7:05 PM, FSNP, WPGB
John Van Benschoten (0-2, 4.22) vs. Sergio Mitre (2-3, 2.34). Mitre rolled over the Bucs on May 15 and has delivered five good starts out of six since then. In the month of May, he had a 1.12 ERA with 29 strikeouts and six walks in 40.1 innings. He's been a little cooler since then, and with the Marlins' defense, there's no way he's going to be able to keep up anything near a 2.34 ERA, but he still has just 13 walks in almost 70 innings.
Here's the box. Ryan Doumit is behind the dish tonight, so yay.
I'll be in the comments for this one.
A few notes for today:
-P- The Post-Gazette has some news from the minors. Jason Delaney, who'd been hitting .340/.432/.536 for Lynchburg, has been promoted to Altoona. At 24, Delaney has to move quickly to have a big-league career, but he's done nothing but hit so far this year. Also, the Bucs have signed their fifth round draft pick, catcher Andrew Walker - I assume he'll go to State College. And ninth round pick Anthony Watson mowed down Batavia in his second start, which was only a little less statistically impressive than his first.
-P- The Trib documents Jason Kendall's struggles - he's hitting .215/.254/.259 while making $12.8 million ($5.5 million of which is being paid by the Pirates). All those years of playing 150 games for the Pirates (and then for the A's) are catching up to him, and he's done, done, done. It's surprising that the always-proactive Billy Beane hasn't made some serious effort to replace him. However, something may happen soon - the A's have told Mike Piazza that he's going to catch some once he returns from injury, and the team also called up prospect Kurt Suzuki a couple weeks ago.
-P- The Trib also has an article on the protest that will take place on Saturday.