dontrelle willis is the first pitcher in these major leagues to be credited with four victories. amazing, huh? while his first three wins were mostly the result of six runs of support a game from his
marlin teammates, his notch in the belt in saturday's 4-0 triumph over the
mets was, to say the least, well-earned. he shut out last year's national league east champs, allowing their powerful lineup just four singles, two of which were struck by my boy,
dmitri young, who's hitting .259.
willis struck out ten, thrice making a victim of mediocre shortstop
kaz matsui and veteran slugging center fielder
jim edmonds, a high priced off-season addition. most promising of all,
willis didn't allow a single free pass to first, a sharp contrast from the 3, 8, and 3 walks he handed out in his first three starts. the southpaw from oakland won thirteen games in each of the two seasons after his darling rookie of the year campaign in 2003, but dropped to 9-17 with a below-average 4.35 earned run average last year. however, he's still just 25 years old, and though i suspect he'll have to allow a home run eventually, there is no reason that the
d-train can't roll to a career-high 15 victories this season.
joe borchard is hitting .148 for
cincinnati, eight for fifty-four. he proved last year that he wasn't much of a hitter in any american league city; within a year or two, he'll have flailed away in every national league town, and that'll cover just about all of north america. next stop...mexico!
chris scarborough gave up 22 runs, 21 earned in seventy-four and a third frames in birmingham last year. he's given up the same exact number of runs, earned and unearned, in his four starts at triple-a charlotte this year. the only saving grace i can find is that
scarborough has struck out 21 opposing batters, walked nine, and allowed twenty-three hits in those 23.1 frames in triple-a. those numbers aren't great -- certainly nothing like his auspicious 2006 debut -- but they do add up to something better than an 8.10 earned run average. they add up to something like a two and two record, which is exactly what the spindly right-hander from the university of virginia has got.
seven million dollar baby
brady clark continued to cement his reputation as an "rbi machine" by jacking a two-run home run off of
brandon duckworth with one out in the eighth to give the
padres a 3-2 lead over the
cardinals. they held onto that lead as young setup men
tucker and
rosales got the ball to
trevor hoffman, who pitched a perfect ninth.
clark, a 34 year old corner outfielder who has never driven in 100 runs, is only hitting .254 with 3 extra base hits in 63 at-bats so far this season, but he has brought home 13 runners.
want some hard evidence that as goes
baltimore's pitching, so goes their club? they stole a 2-1 squeaker from the
tigers at comerica when
karim "the dream"
garcia doubled home
miggy tejada and
brian roberts with one out in the top of the eighth.
jacobo sequea had taken the ball from
ryan hannaman in the middle of the previous inning, and after getting through the eighth, "tremolo" handed it off to
mo rivera, who pitched a scoreless ninth to record his seventh save of the year, fifty-third overall with
baltimore and forty-ninth since coming back from a gruesome arm injury suffered roughly two years ago.
rivera has saved
every single one of
baltimore's victories this season...putting him on pace for, oh, 75 saves or so. look out,
bobby thigpen!!!