FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Rays (22-15) 0 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 7 11 0
Indians (23-13) 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 4 10 0
W: Shields (4-1) L: Masterson (5-1)
How do you turn a 62% strike rate into only 1 walk?
Rays (22-15) 0 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 7 11 0
Indians (23-13) 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 4 10 0
W: Shields (4-1) L: Masterson (5-1)
How do you turn a 62% strike rate into only 1 walk?
1) Blippy blips
Remember yesterday when I said that no team makes 162 Quality Starts? This is pretty much what I was talking about.
The interesting thing about Justin Masterson’s “terrible” start is that is wasn’t truly terrible: he had one real Inning of Crap™, and even that was essentially a bunch of singles strung together. Yes, giving up Reid Brignac’s first extra-base hit since the Johnson* Administration and a two-run single to Sam Fuld are not good results, but Brignac’s double was the only extra-base hit Masterson allowed and Fuld’s single came with two outs, meaning a little better pitch there and he’s out of the inning with 2 runs allowed.
No, the real problem was that Masterson flung the ball around like so many monkeys at the zoo with surplus excrement. He started but NINE of his twenty-seven batters with a first-pitch strike, threw a lame-assed 57.4% of his pitches for strikes, and walked four guys in 5 2/3 innings. To say he did not have his best command is to denigrate the very meaning of the word “command.”