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Ok, Gibby is bugging me. Second start in a row he leaves R.A. Dickey in the game long after he has clearly lost it, to watch the game get out of hand. Today, Dickey fights through 4 scoreless innings. The umpire had some trouble with the strike zone and R.A. had some trouble with his knuckleball. It was very very cold and I'm sure he had a hard time getting the grip down.
Along comes the 5th inning and everyone can see that Dickey is tired. He's throwing more and more 'fastballs' as the inning goes on. Gameday says he threw 12 fastballs in the inning. He gets over 100 pitches, in the cold and still Gibby leaves him out there. The 5th went strikeouts, single, single, single, walk, single, double. 4 runs in and runners on second and third when Gibby finally removes Dickey. A fifth run scored on a sac fly, against Todd Redmond, and the game is pretty much over. Dickey threw 112 pitches, too much on a cold day, even for a knuckleball pitcher.
The excuse I keep hearing is 'they want to save the pen'. We have 8 guys, including 3 long men out there. I can't imagine what we are saving them for?
Anyway, it was ugly. Gibby has got to learn how to tell when Dickey is tired or this is going to be a long season.
On offense, we didn't do anything. We had 4 hits, 2 each from Colby Rasmus (we missed you Colby) and Josh Thole. Jose Bautista took a walk. That was about it.
There was a bad decision to try a hit and run with Thole at first and Goins at the plate. Goins swung and missed, Thole was thrown out at second (though he made it far closer than you would have imagined.
Redmond pitched the last 3.2 innings and did a fine job, giving up 2 unearned runs, after a Munenori Kawasaki error.
Melky Cabrera went hitless for the first time this year, though he hit the ball hard at least a couple of times.
No Jay of the Day for this game. I'm going to give Redmond an Honorary mention for that 3.2 strong innings, saving the other 7 arms in the bullpen for tonight's game.
Suckage goes to Dickey (-.179) and Moises Sierra (-.139 for his 0 for 3). And I'm giving one to Gibby for the stupidity of leaving Dickey out there too long for the second start in a row. Learn from this Gibby.
I guess the good news is that that was the first time we were shutout this season. Tonight we have Dustin McGowan trying to get the split of the doubleheader and the series win for us. Mike Pelfrey starts for the Twins. He is 0-2 with a 7.84 ERA in his two starts. I'm hoping they can shake the frost off the bats against him.
We had a pretty nice 965 comments in our GameThread. A very good number, considering it was a weekday day game and it was a terrible game to watch. I get my first 'win' of the season. Yay. I think we all deserve a pat on the back for watching that crap.
# | Commenter | # Comments |
---|---|---|
1 | Tom Dakers | 77 |
2 | Diamond_D86 | 76 |
3 | Pikachu | 67 |
4 | mbristol | 65 |
5 | Reyden | 61 |
6 | macdo | 58 |
7 | TFSML | 58 |
8 | Gerse | 34 |
9 | ABsteve | 34 |
10 | Trensetta | 33 |
11 | T-Ball | 27 |
12 | Redonred | 26 |
13 | Hathorian | 26 |
14 | tshaule2 | 25 |
15 | stolarz88 | 24 |
16 | stressed | 24 |
17 | spockster | 22 |
18 | jmarples | 18 |
19 | hansdampf | 18 |
20 | Jedi Ballgame | 16 |
21 | snowles | 16 |
22 | DaaaBearz | 16 |
23 | Bowling_Guy25 | 13 |
24 | junior_felix_jr | 12 |
25 | ThatsRobbery | 11 |
26 | DrEasy | 11 |
27 | the new Bradfather | 11 |