More bad news is that Jose Tabata went 0/5 tonight and his season average is down to .200, he is now 2 for his last 18. Hopefully this is just a small cold streak and we won't see this very often from Tabata, but there is a chance that this is a result from him being rushed to the big leagues. There were a lot of questions at the time of the call up on whether Tabata was ready or not. He was hitting well in AAA and stealing bases at an incredible rate, so it appeared that he was ready for the call, but his major league statistics might say otherwise. He looked good in his first couple games, but since then he has done next to nothing. 5 of Tabata's 9 hits came in his first 4 games. The good(ish) news is that Tabata has only struck out 6 times this year, so as long as he is putting the bat on the ball and has the speed he has he should find success somehow.
The main reason for the loss tonight is some more bad starting pitching. Ross Ohlendorf went only 4.2 innings and gave up 4 earned runs on 5 hits. He walked 2 and struck out only 1, while surrendering 2 home runs. Ross has not been good this year, and that's an understatement. I don't know what's going on with him, it's starting to seem like last year was a bit of a fluke and Ross just doesn't have the ability to be an above average big league starter. Hopefully I'm wrong and he can turn it around, but he really hasn't shown many positives this year.
As for the rest of the rotation, Zach Duke could be heading to the DL and will almost certainly not make his next scheduled start. This could be good news; if an injury helps explain his terrible performance of late, there could be optimism for him improving once he sits a week or two out, and his trade value could rise pretty quickly if he gets his better stuff back and has success in his next starts.
The Pedro Alvarez update is that he got his 2nd big league hit today and scored a run. He grounded out to first a couple of times, which could be a sign of him pressing to pull the ball and drive it, something that is common to see in young players that are slumping. Let's hope the coaching staff can recognize if that is true and help him chance his approach at the plate so he can let his natural ability do the work and start hitting more consistently. Here's your PWP update, the team average is now up to .246 since Pedro's debut, but they are now scoring only 3.83 RPG.
1 comments:
just curious if you actually watched the games or just going off the box scores. tabata scorched the ball 3 times last night but the rangers were positioned exactly where he hit them. he'll be fine.
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