Home MLB'Weekly' Hit Ground Ball Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Castro a hit against the Reds

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Castro a hit against the Reds

by Matt Smith

WhgbHlSqOne of my aims with WHGB this season is to highlight just how much brilliant baseball Brits can follow live without needing to stay up all night.  I normally have plenty of material to work with because catching a ballgame or two is my favourite way to relax during an evening; however for one reason or another I didn’t have much time for that over the past week (some of those reasons involved other BGB-related work, so rest assured I haven’t been slacking off) .

This coming week’s schedule of early games gives me every reason to make amends for that and I’ll be previewing those contests in detail in a moment.

(I wrote this column on Sunday evening and then listened to the second half of the Rays-A’s game. If you’re not going to catch many games over the course of the week, you might as well end it with a perfect game! Congratulations to the A’s Dallas Braden)

Cubs calling for Castro

One story I did enjoy last week, although unfortunately not live, was the Major League debut of Cubs prospect Starlin Castro. 

Like most baseball fans, I always look forward to seeing a heralded Minor League prospect make the step up to the Big Leagues. I don’t mind admitting that one of the reasons Castro stood out for me was his name.  Short of his middle name being ‘Marx’, and the ‘r’ being dropped from his first name of course, you would be hard-pressed to find a more Communist sounding name.  For completeness sake it would have been nice for Castro to have been drafted by the Reds, but I wouldn’t want to deny Cubs fans the fun of seeing this youngster playing shortstop for them over the next few years.  And to make up for it, the Cubs called him up to make his debut in Cincinnati where he made an instant impact.

There’s no doubt that the Cubs needed a spark after being swept by the Pirates in a three-game series.  Castro provided it by hitting a three-run round-tripper in his very first at-bat, before bringing home three more runs on a triple to set a modern day record of 6 RBIs on debut.  As first impressions go, that’s a pretty effective way to endear yourself to your new teammates.

Starlin Castro isn’t the only interesting new name likely to hit the Majors this season.  The Indians’ uber-prospect Carlos Santana will surely use a song by his namesake as his ‘walk on’ music, while the Giants’ latest pitching prospect Madison Bumgarner doesn’t need a political or musical connection to make his name bring a smile to your face.

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This week’s early MLB game schedule

After a limited schedule last week, we’ve got a good selection of early games to look forward to over the next five days, albeit after a quiet start during the first two.

There’s no doubt that the best potential pitching match-up is scheduled for Thursday when CC Sabathia and Justin Verlander are due to lock horns at Comerica Park.  CC’s last start, against the Red Sox, was affected by rain so he only pitched 4.2 innings in total, during which he gave up a pair of home runs. Verlander struck out nine and walked four against the Indians on Saturday as the Tigers won 6-4.

They are not the only top pitchers you can watch live at a convenient time this week.

Yovani Gallardo is the undisputed ace of the Brewers’ rotation and he has struck out 21 batters over 12 innings in his last two starts, although it took him 103 pitches to get through just five innings last time out against the D-Backs.  Gallardo faces Derek Lowe and the Braves on Wednesday.  The groundball specialist continues to disappoint for the Braves despite having four wins to his name.  He gave up seven runs to the Phillies in his most recent start, during which his opponent Jamie Moyer pitched a two-hit shutout.  The 47 year old will return to the mound against the Rockies and may face the 26 year old Esmil Rogers, although he has pitched poorly in his two starts since moving from the bullpen and Colorado will probably look elsewhere if another option is available.

Meanwhile at Fenway, Josh Beckett needs to make a strong comeback after getting torched by the Yankees last time out. He will aim to do so against the Blue Jays who will have Shaun Marcum on the mound; a pitcher who knows all about making a comeback.  Marcum has been impressive this season after missing all of 2009 following Tommy John surgery, something that his 1-1 record really doesn’t do justice to. 

In truth, win-loss records often don’t tell you much about how well a pitcher is performing and you will struggle to find a better example of that than Zack Greinke.  After his first seven starts of the season, the reigning Cy Young winner is holding opponents to a .231 batting average; however he has been lumbered with an 0-4 record. Maybe, just maybe, the KC hitters will be able to put up some sort of offense against the Indians on Thursday to allow Greinke to get his first win, although he would be advised to make it through all nine innings considering the way the Royals’ bullpen has been malfunctioning.

It was expected that Greinke would have to battle against the inadequacies of his Royals teammates, but most people thought Felix Hernandez would be a strong bet to follow Greinke as a Cy Young winner when backed by a Seattle Mariners team tipped by many to win the AL West.  Unfortunately, the Mariners have been in dismal form for most of the first five weeks of the season and they haven’t been helped by Hernandez dealing with some back problems. King Felix has looked less-than regal in his last two starts, giving up 13 runs, including four homers, while pitching just 7.2 innings combined.  A game against the Orioles is a good opportunity to get back on track.

One pitcher hopefully going in the opposite direction to Hernandez’s recent trend is Ben Sheets.  The A’s gave him a $10m contract over the offseason and after six starts it looked like $10m down the drain.  His seventh start was not quite a visit to the ‘last chance saloon’, as Oakland can’t easily put $10m on the scrap heap, but another bad outing against the Rays would have seen him thrown from his horse and dragged towards the saloon doors.  With everything against him, the Texan came out fighting and struck out 8 over 6.1 innings, earning his second win of the year.  A’s fans understandably are waiting for a second strong start in a row before believing in Big Ben and he gets his chance against C.J. Wilson and the Rangers on Thursday.

Cardinals fans don’t have the same concerns with their scheduled Thursday starter. Apart from one shaky outing against the Brewers on 11 April, Chris Carpenter is dealing as per usual.  Add in a Friday game from Wrigley and it should be an entertaining week, one which I’m determined not to miss out on.

All times are in BST.

Monday 10 May

No early games

Tuesday 11 May

No early games

Wednesday 12 May

17.35. Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (Homer Bailey – Zack Duke)
18.10. Atlanta at Milwaukee (Derek Lowe – Yovani Gallardo)
18.10. Chicago White Sox at Minnesota (John Danks – Carl Pavano)
18.10. Washington at NY Mets (Craig Stammen – Mike Pelfrey)
18.35. Toronto at Boston (Shaun Marcum – Josh Beckett)
19.20. Florida at Chicago Cubs (Chris Volstad – Carlos Silva)
20.10. Philadelphia at Colorado (Jamie Moyer – Esmil Rogers)

Thursday 13 May

17.35. Seattle at Baltimore (Felix Hernandez – Kevin Millwood)
18.05. NY Yankees at Detroit (CC Sabathia – Justin Verlander)
18.40. Houston at St. Louis (Bud Norris – Chris Carpenter)
19.05. Oakland at Texas (Ben Sheets – C.J. Wilson)
19.10. Cleveland at Kansas City (David Huff – Zack Greinke)
20.45. San Diego at San Francisco (Mat Latos – Jonathan Sanchez)

Friday 14 May

19.20. Pittsburgh at Chicago Cubs (Jeff Karstens – Tom Gorzelanny)

All the above games can be followed via various resources on MLB.com (Gameday, At Bat with Gameday Audio and MLB.tv), while ESPN America’s MLB schedule can be found here. A complete schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com.

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1 comment

Matt Smith May 12, 2010 - 7:01 am

12/05 UPDATE

The Yankees-Tigers and Phillies-Rockies games were rained-out on Tuesday and in both cases they’ve decided to make them up by playing a double-header on Wednesday. So, as well as the 7 games listed above for Wednesday, we’ve got:

18.05. Yankees-Tigers (Vazquez-Porcello)
20.10. Phillies-Rockies (Halladay-Cook)

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