Love seeing Towles and Bourn getting hits. Almost as enjoyable as watching Berkman and Tejada tear it up.
Bogus, blown call. Kind of like the one Everett pulled off in the playoffs a few years ago. That ump cetainly couldn't have seen a tag because the replay showed it didn't happen. He guessed. If you can't see a clear tag, the runner should be safe.
Even watching the replay I couldn't tell on that caught stealing... looked like the call may have been good.
I'd love for Backe not to have one of those imploding innings here. He seems to still hit the wall later in his starts. I know it's a long road back for him given the injuries. His pitch count is low though through 5.
Excellent inning by Backe! He should be able to go 1 more inning at only 77 pitches. I would be careful though and pull him at about 95-100 pitches. I assume that is their plan. Hopefully, his endurance is getting close to where it used to be.
It's hard to blame them from keeping Backe in but they may want to cap him at 6 innings for the next few starts. He seems to fade pretty consistently late in games no matter what he's done early. I know you've got to let him go if you want to increase his endurance but you hate to see him pitch so well and hurt his performance due to a few bad pitches that are the result of fatigue. The heat of a day game likely didn't help his cause.
I would be very interested in hearing a hitting coach analyze Wigginton. He could probably take a clip of a Wigginton AB and show a group of kids everything you aren't supposed to do.
Well, it is My20 even if it is "HD". Seriously though, while there wasn't any movement on the fielder's glove when Bourn slid by, I couldn't see between the glove and Bourn's arm either.
.500 on the road and by far the most road games out of our division contenders. Let's make up some ground at home now...as the schedules even out. 7-3 is an amazing road trip. DD
Very nice 9th inning from Valverde. He strikes out the arrogant Milton Bradley, who shook his ahead after Ball 3 pushed it to a full count as if he was saying "You can't fool me!". Then, he gets Rookie of the Month for April, David Murphy, swinging on two pitches in a row in the dirt for his second K. He makes one bad pitch to Laird after being ahead in the count 0-2 then makes up for it by striking out Boggs after falling into a tough full count situation where Boggs represented the go ahead run. Valverde's ERA is now 3.91 and looking respectable after the bad start to the season. He also has 28 Ks to only 6 BBs.
