Wow, where to begin. Mike Minor pitched @ Cincy on Wednesday in a matinee and was stellar. Mike moved to 4-2 (2.96 ERA) with a seven inning performance, in which he threw 117 pitches, 74 for strikes (43 balls, that’s fine), and allowed one earned run on four hits with three walks and seven K’s. Pretty amazing thing happened in the bottom of the second to Mike and the Braves. The Reds loaded the bases with no outs. Donald Lutz hit a fly ball to left fielder Evan Gattis, who was subbing for Justin Upton, who had the day off. Gattis caught it and threw a strike to catcher Gerald Laird (who was subbing for McCann who had the day off) to double up Brandon Phillips, a very fast runner, at the plate. Gattis has been outstanding for the Braves in replacing Brian McCann while he was on the disabled list, and is a total winner. Pretty interesting story, too. He was selling pizzas a couple of years ago and struggled with alcohol and drugs not too long ago. But he’s got it together now. He’s been awesome. Mike got the third out on a ground out. Dan Uggla hit a pair of homers as the Braves took two of three from the Reds with a 7-2 victory. Braves beat the Giants last night @ San Francisco, 6-3, to move to 21-13 on the season; two ahead of the Nationals. I forgot to mention the other teams who are in the World Series conversation the other day, and the Braves are certainly one of them. Like the Rangers and Tigers in the AL also, but I’m sticking with Orioles over Nationals in the Series. Hell, that may change as the season progresses. This is a heckuva season in major league baseball. There are so many good teams.
A very interesting stat on Mike: left-handed hitters are hitting .100 against him, 4-for-40. That’s astounding. Mike is having an excellent year, and he’s only going to get better and better with continued experience. He’s a warrior.
Dave Price didn’t get the win last night, but the Rays did win over the Blue Jays in 10 innings, 5-4, in a war. I’m telling you, the Blue Jays may be struggling record-wise (13-23), but they have some bats and some pretty good arms. They’ve lost some key players to injuries, but that Jose Bautista is a fantastic player. He gives Dave fits. He’s hitting .355 against DP, but it seems like .500. He has, it seems like, four or five homers against him–I looked it up but couldn’t find anything besides his average against Dave. He doubled and drove in a run against DP last night; but overall, Dave had his best outing of the season. He went eight, gave up seven hits, four runs (only two earned) with one walk, one hit batter and eight K’s. He threw 117 pitches and 81 of them were strikes. That’s an 81-36 ratio. 2:1 is considered very good. That’s exceptional. Dave had thrown 102 pitches going into the top of the eighth and I thought Joe M was going to pull him as he usually does when Dave throws around 100. But Joe stuck with him recently in another game with Dave throwing close to 115 pitches in that game, and that trend continued last night.. Dave got them out three up three down in the eighth. Two of the runs he gave up were unearned as Even Longoria, who has been awesome this year with the bat and is usually awesome with the glove committed an error that eventually led to a couple of runs scoring. If Longo hadn’t committed that error, Dave would have gotten out of the inning without any runs scoring. Longo committed an error in Dave’s previous outing at Colorado last Saturday night that was costly. That’s OK. Evan has been sensational this year and is usually outstanding with the glove. He went three-for-five last night and is hitting .331 on the season.. The Jays must have gotten at least three bloop singles also. Dave was bringing it in the 93-95 range with his heater. He looks like he’s back to me. His change up worked well and so did his curve ball and cut fastball. He almost got the win in the eighth when, with the score tied 4-4, Luke Scott singled to right field with Longo on second and two outs. Longo raced to the plate, but Bautista executed a perfect, and I mean perfect, throw from the outfield to his catcher Blanco and Longo got tagged out. I’m telling you, that was a war. Was worn out myself watching the game. R.A. Dickey, last year’s NL Cy Young winner with the Mets and a good friend of Dave’s as both live in Nashville in the offseason, pitched well for the Jays. He’s struggled a little this year, but he is tough and a grinder. Luke Scott said hitting Dickey’s knuckleball is like “eating soup with a fork.” He was quoting Yogi Berra. Yogi was a quote machine.
