MVN - Most Valuable Network

Lance Rediscovers His Stroke To Help Moehler Beat Rangers

Well, I got to be the first to say that I never thought Brian Moehler would turn out to be a more reliable starting pitcher than Roy Oswalt. He had another excellent outing - giving up 5 hits, 2 BB, 1 run, and 2 GIDP. I had a bad feeling when he started out - a double off the LF bullpen, then a fly to deep center, then a single - translation - pitches in the middle of the plate, but then Hamilton helpfully GIDP and after that, he had a 1,2,3 2nd and 3rd, a walk and another GIDP in the 4th, a 1,2,3 5th, then he tired in the 6th, giving up 2 singles and a walk to load the bases before escaping.

In the 7th, with one out and a man on second and several leftys coming up, Coop pulled Moehler, who sent in Wesley Wright, who gave up a walk, but got the outs without allowing a run. And he got Milton Bradley out, too - yes, the best hitter in the AL this year not named A-Rod.

Brocail came in to work the 8th - he got 2 outs, then gave up a walk and a single, so he pulled Byrd and sent in Valverde to face Marlon Byrd, who Kd. In the 9th, he walked Salty, then sent a FB down the middle of the plate thigh high and Vasquez hit it just over the RF fence. He then struck out the last 2 guys.

I think they both are looking a bit tired, especially Brocail, who is, after all 41 years old. Both of them threw more pitches out of the zone than in it - and yeah, Brocail got beat the other night because a couple of guys got hits on balls.

sigh

I hope Coop isn’t gonna pull a Ned Yost with Brocail and totally wear him out until he’s useless, as Yost did to Turnbow last year. Geary needs to be used more and hopefully, Chacon won’t be, um, too sulky to use too.

And I also thought that Hurley did a good job too - 6 hits, 3 BB, one CS (even though the ump was wrong) and 2 ER/6 IP. Watch the Rangers trade him for some old guy like Brett Tomko or something…

- By the way, McTaggart reports that Cassel has missed his last 3 starts with a sore back.  OK, I’ll go for that as a reasonable reason he wasn’t called up before Hernandez - Cassel has significantly better numbers in every category except Ks, as he’s a GB pitcher. Actually, Cassel has the best ERA and WHIP for SP in the PCL for pitchers who have started at least 8 games and thrown at least 50 IP. Too bad Coop doesn’t like him. He averages just under 7 IP/GS there, too.

Click here to see the pitching stats for the Round Rock pitchers. McLemore is on the DL, in case yall were wondering what happened to him.

Still have no idea who will get sent down Friday morning - I’d send down Abercrombie before Newhan, but hey, that’s just me…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 9:18 am and is filed under Brian Moehler, Valverde, Brocail, Berkman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.