The Halos came out big in game 3 of their series with KC last night busting a 7-2 victory. Torii Hunter was the hero, going just a triple short of the cycle in honor of Ken Griffey Jr. retiring from baseball. Griff was the player that Hunt looked up to and he wanted to put on a show to honor the slugger. He finished last night's game 3 for 5 with 3 RBI and 2 runs scored, including a solo jack in the seventh. I'd say he did alright. Meanwhile, it may be amazing to you if I point out that the Angels actually won a game that Scott Kazmir started. But, should we celebrate it as Kaz finally coming around and making good on the money we've been paying him. I'll explain why I'm not as excited after this start as the "real media."
The line from last night's game tells me everything I need to know. 5.67 innings pitched, 1 run allowed, 4 walks, and 2 strikeouts. Sure, he won the game, but he failed to pull off a quality start, and you have to keep in mind that this was the Royals we were going against here. I'm not completely excited by the start to be honest. The previous game, Kaz went 5.3 in a loss. Earlier in May he last 4.3 against Boston and then the next game went just 5 innings against Tampa Bay. In April, he never lasted more than 5.67 in any of his three starts. He's 4-5 with a 5.86 ERA and he's only punched out 36 while walking 28 in his 55.3 innings. 10 starts so far; 2 quality starts.
My problem is that everyone is banging of Joel Piñero and giving love to Kazmir after this short start win against the Royals. La Piñata has 7 (+5 on Kaz) quality starts so far this year, and is hard lucking it at 3-6. He also has a sub-Kaz ERA of 5.16 and has 42 (+6 on Kaz) punchouts and 17 (-11 on Kaz) walks in 68 innings (+12.67 on Kaz). Would you please stop suggesting that Kazmir is doing better than J-Balls? Please?! I mean, I'll support Kaz to the ends of the Earth because he's an Angel, but let's be honest here.
The Halos have another shot at a series win and another shot to get back to .500 for the first time since being 12-12. This morning, we have the Red Hats (27-28, 2.5 GB) go against the Missouri Blue Hats (22-32, 9.5 GB) as Big Baby Jered Weaver (4-2, 3.01) tried to keep up his solid play against former media darling and super stuf Zach Greinke (1-6, 3.39). Talk about being a hard luck guy, in his last outing Cy Greinke pitched six innings of 1 run ball against the Red Sox and lost 0-1. That's how his season has been. Similar, although to a lesser extent, to Jered Weaver. Weav leads the team with 9 quality starts this season. Would you believe that he could only have 4 wins with 9 quality starts? Pathetic! Hopefully the offense can have his back, and hopefully they can pick up the pace without Juan Rivera. JR had inconclusive x-rays after fouling a ball off himself, but he's day to day. The DL brigade is building up, man (we miss you, Mathis!).
It's a battle of #1s, let's do it.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
0 comments:
Post a Comment