I’m not sure I can say anything about this game that hasn’t been said to this point. Last night I got home around 10:30 and turned the game on. I saw that Charlie Morton had only allowed one hit in the first two innings and that he’d struck out five without any walks. Obviously that got me pretty excited, but before that had time to settle in Chris Young had cleared the bases with a grand slam and the score was 6-0.
Morton had great stuff last night; his breaking ball was diving, his fastball was popping the glove at speeds up to 95 with movement, and he had good control. He struck out six and walked one in his 3 1/3 innings, but it seemed something happened to his confidence after he gave up a leadoff single to Rodrigo Lopez in the third and he stopped challenging guys, started nibbling, and got killed by leaving balls out over the plate. I’m not sure that his pitch selection bears that out, though; a cursory glance suggests it might not and so I’ll have to take a closer look before his next start. Perhaps the weirdest thing about the inning was that he didn’t get one visit from Joe Kerrigan or anyone during the inning, despite the fact that he was obviously struggling.
All in all, though, I thought Morton at least showed flashes of his huge talent and though his outing was disappointing, it would’ve been worse to see him go out there and not throw strikes or only hit 88 on the gun while getting lit up or something like that. The worst part of the game, I thought, was the Pirate offense being completely shut down by Rodrigo Lopez over six innings. Lopez just isn’t very good at this stage in his career, but the Bucs only mustered three hits in his last five innings, struck out five times in his six, and walked just once. Dan Haren and Edwin Jackson are lined up to pitch this one before the team heads to San Francisco to face their incredible rotation; Lopez was the one chance to light the scoreboard up a bit and it didn’t happen. That’s not a good sign.
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