Our first loss by more than a run this year. It won't be the last, with young pitchers (and Brian Tallet) this will happen on occasion.
Brandon Morrow looked ok for the first 4 innings but then gave up a grand slam in the fifth. He's going to have days like this. Hopefully not too many. Amazingly he only gave up 1 walk, but he was hit hard and often. 8 hits in his 4 innings plus, 2 homers and 3 strike outs.
Morrow getting beat on did give us our first look at Merkin Valdez. I guess we could give him a bit of a pass since he hadn't pitched in a long while, but he was terrible. 3 runs off 2 hits and 2 walks in an inning. Jeremy Accardo also got into the game and 'only' gave up a run in his 2 innings, off 4 hits, he wasn't impressive either. Camp and Janssen pitched the last two innings and managed not to give up any more runs.
Offensively we were about as bad. Only two hits; Randy Ruiz got a hit (and stole a base) and Jose Bautista drove him in. Everyone else went 0 for. Randy's steal was because the Sox decided to play behind him at first, so since they were offering the base, he took it.
No Jays of the Day today. Surprise. Suckage Jay was Morrow (-.268).
Not much else worth saying about that game. I really don't see how Cito can justify Lyle Overbay playing against lefties anymore. He is 0 for 11 against them so far and really has looked terrible while not hitting them. Not that he has been smoking the ball off right handers but his track record is good against RHP and unacceptable against LHP. I can sort of understand giving him a shot at showing he could do the job to start the season but he hasn't. Add insult to injury, he missed scooping a short hop throw from John McDonald (that for some reason wasn't called an error). If you aren't going to hit you better make the plays in the field.
So the idea of him building some trade value has flown out the window. He better get hitting soon or come May he might be released, if the team decides Brett Wallace can handle the job. Or maybe they'll give Brian Dopirak a chance. We released Frank Thomas when Frank was hitting better than Lyle is.
Even with the bad loss we are 6-3, now tied with Tampa Bay for first in the East. Tomorrow night Dana Eveland tries to get us a series tie. Freddy Garcia goes for the Sox.
Bastian has a quote from Cito on Morrow:
"He's still kind of having his Spring Training right now." Morrow missed roughly 2 weeks in spring with r. shoulder issue.
Seems a fair way to look at it. It's a learning year and Morrow might as well learn how to handle starts at the major league level.