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Extra innings in spring, yuck. And blowing leads in the eighth, ninth, and tenth, double-yuck. While several regular hitters made the trip to Clearwater, few of the real pitchers did. Kyle Davies got the start and was hammered, allowing six runs on four hits, two walks, and three homers (two by Thome) and suffered the added indignity of this Yahoo boxscore calling him “Kylie”. Anthony Lerew went three and allowed no runs (two hits and a walk, one K) but Zach Miner and Alex Herrera were less fortunate, allowing two runs apiece, and someone named “Jeremy Ward” I don’t know let the last runs score with a bases-loaded single. Herrera actually had two out in the ninth when he threw a wild pitch to let the Phillies tie the score.
On the good side, Andy Marte hit two homers, playing the entire game. Furcal also homered. Langerhans was 1-2, Snead 2-4, and Brown 0-5; I don’t expect he’s going to be around for long.
I guess he’s not ready for the bigs quite yet. He had a proclivity for giving up bombs last year in the minors, and that ain’t gonna be helped at all by facing Jim Thome a bunch of times. Every baserunner that Davies allowed ended up scoring, but that’ll happen if you give up 3 homers.
Lerew is looking great; I read on AJC that they’re thinking about putting him in the pen this year. I’m not sure that’s a great idea, as he’s much more valuable to us long term if he can become a starter, but as usual, I’ll defer to Schuerholtz, Bobby and Leo and hope it works out.
When I watched this Herrera guy pitch in the 9th and 10th inning, I thought to myself: “Boy, how can these guys lay off pitches that close?”. John Rocker would have been proud.
Davies had pretty good movement on his fastballs, and pretty good control of the outside corner for the most part. He left about 4-5 fastballs over the inside part of the plate, three of which ended up in the seats. He threw a couple of really good changeups, but most of his breaking balls were up high. Overall, his stuff looked fine, but his control didn’t.