shelled

This is a first for me to make two posts in the same day. Yet it was such a momentously bad weekend for part of my pitching staff that I have to vent about it. I had four pitchers taken out in such gruesome fashion that it would have made any horror movie writer proud. The four in order were Bud Norris, Jaime Garcia, John Danks and Ricky Nolasco. Garcia and Nolasco going down were like two of a movie's heroes being taken out while Norris and Danks admittedly would be more like the red shirt security from an episode of Star Trek.


The first victim was Norris although his performance against the Diamondbacks wasn't as bad as the other three. He lasted five innings and allowed six runs although only two were earned due to an error. His control wasn't horrible as he only walked two while throwing 68 of his 102 pitches for strikes and he had four strikeouts. Of the seven hits he allowed the biggest insult was a three run home run given up to opposing pitcher Zach Duke. Hopefully Norris can bounce back in his next chance against a weak hitting Padres team.


Garcia headed into his game with a strong season to date with a 5-0 record and a 1.93 ERA. He walked into an ambush in Colorado where he lasted only 3.1 innings giving up 11 hits and four walks as he watched helplessly as 12 runs cross the plate, eleven earned. The one bright spot was the six he was able to take down with strikeouts. After a few sleepless nights Garcia gets his first chance at redemption at home as the Giants come in with a better pitching staff than a roster of hitters.


Danks came into Sunday against the Blue Jays with a hard luck season where he hadn't been given much run support as he was the proverbial best 0-7 pitcher in baseball. He was respectable in his previous loss to the Rangers going eight innings for the third time this season. Yet the Blue Jays weren't impressed as they knocked him out after four innings as three of their nine hits off Danks were home runs including a grand-slam by Aaron Hill in the first. Control didn't appear to to be an issue with only one walk and he threw 61 of his 96 pitches for strikes. He appears to have put it in the fat part of the plate a few too many times. Their rotation and schedule is set up so he won't have to pitch until next Sunday against the Tigers although he likely won't be in my lineup for quite awhile.


Nolasco came into the game in Los Angeles undefeated at 4-0 with a 3.04 ERA. Then he met a buzz saw called the Dodgers that tortured him with 15 hits over five innings as they scored eight runs. Only three of the fifteen were for extra bases with Rafael Furcal getting a solo blast in the third to take the first chink out of Nolasco's armor. He has until Friday to get over this as the Brewers come to Florida with an imposing line up.


I play in a 5x5 12 team league and these performance contributed to my ERA to drop from 9 points to 4 points. My WHIP fell from 10 points to eight. Being a twelve team league the most points you can have in a category are 12 with one being the worst. At present I am still in second place but hope there aren't too many more weeks like this in the future.