posted on Sunday, April 08, 2007 4:16 PM by Jim

'Hey, rookie! You were good.'

Considering the John Danks Era began with Johan Santana taking the mound for the opposition, a win would have been asking for too much.  So the rookie did the second-best thing, giving the Sox a quality start and a chance to win under any other set of circumstances.

Nam Y. Huh / APOutside of one bad inning, Danks more than held his own during his major-league debut, and the way the Twins beat Danks should encourage the Sox. 

It took their three best hitters to solve the Sox rookie.  Joe Mauer and Mike Cuddyer hit fairly good pitches for singles to lead off the inning, and then Danks tried too hard to get the first strike on Justin Morneau, and ended up serving up the perfect fastball for a lefty to rip: belt-high, middle-in.  Morneau wasn't going to miss that pitch. 

After Morneau christened Danks with the blast over the right field wall, Danks seemed to settle in, starting with a three-pitch strikeout of Torii Hunter.  Before that, Danks survived the first three innings but shied away from the strike zone.  He didn't allow a hit, but he walked two and threw 56 pitches over the first three innings.  In his last three, he threw 41, including 32 to retire the last nine hitters he faced.

A pitcher can learn something when getting beat by good hitters.  For instance, the next time Morneau came up, all of Danks' fastballs stayed on or just off the outside corner, and he struck out the 2006 MVP on three pitches.

But when pitchers get slapped to death by the Jason Tyners, Nick Puntos and Mike Redmonds of the world, the only thing you learn is that you're not pitching well.  Sox starters became all too familiar with that reality last year, when the other six hitters in the lineup hit .308 against the Sox last year combined (91-for-295).

Danks didn't have that problem today.  Luis Castillo, Punto, Hunter, Redmond, Tyner and Jason Bartlett went 1-for-15.

Comments

# re: 'Hey, rookie! You were good.'

Monday, April 09, 2007 4:05 AM by tjrako2
The Pirahnas didn't attack!!!

Watched the game and after the homerun I thought
that it was going to be bad with the way Danks was nibbling around the plate. Buehrle could learn something from Danks on not falling apart after giving up a homerun!
Do not know if it was the weather but Danks has a moving fastball which is good!!

Tom

# re: 'Hey, rookie! You were good.'

Monday, April 09, 2007 9:47 AM by Jim Margalus
I'm not sure how much the weather had to do with it. I think it was affecting curves and sliders more than anything else. Santana was almost exclusively fastball-changeup, as was Vazquez the day before.

Either way, that couple extra m.p.h. he has on his fastball makes a difference. He made some pitches Buehrle couldn't last year.