Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 12, 2007
Liking Mike

Mike Mussina made a successful return to the rotation tonight, lasting 5 2/3 innings, giving up no runs. He ran out of gas in the sixth, giving up a walk and two hits, but did induce a double play. He only struck out one, however. You don't want to see him doing that too often, as balls in play tend to turn into hits. I'd appreciate anyone who saw the game commenting on Mussina's performance. Did he get outs because he was keeping the hitters off balance, or was he just lucky?


Posted by David Pinto at 09:22 PM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Like you pointed out, a lot of balls in play. I'd say early on he did a good job getting ahead of batters... which helps keeping batters off balance. I think he got help from two double plays in his last two innings. So the defense bailed him out (but he was definately in control forcing those ground balls for the double plays).

Was listening to the radio in the first two innings... I think his fast ball was hitting 91 which is normal for him.

Nice performance.

(In other news, Joba just pitched a scoreless inning... they said something about breaking a record. I imagine it's the record for most consecutive shutout innings to start a career)

Posted by: Bill at September 12, 2007 09:45 PM

Moose actually got hit pretty hard, and benefited from some good defense behind him. Regardless, probably would have been only two or three runs if those balls weren't fielded, so a decent outing in any event.

Posted by: Ben at September 12, 2007 10:43 PM

I watched and didn't see that he was "hit hard." His fastball was faster than it has been (up around 90), and had movement (normally it's dead straight). He got a lot of groundballs. His curve still wasn't very good, though - he continues to hang it too much.

The reality, however, is that Toronto has a crappy offense, and is lacking Glaus, one of their best hitters. Mussina has done pretty well this season against the lesser offenses, but the good ones kill him. So yeah, he pitched well, but in a favorable matchup.

Though I saw encouraging signs, I don't have any reason to believe that he could deliver that sort of start against a good offense. Not w/o a better breaking ball, anyway.

Posted by: Rob at September 13, 2007 11:41 AM
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