Can “Rick” Harness Any “Jack?”
June 4, 2008How About Chauncey Billups?
June 5, 2008Indians 15, Rangers 9 (box)
It always happens. The minute we’re ready to write a guy off, he comes through with a huge game. We decide to give Andy Marte an “extended look” at third base to see what he can do. Casey Blake puts up seven RBI. Ryan Garko puts up a .224 average in April, and followed it up with .232 in May. The Indians give Michael Aubrey a shot at first. Blake plays a few games, even Victor Martinez gets a spot start. And what happens? Garko responds with a 4-for-6 evening with two runs scored and six RBI.
So what if he benefited from a bit of a wind? It’s not like it slowed down when the Rangers were batting, but it does help build some much-needed confidence.
“It’s just fun,” Garko said. “It’s the opposite of what we’ve gone through in Cleveland, where the wind is blowing straight in from right-center field and it’s freezing cold.”
Now, I’m not sure it has been exactly “freezing cold” in Cleveland, but it is a completely different playing environment. It also may be the reason why the Rangers consistently have one of the worst pitching staff in the bigs – the ball carries a lot further than it does in most other parks. Heck, it even caused the ERA of Cliff Lee to rocket up to its current level of 2.45.
Good news is that Lee did manage to strike out eight batters, while only allowing two walks, in five innings of work. While I’m slowly starting to think he’s trending back towards “normalcy,” if he gets run-support all season long, we’re looking at a 20-game winner.
A few other points worth mentioning:
– Rafy Betancourt and Masa Kobayashi combined to toss three innings of one-hit baseball. Could this be a sign of things to come? Rafy pitched the sixth and allowed a lead-off single to Ramon Vazquez (a lefty). He then proceeded to get Ian Kinsler and Michael Young (both righties) to fly out before striking out Josh Hamilton (lefty). Not too bad, right?
– Grady Sizemore notched his fourth home run in the last six games. His 12th of the season.
– Ben Francisco’s 5-for-6 night with three runs scored deserves a mention. Through 108 at-bats, he’s hitting .343/.381/.546. If we can keep him at the two-hole from here out, I won’t complain.
– The top of the order went 11-for-19 and crossed the plate 10 times. The entire Rangers lineup went 13-for-40, with nine runs. One heck of a performance from those four guys, and something that obviously needs to continue if we’re going to flourish.
– Yes, David Dellucci hit a three-run home run. He’s still hitting .234.
– Asdrubal Cabrera left the game in the fourth inning after pulling a “Fausto.” We’ll keep you posted on this, but this has “Josh Barfield” written all over it.
– And to round things up, Rick Bauer’s first night in the bigs didn’t exactly go as planned. In his one inning of work, he allowed three earned runs. Thankfully, he had a nine-run cushion. In his defense, Michalel Young, Josh Hamilton and Milton Bradley are easily the best three-man combination he had faced. Letting him finish up the inning was very smart. Let’s give him another shot, probably in Detroit, and see if he’s cut out for this level. After all, he is 31-years old.
With that said, here’s a video clip of Ryan Garko’s night.
[flv]http://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/2008/06/04/mlbtv_cletex_549107_800K.flv[/flv]
(Update: MLB.com reports that Cabrera should be in uniform tonight. Perhaps, I got ahead of myself with the whole “Barfield” talk)
3 Comments
I think your Barfield talk was wishful thinking.
I’ll be very upset if Wedge sits Dellucci tonight (as he did in the second game of this series).
I see Barfield in our future, though it doesn’t look like that will be today.
You mention Blake as potentially losing his job to Marte; does Blake have any options left? I can’t imagine that he would, so this would mean releasing him or putting him through waivers, right?
I think the idea was that he’d lose third base to Marte. Blake can play first or either corner outfield spot, so he’s more flexible. I don’t think they would outright cut him.