Durbin battles past White Sox, weather
posted in 2007 season, Chicago White Sox |Game 21: Tigers at White Sox, 8 p.m.
TV: ESPN, FSN
Pitchers: Chad Durbin (0-1, 10.54) vs. John Danks (0-2, 5.06)
Pregame thoughts — It seems like just Friday the Tigers sent Durbin to the mound to face John Danks. Oh. Wait. It was. So the reruns have already started this baseball season. Bet ESPN didn’t count on those two starting when they added the game!
The Tigers offense is heating up. The White Sox offense looks like it did Sunday, which is to say, still dangerous.
Durbin had nine strikes out and allowed three hits in eight innings. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Postgame thoughts (Tigers win, 6-2) – Wow. Chad Durbin. 9 strikeouts, 3 hits, his best performance of the year, obviously, and his major career probably. He had good control, with no walks, his pitches had movement. He looked like the guy that must have baffled AAA hitters all year long in Toledo. He looked like a guy who can definitely stick around the majors as long he can consistently show that command.
Can he do that? That question remains to be answered. But for a night, Durbin was golden. He got into trouble just once, allowing a single and double with two outs before getting a strike out.
Joel Zumaya pitching the ninth, that’s a whole ‘nother story. Why was he in a 6-0 game when he may be needed tomorrow, or the next two days? I don’t know. Zumaya pitched fine for two outs and then he couldn’t throw a strike — even the few pitches that were strikes. A hit batter and four straight walks gave the White Sox a pair of runs before Todd Jones shut the door.
The Tigers bats in the upper half of the lineup are alive and well, thank you. Pudge (3), Polanco (2), Sheffield (2) and Magglio (3-for-4) combined for 10 hits, six RBIs and just one strikeout. That’s what you like to see. The rest of the lineup? maybe not so much, other than Brandon Inge, who also snared two hits.
Carlos Guillen had the day off. Jon Paul Morosi reported there’s some soreness in Guillen’s throwing shoulder.
Around the Central:
Kansas City 4, Minnesota 3 – David DeJesus’ fourth homer helped Kansas City pick up a third victory in the HHH Dome already this year. Go Royals!
Cleveland 8, Texas 7 (11 innings) – Cleveland closer Joe Borowski blew the save, but the Indians rallied for an extra innings victory. In picking up the victory, Fernando Cabrera was light’s out in extra innings, striking out five of seven batters he faced.
Sphere It
Wow. 9 strikeouts, 0 walks, an all around incredible performance from Durbin. May have been the best performance by a Tigers pitcher all year, and Bonderman had that duel against Halladay and Verlander has looked really really good at times to. Very pleasantly surprising. Let’s hope Durbin can use this as a confidence booster and keep it going.
-Scott
I was thinking the same thing about Jim using Zumaya.
Wondering why on a night like that (cold, rainy, 6 run lead) you’d use Zumaya, Rodney or Jones
instead of using some expendable young arm out of the pen to wrap
that game up (grilli, ledezma, or seay perhaps).
Seems like a damn shame to have to blow up the meat of the pen like that, and get Joels head
twisted into knots after his hard to stomach performance.
BTW, still no shutout for the tigers this year.
Great performance by Durbin last night. He really seemed to hit his spots, and didn’t even let the loud foul ball by Crede shake him (he hit it a mile). Hopefully he will be able to build on it and really contribute to the team from here on out. I was surprised to learn that he actually had 2 complete games earlier in his career though.
I have to admit to being a little baffled by the decision to use Zumaya as well. This is the first game I have watched in the since first Sox game last week, did Zumaya pitch out in LA? The only reasoning I could figure was that maybe Leyland wanted to get him some work, or he wanted to make absolutely sure that the bullpen didn’t give this game up (step on their throats in a way). Zumaya struggled with control, but I felt like he got squeezed a little bit too, especially during the ab where the batter kept backing out of the batter’s box before the pitch got there. It was good to see Jones come in and shut them down without allowing any runs, but I hated to see 2 of the top bullpen guys get used on a night where you have a 6 run lead with 3 outs to go.
freddo — I noticed there were no shutouts after last season made them commonplace. I was really looking forward to one!
tbsgc –Zumaya pitched Monday in LA with a big lead. I want to say it was six runs in that game, too. Couldn’t figure that one out earlier, because he also pitched Saturday, where he blew the lead.
The only reason I could come up with is Leyland really wanting to cement the victory. But that doesn’t sound very realistic of an answer, either.
I’m going to credit Bilfer at DTW for this one, but I’m sure it’s the right answer. Leyland used Zumaya because he had already warmed him up in case of trouble in the closer game.