Nightly Notes: Game #8
Wow, what a night! Nice to see the bats finally come alive at the end of the game tonight -- hopefully that carries over to the Devil Rays series. Here are tonight's notes:
1.) Are you ready to apologize yet? You know who you are -- the fans who doubted Ramon Ortiz's ability to get it done, who thought that Terry Ryan was downright nuts for signing a guy with an ERA in the stratosphere for the last couple of seasons. I don't know how Ortiz is going to pitch over the course of the rest of the season, but it seems unlikely he's going to pitch this well. Nonetheless, he has clearly established that signing him was most definitely not the act of a madman. I normally wouldn't be this excited about a guy after just a couple of starts, but Ortiz has been so solid (especially tonight), that I'm completely on board. Now, about Sidney Ponson . . .
2.) Joe Mauer bunted twice tonight, and at first blush that concerned me a bit. Upon further review, however, I can't fault what happened here: the first time, Mauer was bunting for a base hit (it didn't work, but he does this on occasion and it wasn't a horrible decision), and the second time he was bunting Nick Punto over to 3B, setting him up to score the game tying run. So, while I generally would be horrified at the thought of Mauer bunting twice in a game, it made sense here.
3.) I need to reverse course a little bit on another situation that normally is a bit of a pet peeve of mine -- sac bunts with no outs and a runner on first base. I harped on this numerous times last year, and generally believe that it's not a very good idea to give up an out in that situation. However, tonight it made sense (although I liked Gardy's decision to send Luis Castillo on a steal even more) to think about utilizing it. The reason? Joe Mauer and Michael Cuddyer would have been coming to the plate with just 1 out, and most of the time one of the two will get on base. If it were just about else coming up to bat, I would not recommend the sac bunt here, but tonight I wouldn't have minded so much.
4.) Sidney Ponson could have been used in relief if this game went to extra innings. You can all now proceed to have nightmares about a tie game being handed over to Sir Sidney.
5.) I will be incredibly interested to see if Carlos Silva can put up another solid start tomorrow night against the Devil Rays. If he can, then the war drums will have to be silenced a little bit further (except as relates to poor, poor Sidney).
6.) OK, I don't know what kind of black magic Gardy was using tonight, but the whole Luis Rodriguez-as-DH thing actually worked out alright. There are so very many things wrong with that, but hey, whatever works, right?
1.) Are you ready to apologize yet? You know who you are -- the fans who doubted Ramon Ortiz's ability to get it done, who thought that Terry Ryan was downright nuts for signing a guy with an ERA in the stratosphere for the last couple of seasons. I don't know how Ortiz is going to pitch over the course of the rest of the season, but it seems unlikely he's going to pitch this well. Nonetheless, he has clearly established that signing him was most definitely not the act of a madman. I normally wouldn't be this excited about a guy after just a couple of starts, but Ortiz has been so solid (especially tonight), that I'm completely on board. Now, about Sidney Ponson . . .
2.) Joe Mauer bunted twice tonight, and at first blush that concerned me a bit. Upon further review, however, I can't fault what happened here: the first time, Mauer was bunting for a base hit (it didn't work, but he does this on occasion and it wasn't a horrible decision), and the second time he was bunting Nick Punto over to 3B, setting him up to score the game tying run. So, while I generally would be horrified at the thought of Mauer bunting twice in a game, it made sense here.
3.) I need to reverse course a little bit on another situation that normally is a bit of a pet peeve of mine -- sac bunts with no outs and a runner on first base. I harped on this numerous times last year, and generally believe that it's not a very good idea to give up an out in that situation. However, tonight it made sense (although I liked Gardy's decision to send Luis Castillo on a steal even more) to think about utilizing it. The reason? Joe Mauer and Michael Cuddyer would have been coming to the plate with just 1 out, and most of the time one of the two will get on base. If it were just about else coming up to bat, I would not recommend the sac bunt here, but tonight I wouldn't have minded so much.
4.) Sidney Ponson could have been used in relief if this game went to extra innings. You can all now proceed to have nightmares about a tie game being handed over to Sir Sidney.
5.) I will be incredibly interested to see if Carlos Silva can put up another solid start tomorrow night against the Devil Rays. If he can, then the war drums will have to be silenced a little bit further (except as relates to poor, poor Sidney).
6.) OK, I don't know what kind of black magic Gardy was using tonight, but the whole Luis Rodriguez-as-DH thing actually worked out alright. There are so very many things wrong with that, but hey, whatever works, right?
Labels: Nightly Notes
posted by JST @ Wednesday, April 11, 2007
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