Starters? Who Needs Starters?

Game 122: Bulls 5, Yankees 2
Season: 68-54
Games Left in Season: 22; Home Games: 12
Wrap, Box, Indy Week

I want to start out with something absolutely unrelated to last night’s game. Regular readers will know that I have a fondness (that may be the wrong word) for a young pitcher named Chris Mason who pitched several innings for the Bulls last year and 4 innings this year before going back to the Montgomery Biscuits. It looks as if Stacy Long over at the Montgomery Advertiser and who covers the Montgomery Biscuits shares that fondness. Mason recently was released by the Rays organization, signed on with the Mets and is pitching for their AA team. I’ll just quote Stacy for the rest of the story (Long has some good quotes from Rhyne Hughes as well):

Mason doubles his fun with Binghamton

Departed Biscuits pitcher Chris Mason allowed three hits over five shutout innings to pick up his first win for the Binghamton Mets tonight . He also doubled, scored a run and has a .500 slugging percentage, which means the world will end in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

On a more serious note, how about them pitchers? Odd that without a “starter” we used just about as many as we do on a night when we have a starter start. ’Splain to me the difference between a starter and a reliever again? In the end, three out of four pitchers did just fine accumulating 12 strikeouts and giving up only two walks and one earned run. Nice work, mostly. I remain worried about Joe Nelson. About 40% of the batters he faces are getting on base. On the other hand last night we saw the Winston Abreu we know and love: seven batters, no hits, 3 K’s, not a baserunner. Well done.

On the offensive side, one story is Joe Dillon. He just doesn’t look like a third baseman to me and that rainbow-like near palm ball for the third out in the 4th just barely beat the runner to the bag. At the plate, however, bang, bang, bang, three singles his first three at bats.

I liked the balance in the offense last night. Almost everyone got a hit.

Desmond Jennings showed off for us leading off in the 6th. He drew a walk, was wild pitched to 2nd, stole 3rd base and came home when the catcher’s throw went wide of the base. The Yankee’s pitcher, Edwar Ramirez, looked sort of like one of those screech owls you see on the Nature Channel as he watched Jennings go around the bases. He did strike out the batter of the moment, Matt Joyce, and three others in his stint, but left with his team one more run down. .

About leaving the bases loaded two innings in a row …

Lastly, Ray Olmedo needs some time with Jon Weber to hone his bat tossing skills. The one he let go weakly flopped into the netting. His follow-through needs some work.