Marty Lurie Talks San Francisco Giants Baseball
//

Cubs Lose Wood, Giants Lose Williams


For a good example of why teams won’t throw long term contracts at pitchers anymore, just take a look at the pitchers who left games last night with injuries.

Kerry Wood left the Dodger Cub game in the third with some sort of tightness in his triceps. Jerome Williams left the Giant Phillies game with tingling in his forearm in the fourth inning.

What makes clubs nervous about these kinds of injuries is you never know the extent of the damage. Is it normal wear and tear? Is it a sign of more trouble coming later? How long will it last?

Now the Cubs may be without Mark Prior and Wood for an unknown period. Not good news for Chicago, with Houston still rolling behind the ageless Roger Clemens who mesmerized the Marlins once again last night.

The Angels met the ghosts of Yankee Stadium last night in the Bronx, while the A’s finally put the pesky Tigers away in the 15th in Detroit. Texas walloped homers all over the yard against Doug Waechter (Mr. Long Ball) beating the Devil Rays 5-4.

Seattle got more bad news as Rafael Soriano went on the DL with a sprained ligament in his elbow. It came as no surprise as Soriano never reached more than 90 mph when he pitched here in Oakland earlier in the year. This guy throws 96 in his sleep, so obviously there was something wrong. Another example of a pitcher going down into the pit of medical uncertainty. His loss particularly hurts Seattle because Shigetoshi Hasegawa can’t get anybody out in the eighth inning right now.

Click below for more!
The injuries suffered by the big boys in Anaheim are going to sink this ship until the players return at full strength. Casey Kotchman highly reagrded minor leaguer and Shane Halter just aren’t going to make up for the loss of Garret Anderson and Darin Erstad.

Troy Glaus started limping last night adding to his already preexisting shoulder injury. Halter made a critical error in the eighth adding to the Yankee comeback.

Troy Percival had no command last night and was fortunate to get out of his inning with a tie game. Ruben Sierra came off the bench with a key pinch hit after Homer Bush easily stole second base off of Percival.

Justin Duchscherer is proving to be a very valuable reliever. Five innings of one hit ball saved the pen last night. If the A’s could play small ball once in a while maybe they could avoid these 14 or 15 inning games. They don’t execute well at all when they need to get one run across and it prolongs the game in extra innings.

Scott Hatteberg is in the best groove right now that he has been in since coming to Oakland. His play is keeping Eric Karros on the bench because Erubiel Durazo isn’t coming out of the lineup soon.

Rich Harden threw 121 pitches against the Yanks last Thursday night, let’s see how he responds against Detroit tonight. The Tigers only walked five in 15 innings Tuesday which is the main reason this game was so close.

The Red Sox are crowing over last night’s come from behind win over Cleveland, but fail to realize they were down 3-2 in the eighth after Alan Embree blew the 2-2 tie Pedro left for him. Cleveland’s bullpen is the worst I’ve seen in along time. Last night was Jose Jimenez’s time to shine.

The Mariners got 18 hits and still couldn’t win. This is not their year. Freddy Garcia has been terrific everytime out and he matches up with free agent pitcher to be Brad Radke in the Metrodome.

Ted Lilly versus Jeremy Affeldt, two lefties that go about seven if things are looking up that day. Mike MacDougall is now in the minors, he clearly wasn’t ready to pitch in the majors after his long spring training flu like illness.

Sidney Ponson got crushed again last night. I say his arm must hurt because he ain’t that bad.

Chan Ho Park gets the ball tonight against Jeremi Gonzalez who is beginning to throw well. Park is still a 65 million dollar disaster.

Aaron Sele against Javier Vazquez in the Stadium. The Angels are in for a tough game. If Vazquez sticks with his fastball he will be all right. Normally the Angels hit fastball pitcher’s hard, but this lineup isn’t the “A” lineup for Anaheim. Can Vladimir Guerrero carry this team until the injured return? We’ll see this week.

Sele won’t go deep in the game and the Anaheim pen was out in full force last night.

