Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 03, 2008
Games of the Day
Zack Greinke

Zack Greinke
Photo: Icon SMI

The Royals and Tigers finish up their opening series this afternoon in Detroit with the Royals looking to sweep a team many favored to win the division. They'll pit Zack Greinke against face Jeremy Bonderman. Greinke worked his way back from mental illness last season, returning to a starting role late in the year. He posted a 1.85 ERA in those seven starts. Bonderman pitched well in 2007, once he made it past the first inning. In that first frame, batters hit at a .375/.442/.688 (BA/OBA/Slug) clip. Note that while his overall OBA of .326 was decent, he still gave up long hits, as his over .453 slugging percentage attests.

Mike Hampton returns to the majors this evening after a two year hiatus due to injury. Hampton lost his ability to strike out batters with any frequency after his 2001 season in Colorado. He'll need to depend on his defense and a low walk rate to be successful this season. The Pirates send Zach Due to the mound. Duke got off to a strong start in 2005, going 8-2 with a 1.81 ERA. His low strikeout numbers were worrisome, however, and those worries proved well founded. With both low strikeout and walk rates, Duke is in the strike zone and hittable. He's allowed a .322 batting average the last two seasons.

Finally, Phil of the Future fans see Hughes in action this evening. The Blue Jays match one of their youngsters, Dustin McGowan against Phil Hughes of the Yankees. McGowan's 4.08 ERA last year wasn't bad for someone in their first full season in the bigs. He struck out a good number, didn't walk too many and did a great job keeping the ball in the park with just 14 home runs allowed in 169 2/3 innings. McGowan pitched a bit better than Hughes last year. Phil said his leg wasn't really strong after the injury, so we'll see if he's off to a better start in 2008.

Enjoy!

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Posted by David Pinto at 08:36 AM | Matchups | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I'm really looking forward to the Jays/Yanks game tonight. I think lowercase x is going to have to wait another day to get a ball out of the infield.

This is going to be a lot like game 1 as a low scoring affair that could go either way.

Posted by: Andrew at April 3, 2008 12:34 PM
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