Anyway, terrific win for the Rays. Host San Diego this weekend. Important series. Need to get back in this AL East race and they just need to get on a consistent winning streak. They’re 4.5 games behind the Yanks. Sox and O’s right there behind Yankees too. Wow, that AL East is spectacular. Best division in baseball without a doubt. The worst team record-wise, the Blue Jays, are a good baseball team in my opinion. So it’s a war in the East. Dave pitches next against John Lester of the Red Sox @ Tampa on Wednesday Night. Lester is 4-0 with a 3.30 ERA, who are having a very good season so far. Lester has 15 walks to 40 K’s. So it looks like another war for Dave. Should be a classic. Mike pitches Monday at Arizona.
Pedro with an excellent night at the Mets last night. Had a single, a sacrifice fly and a game-tying homer in the top of the eighth, his sixth homer of the season and his 15th RBIs. A fellow ‘Dore did him one better in the bottom of the ninth. Mike Baxter, who graduated from our program in ’06, hit the game-winning RBI single in the ninth. Mike has had two walk off game-winning singles this week. He did it Tuesday Night also. Great stuff. Hopefully Pedro will have a big weekend. Both Mike and Pete were born and raised in New York City and former Vanderbilt Commodores. Pretty cool stuff there.
Ryan Flaherty went one-for-three for the Orioles last night. They lost to the Royals, 6-2. Ryan a very good utility player for Birds.
Sony Gray is pitching for the Triple A Sacramento Rivercats in the Oakland A’s organization. Sonny is 3-1 with a 2.61 ERA and is on a fast track to the majors. Expect to see Sonny in an A’s uniform later this season. Proud of him. Curt Casali is now in the Rays organization after getting traded by the Tigers to the Rays. Curt is playing for Port Charlotte, the advanced single A team of the Rays. He’s hitting .306 with one homer and four RBIs. Curt doing very well in the minors. Aaron Westlake is with the Lakeland Flying Tigers of the Detroit organization. The Lakeland team is advanced single A as well. Westy is hitting .299 with two homers and 23 RBI’s. Expect all three of those guys to be in the bigs. Will have more on our minor leaguers next week. Sonny pitches at Nashville tomorrow night.
Baseball at UK this weekend. Zo (9-2, 2.03) vs. LHP A.J. Reed 2-6, 2.84) tonight at 6:30 PM ET/5:30 CT on the website. Tyler Beede (12-0, 1.73) goes against RHP Kyle Cody (3-2, 4.86) tomorrow @ 7 PM ET/6CT on CSS, and T.J. Pecoraro (3-1, 3.38) goes against LHP Corey Littrell (5-4, 3.46) Sunday at 1 PM ET/noon CT on Fox Sportsouth.
Read a great story on MLB.com on one of our incoming players next year, Roynal Coleman. Roynal sounds like the next Tony Kemp. Tony will be a senior next year and he’s an awesome guy, so he may want to finish his education and go for (hopefully) another championship next year. But Tony is a phenomenal player and should get drafted. Want him back, but to me, Tony looks like a major leaguer in the future and he may want to get started. It depends maybe on how this season shakes out. But Roynal, who is 5″5″, 145, which doesn’t matter if you’re stellar–Tony (5’8″) has proven that–hit .400 as a freshman, .490 as a sophomore, and .400 as a junior. Looks terrific. An interesting part of the piece was a part when one of his coaches picked him up for a big game (Roynal is from Chicago), and Roynal got in the car and started reading a book. The coach was amazed at his discipline. Right before a big game on the way to the park, Roynal is reading a book. That’s awesome. Roynal sounds like an extremely high character kid. Looking forward to seeing him in the black and gold next season. Don’t want Tony to leave though, unless it’s in his best interest. First things first. Want Tony and his teammates to keep winning and be playing in late June.
Brandt shot -3 today and is -4 for the tournament at the Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Sergio Garcia leading at -11 after shooting a 65 today. Tiger one behind at -10 after carding a 67 today. A lot of players in the hunt. Should be stellar this weekend. There are pretty good chances of rain tomorrow afternoon and Sunday; but knowing Florida, the systems should move in and move out pretty quickly. Hopefully, B can get hot this weekend.