Nick Masset was Ozzie Guillen's last resort when he went to the bullpen in
Sunday's victory over the Giants.
He hoped Ehren Wassermann could get through a whole inning, as he had to face two lefties to begin his outing. He couldn't.
He hoped Matt Thornton could put a quick end to the rally. The Giants hammered his first pitches, and Thorndog continued to leave pitches up thereafter.
He didn't want to use Octavio Dotel for the fifth time in the week, but with an off day Monday, he sent Dotel out for the eighth. He couldn't find the strike zone.
After that point, Ozzie had Scott Linebrink (four outings in five days), Bobby Jenks (four outings in four days), and Masset (two whole appearances in May).
Obviously, had workload not been a concern, Masset would've gone another day without work. As it turned out, Ozzie Guillen's contigency plan performed like his first choice. Four pitches, four strikes, four outs in the eighth, and a 1-2-3 ninth sealed the sweep.
After Sunday's scoreless two innings, here's how Masset's season shapes up thus far:
| |
G |
IP |
H |
R |
ER |
HR |
BB |
K |
IR |
IS |
ERA |
WHIP |
| vs. Twins |
3 |
8.1 |
13 |
9 |
9 |
1 |
6 |
9 |
6 |
6 |
9.72 |
2.28 |
| vs. Rest |
6 |
12.2 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
12 |
5 |
2 |
0.00 |
0.79 |
| Total |
9 |
21 |
18 |
9 |
9 |
1 |
11 |
21 |
11 |
8 |
3.86 |
1.38 |
Nick Magic doesn't appear to work on the Twins, and this would probably be a good place for a Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft analogy if I knew the first thing about either. Alas.
These are small sample sizes for sure, but if Ehren Wassermann can't put together consecutive decent outings, Masset has to slide one notch up the totem pole. That would certainly be a massive bonus to an already solid bullpen, considering Masset only won a bullpen job because of his roster status.
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Two updates to the doings of the past few days:
No news on Juan Uribe's hamstring, but Alexei Ramirez had handled the position well in his absence.
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Minor league roundup:- Charlotte 6, Durham 3
- Charlie Haeger allowed one earned run over eight innings on five hits and two walks. He struck out four.
- Brad Eldred hit his 15th homer of the year. He has seven homers in his last nine games, and is second in the International League.
- Jeff Liefer, Royce Huffman, Fernando Cortez and Paul Phillips each had two hits.
- Birmingham 3, Jacksonville 2
- Maurice Gartrell hit a two-run shot, and Javier Castillo hit a solo homer to provide the runs.
- Fresh off the DL, Fernando Hernandez pitched 1 1/3 perfect innings of relief and picked up the win.
- Ryan O'Malley allowed one run over five innings, allowing four hits, three walks and striking out four.
- Kinston 1, Winston-Salem 0 (Susp. 5th innings)
- The Warthogs will resume this game trying to avoid a no-hitter.
- Matt Zaleski allowed one run over five innings.
- Hagerstown 7, Kannapolis 4
- Greg Paiml and Matt Inyoue had three hits apiece.
- Just found out that Jose Martinez is on the DL.
- Jose Moreno allowed three runs over four innings, and allowed two homers.