Virgil’s debut an odyssey
posted in 2007 season |Jim Leyland’s advice to Virgil Vasquez before his major league and ESPN debut:
I’ll have a little talk with him. In a case like this, you don’t want to go overboard to relax him, but you don’t want to go overboard to ignore him, either.
I’ll say, ‘Tell your parents you’re going to be on national TV — and tell them to tune in early, just in case things don’t work out.’
Good advice. So prescient.
That wasn’t exactly like Tigers fans hoped Vasquez would pitch in his major league debut — it was an adventure with every pitch. He left the ball up pretty much every time he threw it. It wasn’t pretty at all. By the time it was over in less than three innings, six runs crossed home, nine Twins hitters reached safely and Torii Hunter homered. Give Vasquez his due: he came back to strike Hunter out his next at bat. But it was just a bad outing.
You can’t really analyze it too much. Vasquez pitched. Twins batters watched the ball soar at batting practice height or above. He had some bad HHHorrordome luck — ask Bonderman about that — but no doubt, this was his own doing. Some might be tempted to believe Vasquez has no place in the majors, and if every pitch came off his hand like that, I’d agree with them. But there’s no way he struck out 50 batters in 40-2/3 innings throwing that. He just couldn’t show any of his stuff tonight in his debut.
He’ll go went back down to Toledo after the game, there’s no doubt about it. He may have made for some interesting debates had he thrown a complete game shutout, but this was a spot start.
I thought I’d look at two other Tigers pitching debuts lately: Justin Verlander in a spot start in 2005 against Cleveland, and Zach Miner in a test start in 2006 against Boston. While both had better results to show for the effort in the earned run column, both lost. and if you look at the number of pitches thrown and strikes, you’ll notice Vasquez was actually on a better pace than either Verlander or Miner.
Debuts: Verlander, Miner and Vasquez
| Debutee | IP | H | ER | BB | K | HR | Pitch-strikes | Dec. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin Verlander | 5-1/3 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 95-54 | L |
| Zach Miner | 4-0 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 87-47 | L |
| Virgil Vasquez | 2-2/3 | 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 73-43 | L |
Update: Tigers lose, 13… wait! 16-4. Vasquez’ pitching line is actually not that bad when you look at any of his pitching mates today! Oy
Update 2: Vasquez back to Toledo is official
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