Today’s Game and Tidbits

I have been telling everyone to open their eyes to Oliver Perez this year and he showed us why today with a very nice three-hitter against the Red Sox over almost 6 innings of work. He K’d 7 and, more importantly, only walked one along the way. Not only was his heater jumping, not only was his slider sliding, but today was the first time since 2004 that I saw Oliver ‘think’ on the mound. Nice to see it coming together for him.

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Any trade involving Craig Wilson seems to be drying up fast as the Marlins picked up Wellemeyer from the Cubs and the Indians signed Heredia. Both teams were in need of LH relief pitching and an outfielder and both clubs had been in contact with Littlefield. More and more it looks like we called Littlefield’s intentions correct, expecting Craig to stay around because Casey will be dealt in July.

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I am a Chris Duffy believer but I am getting more and more disgusted by Chris’ play. Three K’s is inexcusable from your leadoff batter – especially a contact hitter who is watching third strikes fall into the catcher’s mitt. Then in the third with two men on base, Chris swings at the first pitch he sees and promptly grounds out to end the inning. Duffy is getting to look a lot like Tike Redman in the batter’s box to me. I hope this changes in a hurry.

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Another disappointment today was Jeromy Burnitz swinging on the first pitch with two men on base and Bay just walked. He ended up hitting a slow roller to 1B to end the inning.

These two rally killing at bats are atypical of how we played in 2005. We can’t expect to score runs when we don’t put the ball in play in a smart way.

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How about the Joker and Gerut? How do you sit Gerut on the bench in favor of Duffy playing? Man.. getting hard to make a good decision. But please don’t put Bay in CF Littlefield. We would be better off with Gerut in CF if we sit Duffy. And Casey batting third is just plain nuts. Put him in the leadoff spot! Let the Joker bat behind him and Castillo third.