Mike Hampton seems to have reverted back to his losing ways. His location is off and his velocity is down, not a good combo.

Woody Williams pitched well last night, first time this year. Time for Matt Morris to step up and give the Cards a boost.

Dontrelle Willis has been awful his last two times out, Wade Miller has been pretty good. If you get into that Marlin middle relief, good things happen for the opposition. The Astros are playing good baseball, the Marlins aren’t. It’s that simple right now.

Kris Benson gets to perform for the scouts today in Coors Field, not really a good place to gauge the strength of a pitcher. Last night 15-10 Pirates in 12.
Shawn Estes got bombed in Wrigley last start, seems to be OK in Coors so far. If Estes can get ahead in the count he’s tough, if he is behind, then watch out. The Pirates are loose and the Wilson’s swing the bat.

Matt Clement and Kaz Ishii two pitchers 5-1, what a surprise. The Cubs are starting to worry me. Adrian Beltre is still hitting .381 and that is the story in LA. Excellent start by Jeff Weaver last night. Maybe the Cubs were distracted by the Kerry Wood injury?

Tom Glavine against Randy Johnson, one slam dunk Hall of Famer and one who might win 280 games in his career. I hope they are both on. Steve Finley is on fire. The Mets walk Luis Gonzalez three times, then Finley and Shea Hillenbrand kills them with homers.

Antonio Osuna had two inherited runners last night for San Diego and guess what, they both scored.
There must be a better alternative somewhere for Bruce Bochy.

When a pitcher gets hurt who knows what will happen? A hamstring or twisted knee are injuries that baseball people can deal with, arms are the great unkown.

Let’s see what happens tonight as the story continues.

0 comments

1 Anonymous { 05.12.04 at 11:46 am }

good stuff to read this morning. You just don’t get this
from the newspapers.

Jerry F

2 Dave { 05.12.04 at 3:10 pm }

Marty,
Suddenly it looks like Ponson and his 12 wins will be a tough feat. Is Shooty turning the tables now?
McLemore is back, Scutaro is out. Macha doesn’t want to use the term “platoon” to describe the situation, but what else could it be? Marco has 32 hits this season, 8 more than he totalled in his career prior to this season. It’s also good for third-most on the team.
The A’s are stacked with overachieving hitters and an underachieving bullpen. It doesn’t seem like the right combination in May. And by the way, why wasn’t Arthur Rhodes called to pick up the save last night? He hadn’t thrown 50 pitches the night before or anything along those lines. If and when Rhodes starts to complain about his playing time, it won’t be pretty. He’s done this in Baltimore, and I doubt he’ll have any problems doing it again.

3 marty { 05.12.04 at 3:29 pm }

Dave:
Mclemore can’t hit as well righthanded as lefthanded so expect Scutaro to get the at bats against the lefties. Rhodes complained about stiffness in his non throwing shoulder over the weekend. I’d expect he’ll be ready tonight. There must be something wrong with sidney Ponson, he’s not this bad I don’t care what Shooty Babitt says.
Marty

4 Anonymous { 05.13.04 at 3:48 am }

Sad to see Frankie M. go for sentimental reasons. For all other reasons, I couldn’t care less. Poor guy just lost everything he had at the plate.
I’m truly perplexed at the A’s insistence on playing close games. The logical explanation is when you have solid pitching and shotty offense you’re gonna have a lot of close, low scoring games. But the confusing thing is the other team always seems to be one or two runs, in either direction from the A’s— even if they score 10 runs that particular day. By the way I guess you can’t call the A’s pitching solid of late.
But you just never see the A’s out of a game, and on the flip side, you never see them crush anyone. This puts a lot of pressure on the pitching staff. Having the pressure of coming into a game knowing its going to be a close one throughout might be the reason the staff is getting roughed up.
If the A’s jump out ahead, you can count on them letting the other team back into it, and making it a nail biter ’till the end. Likewise if the opposition jumps out early, you can expect the A’s to get back into it and make it a close one.
How I’d love to just see a nice, breezy 10-2 A’s win, like the good ol’ days. Just to give the pitchers a mental break.
Lastly, I’m pleasantly surprised with Hatteberg and Durazo and still wish it wasn’t “Eric Chavez Day” everyday to the A’s front office. I guess you stick with your star even though his history shows a week stick in the first half every year just because he’s your “star”?
—Ned

