Maybe you saw the comment from yesterday afternoon, when Mike in IN was decided whether to hang with friends or go to Indianapolis to see Francisco Liriano pitch. He chose Liriano and filed this report, which makes things sound better than the lefty’s pitching line.

Mike offered up this endorsement for minor-league ball: “The game actually got a lot more exciting after he left. Being able to watch a exciting back-and-forth game and thoroughly enjoy it despite ‘my’ team losing on a walk-off three-run home run reminded me why I love going to minor-league games. If the Twins lost like that, I’d be grumpy for a couple hours.”

Here’s the Mike in IN report:

Francisco Liriano gave up 5 runs on 9 hits in 5 innings (7 strikeouts, 1 walk, and giving up 2 HR). Perhaps I am being overly optimistic, but I thought he looked better than that ugly line. He touched the mid-90s on the radar gun (which the radio guys claimed was as accurate as can be found in MiLB), and the ball popped into the mitt impressively. Plus, he stayed ahead in the count fairly consistently. I saw some weak, off-balance swings, and four of the Indians’ hits off him were infield hits. Two that stood out were lucky ’swinging bunts’ that were promptly followed by towering home runs. He left after the fifth having thrown 88 pitches. The Indians’ starter, former #1 overall draft pick Bryan Bullington, lasted only 2 2/3 innings.

The Redwings later regained the lead with two out in the 7th on some nice hitting and base running–a single by Ryan Jorgensen, an RBI triple by Span (who then scored on a wild pitch), a triple by Pridie, and then an RBI single by McDonald. This made up for being perhaps too aggressive on the base paths earlier: Span and McDonald were both caught stealing in the first and McDonald got caught off 2nd base on a grounder back to the Bullington in the third.

In relief of Liriano, Casey Daigle and Bobby Korecky held the Indians hitless for the next 3 2/3 innings, but, unfortunately, Korecky gave up a one-out walk, a two-out walk, then a three-run walk-off home run just over the LF fence: Indianapolis 8, Rochester 7, Indy crowd going crazy. Korecky looked impressive, but the Indians strung together some nice, long at-bats at the end. He was asked to get a 7-out save of what was a one-run game (until McDonald drove in an insurance run in the 9th), and Korecky came up one out short. It was a fun game to watch even though the Redwings lost.

Thanks, Mike.

One more thing: We were at the Twins game last night watching the Big Unit get crunched by the Twins, mostly by the six-run rally that was ignited by the bottom of the order — Delmon, Harris and Macri last night. It got me ‘n’ Ms. Baseball to think that the lower part of the order may need a nickname if it continues to provide key hits on an fairly regular basis.

In the spirit of the Piranhas of days gone by, Section 220 humbly suggests the following: “The Twins knocked around the Big Unit on Friday night, beating him and his Arizona Diamondbacks 7-2 behind a six-run rally ignited by the Bottom Feeders — Young, Harris and Macri — who combined for four hits in 10 at-bats in the 7-8-9 spots in the batting order.”

Whaddya think?

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Guest post, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.