Verlander vs. Santana
Through seven innings, the Tigers and Twins are scoreless. Johan Santana has allowed three hits and struck out ten. Justin Verlander has allowed five hits and sruck out nobody. Neither of them have issued a walk, and they've both thrown 91 pitches.
Given the Twin offense, it's not surprising that Verlander could shut them out with zero strikeouts, but if I'm Jim Leyland, I'd have double-barreled action in the 'pen to start this inning. He can't keep going like this and expect to keep the shutout.
And, just to throw it out there, the Orioles and Yankees both widened their leads to 4-1 within a half-inning of each other. Looks like there will be a tie atop the A.L. East again after tonight.
EDIT: Doug Mirabelli just caught Kevin Millar stealing second, and he stared him all the way back to the dugout, as if to say "I know how slow you are... why are you running on me?" You probably have to have followed the Red Sox over the last few years and have seen this play to fully appreciate how funny it was, but trust me. It was hilarious.
8 comments:
I know the Red Sox have had some late inning comebacks this year, and I would assume that some of them were against the Orioles. As much as I'd like to, I'm not exactly giving the Red Sox a mark in the loss column quite yet.
Especially after watching the entire Yankee game last night.
As far as pitchers throwing shutout ball without striking anybody out, Chien-Ming Wang threw 8 shoutout innings in his last start without a strikeout. He got 19 ground ball outs.
It was the first time a pitcher went 8 innings without a K since Scott Erickson did it in 2001.
Well, Verlander just did it tonight (8 IP, 6 H, 0 BB, 0 K), and the Tigers even got him the lead in the bottom of the 8th on a Vance freakin' Wilson two-run homer off of Santana. He's thrown 103 pitches, so you'd have to assume we'd see Todd Jones for the 9th. If he can close it out, Verlander would get a win with 8 shoutout, strikeout-free innings. That's remarkable.
I made a mistake, it was 2002 that Erickson did it (thank you retrosheet), as he didn't pitch in 2001. He did go the complete game shutout (versus the Royals of course), without recording a strikeout.
However, it still amazing that it hasn't happened in over 4 years and then would happen twice in 6 days.
Jones nails down the save, getting Tony Batista to pop out with two men on and two outs. That won't help his WPA.
As for the Red Sox, when you allow Doug Mirabelli to lead off the 8th against LaTroy Hawkins without pinch-hitting for him (when Wakefield is out of the game), and follow that up with J.T. freakin' Snow pinch hitting for Alex Gonzalez... you're pretty much punting the game (and the 13-game winning streak against Baltimore).
Wang just gave up a two-run homer so the Yankees don't exactly have their game in the bag yet, it's 4-3.
However, Wang was gigantic for the Yankees tonight. With Chacon not making it out the second inning last night, the Yankees bullpen is just wasted.
Wang just got through the 8th inning on just 81 pitches. His last game where he lasted 8 innings, only took him 85 pitches.
He's finally pitching well out of the stretch and getting double plays.
If it wasn't as close as a 1-run game, I'd think we'd see Wang for the 9th. Since it is only a 1-run game, I'm guessing we'll see Rivera.
In Baltimore, Loretta singles and Ortiz homers to lead off the bottom of the ninth, so the Sox now only trail 4-3. Papelbon is warming up just in case...
Rivera will come in.
4-3 sounds like nice finals to me.
Willie Harris caught stealing to end the game - 4-3 Orioles.
With two outs, Pena reached first on an infield single to extend the inning when Tejada slipped after fielding Wily Mo's grounder cleanly. Harris pinch-ran, and was gunned down at second.
The play was too close to call - it could have gone either way. Let's go Rangers!
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