Tonight, we all saw why we're going to miss Kris Medlen so much. In his return to the mound, Kenshin Kawakami got destroyed by the Marlins and gave up five runs in three innings. He gave up five hits and walked four batters, and his command was horrible in all three innings. To be perfectly honest, Kenshin is probably lucky that he only have up five runs in his brief appearance. The Marlins were all over his pitches and even the outs were on line drives.
I know that a few of the advanced stats say differently, but the fact is that Kenshin Kawakami is not a very good pitcher anymore. Whenever he starts, it seems like we're constantly behind from the early innings. And I know that we don't score for him, but it's more than just bad luck at this point. Why is it that he's the only pitcher that we haven't scored for since April? It's something to think about. Fortunately for us, only Lowe or Kawakami will make one more start for us this season if Bobby uses the off-days to skip over their spot in the rotation. At this point, neither guy has any business pitching in a playoff race. Good grief.
Logan Morrison tripled down the right field line to drive in the first run of the game, and Hanley Ramirez followed with an RBI double. Kenshin Kawakami did do himself a favor in the 2nd inning and drove in the Braves first run of the game with a 2-out single up the middle.
Chad Tracy came right back int the 3rd inning, and drove in two runners with a double to right field. Brad Davis than followed up with a sac-fly to make the score 5-1. Dan Uggla, better known as Braves Killer, doubled in the 4th inning to score Hanley Ramirez from 1st. The score was 6-1 after the 4th inning. and it would stay that way.
Recent call-ups Scott Proctor and Mike Dunn both pitched two innings on Friday and both looked alright. I doubt we'll be seeing either of them in a 1-run game in the 8th inning, but both could be good for us in a blowout. Kyle Farnsworth allegedly worked a 1-2-3 inning in the 8th inning, but I'm not buying it.
The Phillies won, so our lead in the East is 1 game. Cool.
It's probably going to be a tough game tomorrow, as we'll face ace Josh Johnson. Jair Jurrjens will counter for the Braves, but he's been one of the worst pitchers in baseball on the road this season. First pitch is at 7:10.