Dugout Digest – an awesome debut

I posted a video of Starling Marte's homer on his first career pitch last night, and that was pretty cool. But this isn't the debut I'm talking about. Mets prospect Matt Harvey made his major league debut last night in Arizona, and he led New York to a 3-1 win. Harvey exceeded all expectations, going 5 1/3 scoreless innings and allowing three hits, walking three and striking out 11. That's a pretty damn good line against a lineup that featured three straight .850 OPS hitters in the middle of the order, and Justin Upton and Miguel Montero following that trio. Harvey even unexpectedly delivered at the plate, going 2/2 with a single and a double. I don't think the Mets could have written up the beginning of the Matt Harvey era any better.

Game of the Night: Indians 5, Tigers 3. No games jumped out at me, so I went with this one, where the Indians overcame a late deficit to defeat Justin Verlander and their division rival Tigers. Cleveland trailed 3-1 going into the bottom of the second, and their bats awoke against Verlander. Carlos Santana got the party started with a solo homer to make it 3-2, and Travis Hafner immediately followed with one of his own to tie the game at three. Jose Lopez singled following Hafner, and Verlander got a pair of fly outs to possibly escape the inning. Buuuuuuuuuut, he then allowed three straight singles to Shin-Soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, and Jason Kipnis to give the Tribe a 5-3 lead. Detroit went down in order in the eighth, and Chris Perez labored through the ninth, but eventually finished the Tigers off to close out the game.

Pitching Lines of the Night: I made some not so thnly veiled remarks about Jason Vargas yesterday, talking about what a crappy deadline addition he'd be. Welp, Vargas threw eight one-run innings yesterday, night, allowing just one hits and three walks, striking out five in Seattle's 5-1 win over the Royals. Of course that happened. The only other standout pitching performance of the day was Harvey's debut in Arizona.

Hitting Lines of the Night: The immortal Chris Davis continued his great year, going 2/4 with four RBI, a double, and a homer in Baltimore's 6-2 win over the Rays. The Blue Jays got revenge for Wednesday's whooping at the hands of the A's by beating Oakland 10-4. Kelly Johnson went 2/4 with two runs, two RBI, a double, and a homer, while Edwin Encarnacion went 2/4 with two runs, three RBI, and a homer. The Cardinals beat the Dodgers 7-2, and World Series hero David Freese went 3/3 with two runs and two RBI, while Matt Holliday went 2/4 with two runs and a homer. 

Other Games: The Pirates homered three times in a 5-3 win in Houston.The Nationals trumped the slumping Brewers 8-2.

Today's Games: Jarrod Parker starts in Baltimore against Zach Britton. Lance Lynn starts in Chicago against Travis Wood. Newly extended Cole Hamels starts for the Phillies against Ben Sheets and the Braves in Atlanta. Chris Sale starts for the White Sox in Dallas against Yu Darvish and the Rangers. Ross Detwiler and the Nationals take on Michael Fiers and the Brewers. The disappointing Dan Haren and the Angels host Alex Cobb and the Rays. Matt Cain starts for the Giants as they host the Dodgers.

Enjoy your day of baseball, everyone.

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.

Quantcast