Have you ever thrown a ball 100 miles an hour? Everything hurts. Even your ass hurts.
-- Bob Gibson
Today's action gets underway in about fifteen minutes, in the stadium named after Hillenbrand, where Doug Davis, winless in 7 starts since June 22, tries once more for his 10th win of the season.
We have, in fact, a number of interesting pitching stories to look forward to.
Blue Jays fans will of course be watching Dustin McGowan make his second career start this afternoon - he's matched up with Jose Contreras this afternoon at US Cellular.
And we should all be interested to see what happens in Detroit, where Seattle's 19 year old phenom, Felix Hernandez, will make his major league debut. Comerica is a good park for a first appearance, and the Tigers are a good team for a young hard thrower who's been walking a few too many in Triple A. The Tigers have drawn fewer walks than any team in the AL. Sean Douglass goes for Detroit - Oakland roughed him up in his last start, driving his ERA from 2.10 to 3.86, and tagging him with his first loss of the season.
Matt Clement is back on the mound in Fenway, nine days after taking a line drive to the back of the head. Good to see.
But the day's best matchup is probably this afternoon's game in Philadelphia. Everybody knows about Mark Prior, and everybody ought to know about Brett Myers. Myers will turn 25 in two weeks - this is his third full season in the Philadelphia rotation and he's taken a big step forward this year.
Here's what's on:
AL
Kansas City (Carrasco 5-5, 4.37) at Boston (Clement 10-3, 4.43) 1:05
Seattle (Hernandez 0-0, 0.00) at Detroit (Douglass 3-1, 3.86) 1:05
Oakland (Zito 10-8, 3.72) at Minnesota (Lohse 7-10, 4.49) 1:10
Toronto (McGowan 0-0, 1.80) at Chicago (Contreras 6-6, 4.58) 2:05
Baltimore (Lopez 9-6, 4.85) at Los Angeles (Santana 6-4, 5.19) 4:05
New York (Chacon 1-7, 3.78) at Cleveland (Millwood 5-9, 3.18) 7:05
Tampa Bay (Fossum 6-8, 3.83) at Texas (Benoit 3-1, 1.94) 8:05
NL
Milwaukee (Davis 9-7, 4.01) at New York (Benson 7-4, 3.40) 12:10
San Diego (Lawrence 5-11, 4.50) at Pittsburgh (Redman 5-11, 4.30) 12:35
Chicago (Prior 7-3, 3.26) at Philadelphia (Myers 9-5, 3.21) 1:05
Colorado (Acevedo 2-1, 4.85) at San Francisco (Rueter 2-7, 5.95) 3:35
Los Angeles (Penny 5-6, 3.62) at Washington (Patterson 4-3, 2.60) 7:05
Atlanta (Davies 5-3, 4.34) at Cincinnati (Harang 7-9, 3.81) 7:10
Floridsa (Burnett 8-6, 3.30) at St.Louis (Suppan 10-7, 4.28) 8:10
Houston (Rodriguez 6-4, 5.90) at Aizona (Halsey 7-7, 3.81)
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050804023915616