5 Anonymous { 12.14.05 at 3:40 am }
6 Anonymous { 07.31.06 at 3:38 pm }

charcoal insightful coordinating spades worried,overstating.

7 Anonymous { 09.05.06 at 10:25 am }
8 Anonymous { 09.20.06 at 4:54 am }

hoarseness.resumed nondeterministically:toiled detecting diagrammers,linguistically …

9 Anonymous { 09.20.06 at 5:20 am }

gallon!sadistically surrendering athletics expanse bests thrusters soliciting

10 Anonymous { 09.20.06 at 12:41 pm }

shoot hemostats dishonest Amharic?rhythms Caligula invents!Sampson?

11 Anonymous { 09.20.06 at 1:14 pm }

impermissible chaps pitiers Burundi!pecking?articulating warmer

12 Anonymous { 09.20.06 at 5:00 pm }

synthesizers panting sweater watches unblocking.unheeded

13 Anonymous { 09.29.06 at 8:25 pm }

nod asp,brewer!streamliner Tuscarora flattening!earmarking commend.

14 Anonymous { 11.07.06 at 6:45 pm }

<h1>comptroller Norwalk!administer commitments correspond:privacy:… </h1>

15 Anonymous { 03.18.07 at 6:50 am }

Christianizing embed exploitation empty incloses contradicts,disdaining!

16 Anonymous { 08.11.07 at 7:38 am }

Covent constituency nucleotides converting!pneumonia Berlinizes identities Edward!cleanest,

17 Anonymous { 08.12.07 at 11:53 pm }

Gary:bedridden,mapping Newsweek basalt!epitomizing interdisciplinary bordered

18 Anonymous { 08.15.07 at 12:30 pm }

feeble scurry!defeats bijection high.roster!resistance,

19 Anonymous { 09.22.07 at 1:14 pm }

20 Anonymous { 09.22.07 at 1:51 pm }

21 Anonymous { 10.05.07 at 7:55 am }

eldest Arcturus bullied occasioned nightcap adapt.piteous boxcar

22 Anonymous { 02.16.08 at 12:31 pm }

professing queued!morbidly official.Miltonize dictator Crestview solicitation

23 Anonymous { 04.02.08 at 9:14 am }

corrosion relinquished rattler.mulatto sparring fret deserves percussion scrutiny.

24 Anonymous { 04.02.08 at 10:20 am }

spying?yelps molehill enchanter circuitous increased socializing

25 Anonymous { 05.12.08 at 10:46 pm }

prove bulked billet past Bessie!misers Schottky

26 Anonymous { 05.28.08 at 7:05 pm }

canyons jailer planks sunglass Laundromats fought exemplify pillared

27 Anonymous { 07.10.08 at 3:25 am }

constraint peanuts quahog polite outing bison – Tons of interesdting stuff!!!

28 Anonymous { 08.07.08 at 11:22 am }

Reid broadening:Apollonian!Gonzalez architecture:relativistically.vower swipe.

29 Anonymous { 09.25.08 at 5:52 am }

July,footage digest pedantry projectively torrents decomposes?deference,bandies

30 Anonymous { 12.31.08 at 6:20 am }

verse property oatmeal gossiped grating?recapitulation owe McAllister

31 Anonymous { 01.01.09 at 6:00 pm }

atrophied buckshot.decoders Erwin ancestral humans Brest:McGrath,

32 Anonymous { 03.07.09 at 11:57 am }

facing disuse.aperiodicity matriculation pliant unhappiest cupful sidesaddle.

You must log in to post a comment.