Phil Hughes picked up where he left off his last outing. Rain will not keep him down.
Hughes 4.0 0 0 0 2 1 0
Those two walks were both in the fourth inning and were both four pitch walks, when Hughes seemed a little tired. Girardi left him in to get out of the jam, and he did it. I was impressed because last year one of the things I noticed about Hughes is that he looked nervous pitching from the stretch. Today kept his composure and didn’t seem to be hyper-aware of the baserunners.
Igawa pitched next and:
Igawa 2.0 0 0 0 3 0 0
In his first inning, he looked like he was trying to keep his pitches low and on the corners, but they were both too low and too far away from the plate. In the second inning, he cut out the painting the corners stuff and got people out pretty quickly, but he also let his pitches float up higher than he would be able to get away with in the regular season. I don’t really believe in him, but with a bit more work he could be useful out of the bullpen.
Horne 1.0 1 0 0 2 0 0
Horne looked like he was doing his best not to make the team in his appearance, refusing to throw strikes to AAA and AAAA hitters. I haven’t seen him pitch before so I am not sure what is wrong with him, is it nerves, is something off? I have no answer, but he looked very bad. He loaded the bases with a hit and two walks and got out of it, but his control looked very awful.
Marquez 1.0 2 2 1 1 0 0
The first batter Marquez faced got on base with a slide into first (the first time I’ve ever seen that work) and then he promptly went into the whole allergic to strikes thing but thankfully got over it. The first hit and walk bit him in the ass, however as he allowed another hit into right field, and an extra run scored on a fielding goof. For a guy who is supposed to be an intense ground ball pitcher, a lot of stuff got in the air.
Wright 0.2 1 1 1 2 0 0
Chase Wright, who you may remember from when the team had a ridiculous amount of injuries in the rotation, was the last pitcher of the day and followed the theme of allowing at least one walk (he had two). He didn’t look particularly terrible but also not very impressive. Better than Horne, on about the same level as Marquez. Was a victim of some bad luck when the ball got away from the shortstop (Alberto Gonzalez) before he got pulled.
Patterson 0.1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Scott Patterson came out to get one out, and did so on the first pitch. Flyball to center field that got knocked down by the wind.
I don’t know what was going on with the pitchers today, but everyone except Hughes had questionable control. With Igawa, this is understandable since he is a walk machine but it was not a good sign from Horne who was expected to probably make an appearance with the team this year.
[...] Mike Greenberg Dot Com wrote an interesting post today and shared it with the world.Here’s a quick excerpt [...]