Monday, September 05, 2005

Offensive Ineptitude again

Kameron Loe...gulp....does it again except for this time, with no late-inning Twin rallies. Loe threw eight shutout innings against the Twins today, giving up five hits and making the Twins look pathetic again against a staff with a 5.01 ERA. A few hits from Morneau, who is having a decent last month, and that was about it.

Other than the usual complete lack of offense, the defense blew the game open as well. A terrible attempted catch by Jacque Jones in the fourth brought a run in (after he embarrassed himself on a slightly more difficult play earlier in the inning) and a Nick Punto error helped Texas break the game open with a four-run seventh.

Starter Carlos Silva didn't help, giving up several doubles, but he only ended up getting charged with one earned run, keeping his ERA at a low 3.27. He did, however, walk a batter, which may hinder his pursuit of Cy Young's record for walks/nine innings. His is at .48 now while the record is .62, so he still is looking good to pass the record, which would be an amazing feat.

On a brighter note, Fransisco Liriano finally debuted and it was a biplar debut. On one hand, his first batter, Gary Matthews Jr, crush a fastball for a home run, but Liriano proceeded to strike out the next two batters on nasty sliders and got his fastball up to 97 mph. The homer was a little unnerving, but his strikeouts certainly showed the possibility of dominance in the near future. Tommorow, we face Kenny Rogers, which means we will probably lose the series and watch the playoff hopes fade farther away. If Mays was only pulled from the rotation sooner....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was his major league debut. He gave up a home run. I would say he was nervous. It was not 'unnerving' it was more of it is his first game and first game coming from the bullpen. What he did after the homerun is what impressed me, he kept his composure and got the next 3 out. 2 SO's to boot.

Nick M. said...

I agree. And I wrote that. I said to see that is a little unnerving, but it was clear he has some dominating stuff. His slider looked nasty. Quite the opposite. The home run didnt mean too much at all.