Clay Hensley: Another rough outing for Clay. He gave up two runs in the first and was lucky that it wasn’t worse, a line shot to Marcus Giles led to a double play to end the inning. He settled down a little after that but his pitches never really looked good. His sinker didn’t have the usual life and he didn’t have command either. This is the third bad outing by a starter in the last 4 games.
Clay gave up two runs in the 1st, then went 1-2-3 in the 2nd and the 3rd before giving up another in the 4th and imploding for 4 in the 5th and 3 more when he inexplicably came out to start the 6th. The easy 2nd and 3rd gave the impression that Clay had righted the ship but his pitches didn’t look any better to me, the Cubs hitters just didn’t capitalize. The only reason the 4th wasn’t any worse is he got a double play, he couldn’t find the plate and when he did the Cubs weren’t missing anything.
Mark Grant pointed out that Clay’s mechanics were out of whack and he was correct. Some pitches he really fell towards first, others he was almost upright after the pitch. Not coincidentally, his pitches didn’t have their usual movement and his control was wildly inconsistent.
The Padres were very lucky to be down by only 3 after 4 innings, it was obvious Hensley had nothing tonight. I was very surprised to see him come back out for the 5th. It reminded me of classic Bochy: leave a pitcher in too long just to get an opportunity to pinch hit for him the next inning. I hope it was that and not because Black wanted him to get 5 innings to be eligible for the decision. Sure enough, Hensley got rocked in the 5th and it’s now 7-1. What I really don’t get is why Hensley was back out for the 6th. Had Black given up on the game by that point? Resting the bullpen? Bell, Meredith and Trevor were all fresh and available. Meredith can go two, Bell probably can as well.
Mike Thompson: Eh, he is what he is. Sometimes he limps through a few innings without a run, other times he gets hit. Tonight was the latter.
Heath Bell: I didn’t see too much of Bell today, 1 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 1 K looks good though.
MLB didn’t provide enhanced Gameday data for this game so no charts until the Padres come back to Petco.
Update: Bud Black has said that he was hoping to get 6 innings out of Hensley because the bullpen was tired after the LA series. Bud is certainly more qualified than I to make that judgement so I can’t be critical of how long he let Hensley go. At least the blister wasn’t a problem…
2 responses so far ↓
1 Didi // Apr 18, 2007 at 10:33 am
Perhaps,the blister problem led to the mechanic problem?
I didn’t see the game so I’m only going on a hunch here.
Also, Leitner mentioned that a couple of the big hits were off balls low in the strike zone. Is that true?
2 Anthony // Apr 18, 2007 at 11:41 am
Good point. Whatever the reason, he just didn’t look comfortable.
Clay’s pitches just didn’t have any life on them so they were easy to hit even low in the zone. He did throw a few with good movement and great location that were taken for strikes but he just couldn’t repeat it.
Leave a Comment