Notes on the Ugly
Pittsburgh 12, Atlanta 11 (12 innings). It’s a good thing we had an off day today because last night was exhausting. Two games in and it’s been a crazy season already. Let’s not mince words: last night was ugly. Ugly pitching. Ugly fielding. Ugly coaching.
I know it was supposed to be a great story line about Tom Glavine’s triumphant return, so the media was too nice about it. The headline on the AJC website this morning was about how the bullpen screwed it up for Glavine. But Glavine did not have a good night. He may have only given up two runs, one earned, but he only made it through five innings because his pitch count was so high. The good thing about having a future Hall-of-Famer on the mound is that even on a bad day, he knows how to control the damage. While he couldn’t find the strike zone and was pitching behind the count to everyone, he never panicked, never tried to force things. Still, five innings of mediocre work is not what we were looking for from Tommy G. We’ve got four guys in Richmond who can give us that.
I know Bobby likes to play the percentages on lefty-righty matchups, but he burned through half the bullpen in the 7th even though both Peter Moylan and Royce Ring looked good. It’s like Skip Caray has said, if you go through your whole bullpen, you’re eventually going to find the guy who doesn’t have it that day. They found that in 8th when Manny Acosta gave up four. Oddly, Bobby had all the patience in the world through that. And if that wasn’t enough of a bite in the ass, when Blaine Boyer came in, he was the last guy in the bullpen. He looked good in the 11th, but he’s not a long guy and blew it in the 12th.
Other thoughts:
- Tex was the only starting infielder not to have an error. Ugly!
- Chris Resop was hitting 97 frequently and hit 98 at least once. Speedy!
- Another on the plus side, the more of Mark Kotsay that I see in center field, the more I like him.
- I don’t even want to talk about the rest of it, the ridiculous rallies and the whatnot.
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