going like this, he should be part of our rotation for 2006. His first three starts at least have earned him a spot for the rest of this season at least. CJ Wilson also followed up his streak of good performances by pitching a scoreless ninth to back up Loe. CJ certainly has rebounded after some horrendous starts earlier in the year.
Carlos Silva was let down by his defense. He gave up 6 runs, but only one of them was earned, so he pitched pretty well, too. Francisco Liriano, the uber pitching prospect made his major league debut in the 9th, and was greeted very rudely by Gary Matthews Jr who absolutely destroyed the fifth pitch into the last row of seats in left field. Homerdome, indeed. :) Other than that he looked good, but hard to get a feel based on one inning.
Nice to see a win, and we’re close again to my revised goal for the season. At the start of the season, it was at least get the Wild Card. At the all Star break it was finish at least two games over .500, or at worst 500. I think those are reachable goals, if we keep playing the way we’ve been doing this past week.
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The less said about this one, the better.
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No commentary on this one, other than to say no home runs for Rod Barajas this game. Juan Dominguez looked good, going 7.1IP, giving up just two hits and one run. He had four walks, which isn’t good, but when the end result doesn’t show that, it’s OK – so long as it doesn’t become a habit for him to walk 4 each time.
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Rod Barajas was hot this game. He had two more home runs (that’s 5 in the last 3 games), and 3 RBI’s this game. Coco Cordero was not, blowing another save.
Chris Young looked good, even if his outing was short (5.1IP, 8H, 3R (1ER). Brocail & Cordero blew this game, forcing it into extra innings. We won on Barajas’ second home run of the game in the 10th. John Wasdin nailed it down for the save. Shame about the blown save, as it would have given Scott Feldman his first major league win.
Again, nice to see a win, but it really feels like too little too late.
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Another game where the bulk of our runs (4 out of 5) came in a clump. We put up a four spot on the board in the fourth inning. It was capped off by Rod Barajas’ three run home run following an RBI double by Hank Blalock. Rod also followed up with another home run in the 7th, so Rod himself accounted for four of the five runs we had.
Kenny Rogers got his first win since the suspension, and he had to dance to get it, as he gave up 11 hits and one walk in his 7 innings pitched. He did only allow 4 runs (3ER). Karsay, Shouse, & Coco combined to throw two innings of shutout ball to seal the win. Coco got his 30th save, and Kenny his 12th win.
It’s nice to see a win, even though it’s just the Royals.
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This was actually a pretty well pitched game through the first 5 and a half innings. The Sox were up 2-1 at that point, and both El Duque & Kameron Loe were pitching well.
Loe had gone 6 innings, giving up two runs on four hits with 3K, and 1BB. A pretty good outing. El Duque was just a little bit better until the bottom fell out in the 6th inning for him. His line when he exited the game was 5IP, 6 hits, 6 earned runs, 1 walk, 6K. He also allowed three home runs. Two of them came in the 6th (Young, Soriano). The other was a leadoff HR to David Dellucci in the first inning. We did tack on three more runs in the bottom of the 8th, but the game was essentially over.
Scott Feldman made his major league debut in this game, pitching the ninth. He was perfect. Struck out two, got a flyball out. Nice start there.
It seems we are back on a bit of a roll in terms of winning. Too bad it’s too late.
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We had nothing this game. In fact, we didn’t score any runs since the fifth inning of the first game of the DH. So our bats went pretty quiet for the last 12 half innings they batted. Jermaine Dye did Mark Teixeira’s thing in this game, having two home runs and 6 RBI’s.
Brandon McCarthy looked pretty good. He went 7.2IP and gave up no runs on just two hits. He was spectacular. I think the only thing that kept him from a complete game was his pitch count, which was 117 when he was pulled. It was nice to see Ranger fans applauding him – I know there were Sox fans there, but there was more applause than that. Hell, I applauded him, although I know he couldn’t see me. :)
Edison Volquez, a guy who seems to make Jamey Newberg go all gooey made his major league debut last night. I was at the park for the recent major league debuts and wins of Justin Duchscherer & Brian Sikorski. But my luck didn’t extend to Volquez. He looked like a rookie making his debut. He seemed to be trying to overthrow a lot of his pitches. There were flashes of brilliance, and as rookie debuts go, I would have to say it went pretty well. Not great, but not awful, either. Volquez went 4.2IP, allowed 6 hits, 5ER, walked two, and struck out three. I would hope he’d get another look before we sent him back. There were moments where you could see the electric stuff, and why the team is high on him. But he is after all a kid making his major league debut. Have to factor that in there as well.
From the “Oh, shut up” department comes another whine from the White Sox. This time it was the usual suspect, Ozzie Guillen who complained about Jermaine Dye being hit. I know you need to stick up for your players and all that, but I don’t think anyone thought that we were throwing at the White Sox batters (in particular Dye). There was nothing to be gained by it, and the guy throwing the pitch (Erasmo Ramirez) wasn’t even touched up by Dye – it made no sense. So Ozzie Guillen can join Mark Buehrle in taking a sip from a big cup of “Shut the hell up”. Obviously the lights weren’t working.
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