Monday, August 9, 2010

Curveballs for Jobu: Brandon Morrow Edition

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Pasqual Coco and he once struck out 2 over 4.1 innings for the Blue Jays so there.










Well kids, you're stuck with me for one more day while Derwood finishes up a cross country RBI Baseball tournament. Okay, he's really just been sitting in his basement drinking box wine and playing RBI Baseball by himself for 60 straight hours. The intervention is planned for later tonight.

Blue Jays 1, Rays 0. Brandon Morrow took a no-hitter into the 9th and retired the first two hitters he faced. But Even Longoria singled to break up Morrow's no-hitter and prevent the Rays from being no hit for the third time this season. Morrow struck out the next batter, his 17th of the night, for a complete game 1-hit shutout. While it was an excellent display of pitching, much of the talk has been about the 137 pitches he was allowed to throw by soon to be former manager Cito Gaston. You know, the one Joe Morgan has as one of his top 5 managers.

Gaston is leaving the Jays at season's end and perhaps didn't have Morrow's long term health as a top priority. Maybe this isn't such a big deal but the 26-year-old has battled injuries throughout his career and been jerked around between the rotation and the bullpen by Seattle. Time will tell but in the meantime we can enjoy one of the better pitching performances of the season.

Phillies 6, Mets 5. Roy Halladay seemed almost human despite striking out 10. He only pitched 7 innings and gave up 5 runs on 9 hits and even walked Jose Reyes. If he had walked Jeff Francoeur (DNP), I would have written 1,000 words on it. The Phils are 7-3 over their past 10 and only 2 games back of the Braves. They are going to be downright scary when they get Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Shane Victorino back. Especially Chase Utley.

Padres 10, Diamondbacks 1. Mat Latos is going to be a pretty good pitcher even if his name if missing a T. The 22-year-old pitched 6 innings of 2-hit shutout ball. He did walk 4 but struck out 6. His xFip (3.56) suggests he's not as good as his ERA (2.36) but pitching at Petco can't hurt. On the other hand, Joe Saunders pitched like the Joe Saunders I remember from the Angels. The lefty pitched 6 innings giving up 6 runs (5 earned) on 8 hits and a walk. Oh, and he struck out 2.

Yankees 7, Red Sox 2. Speaking of former Angels pitchers, Dustin Moseley pitched a pretty good 6.1 innings only giving up 2 runs on 6 hits and a couple of walks. Of course the Sox lineup did feature Marco Scuturo, Kevin Cash and Ryan Kalish. Josh Beckett continued to be owned by the Yanks getting crushed over 4.1 innings to the tune of 7 runs.

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