Sox Machine

Gavin Floyd: One-hit wonder

Gavin Floyd's dynamite one-hitter against the Twins Tuesday night was unlike any start in his career.

Gavin Floyd's dynamite one-hitter against the Twins Tuesday night was just like every start this season.

Peripherally, Floyd's performance in 2008 entering Tuesday looked unsustainable in just about every way.  He had walked as many as he struck out (15 apiece) and considering his strikeout rate was below-average compared to the rest of the league, it made that .176 batting average allowed appear to be the product of great fortune.

So what does he do?  He walks too many (three) and strikes out too few (four) over 8 1/3 innings, and holds the Twins to an .038 average.

Such is the charmed life for Floyd, who is slowly getting people to believe in him ... by confusing the crap out of them.  I just don't exactly know what I'm watching when Floyd's on the mound.

It's still early in the season, but 20 percent of Floyd's year is in the books now, and he hasn't had one bad start yet.  His worst was a ... well, I don't want to say heroic, so let's say stouthearted ... a stouthearted effort through two rain delays against the Yankees that paid off big-time.  Discouting weather-altered efforts, his worst outing still resulted in a quality start.

Still, I'm not sure how he got here.  Take Tuesday night for example.  He walked two in the first inning while getting acclimated to Dana Demuth's strike zone, and Justin Morneau made quality contact off him -- it just happened to be right at Paul Konerko.  No damage done.

It was similar to his outing against the Tigers April 12, where he walked four of the first 12 batters he faced and still carried a no-hit bid into the seventh inning.  Still, that one was easier to explain because double plays were his friend that day.

The Twins, on the other hand, didn't really stress the defense.  Nor did they stress Floyd.  I expected them to go after more fastballs, but maybe Floyd kept them honest enough.  He only threw a couple changeups on the night, but one of them was a 1-0 change to fastball-jumping Michael Cuddyer on which he was way out in front in the first inning.  That seemed to keep him at bay.

And while he snapped off some beautiful curveballs -- the two he threw to Brendan Harris leading off the ninth inning were overpowering -- he struggled to locate them for large chunks of the night.  He mainly went fastball-slider, and he had the Twins against the ropes with them.

Granted, the Twins aren't a punishing offensive club, but they hit well for average (third in the AL) and don't strike out (12 in the AL).  Against a guy who doesn't miss many bats, a run at a no-no didn't seem doable.  Floyd did it, and now we just have to try to figure out if he'll keep doing it.

What I have difficulty reconciling is the idea that Floyd is vulnerable from the stretch.  His fastball loses 3-4 m.p.h. and he doesn't give catchers a chance to throw out basestealers, but with a WHIP under 1.00, he spends most of his time in the windup.

It's not that much different from Jose Contreras when he won 17 straight.  He didn't strike many guys out, but he cut his walks and his splitter kept the hits down enough to where baserunners were an afterthought.

But to pitch like that takes serious cojones, and Floyd has been described as a guy who's scared of his own shadow.  If I were OK with using results to explain the means, I'd say "he knows how to pitch."  But outside of chalking it up entirely to luck, which is unfair for six starts, I don't quite know how else to figure it out.

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If nothing else, Floyd's stellar night took some of the focus off Ozzie Guillen's flashbomb and the even more pointless doll controversy, and he should receive a medal for that.  I figured the shock over men being boys went away when Ball Four was published almost 40 years ago.  Rick Telander gets it, and so does Rick Morrissey, at least.

To recap:

• Some were offended, with Carol Slezak serving as the most prominent voice.
• The White Sox kind of apologized.
• Ozzie doesn't want to.
• MLB is investigating.

Oddly enough, the longer this drags on, the funnier it gets.  The shrine idea was juvenile and stupid.  Now Major League Baseball is exploring the use of blow-up dolls -- that's stuff you can't make up.  Otherwise, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to care about any of this, but I figured I would toss it out there in case anybody else begged to differ.

The only problem that came out of Floyd's no-hitter is that we're back to Hawk Harrelson being blamed for jinxing it.  If anybody needs to point a finger, it may as well be directed at Ozzie for not replacing Nick Swisher with Brian Anderson.  But I'm not in a complaining mood right now.

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Juan Uribe earned a temporary reprieve from complaints as well, at least for one day.  After the Sox failed to convert their second straight runner-on-third-one-out situation, ¡Profundo! picked up Joe Crede with a single that gave the Sox a key insurance run, stretching the lead to 3-1.

He enjoyed his second straight two-hit night, which is one more than Alexei Ramirez and Pablo Ozuna have on the season combined.  There wasn't a need to put him on the ejection seat at this moment, and I'm grateful Joe Cowley's intuition served him wrong.

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Minor league roundup:

• Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 4, Charlotte 0
• Jerry Owens and Paul Phillips had the Knights' two lone hits on the evening, as they were shut down by Ian Kennedy.
• Josh Fields didn't play for the second straight day.
• Wes Whisler dropped his first, allowing four runs (three earned) over seven innings, allowing seven hits, a walk and striking out four.
• Birmingham 7, Montgomery 4
• Miguel Negron went 1-for-1 with two RBI and three walks.
• Kyle McCulloch was lucky to escape with two runs (one earned) allowed over five innings.  He gave up five hits and walked four.
• Winston-Salem 8, Lynchburg 1
• The only hit Aaron Poreda allowed over seven innings was a solo homer.  He struck out seven and only walked one.
• John Shelby doubled twice and drove in two, and has nine RBI over his last four games.
• C.J. Retherford and Sergio Miranda also had two RBI, and Francisco Hernandez and Brandon Allen had two hits.
• Lake County 3, Kannapolis 1 (Game 1, 7 innings)
• Jason Rice threw a one-hitter, but the one hit was also a solo homer, and two runs came across to score after he walked the bases loaded in the second.  He struck out six over six.
  
• Danny Jordan hit a solo homer to provide the Intimidators' only run; Logan Johnson had the only other hit.
• Lake County 2, Kannapolis 2 (Game 2, 7 innings)
• Levi Maxwell joined Poreda and Rice by allowing one hit in his start over four innings.  That hit was a two-run homer, runing an otherwise quality outing.  He walked one and struck out five.
• John Curtis went 2-for-3 and had the lone RBI.