Thursday, March 01, 2007

Third pitcher of the game Russ Ortiz. Russ was the pitching AND hitting star of the game. Russ pitched 3 innings, facing the minimum number of batters on only 36 pitches. The Cubs really didn't hit anything hard off of Ortiz. I remembered Russ as a fly ball pitcher but 5 of his 9 outs were on ground balls, 3 were on strikeouts (2 looking) and only one out was recorded by a ball hit into the air....and that was on a foul popup to 3B. Russ was corner pitching very effectively, as his 2 called strikeouts attest. He also had several swing-throughs on fastballs. Hard to tell from my location......but I believe the reports that his fastball is 4-5 MPH faster than the last couple of years....it sure looked like it anyway. I also remember Russ as not a great control guy.......but he had only one 3 ball count and only two 2 ball counts. Who is this pitcher and what did he do with Russ Ortiz?

As if that wasn't enough, Russ also was the hitting star of the game. In the 6th inning, Russ came to bat with the bases loaded and 1 out. I thought Bochy would send up a pinch hitter, since Russ had already thrown 2 innings, but that was not the case. On a 2-0 count, Russ rapped a bases clearing double, for a sweet 3 RBI. He really didn't hit the ball hard, he just hit it where it was pitched and found an open area in the alley. All in all........not a bad game for Russ.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Russ Ortiz also looks like he finally dropped that pregnancy weight.

Anonymous said...

Thank god he can still hit...

Ah, that photo is beautiful :) It's great to see him back and with what I'm hearing about him so far this spring, we may have committed grand theft considering Arizona's still footing the bill for his big contract.

Reminds me of the days we ripped off the Dodgers (Goodwin, Grissom, Herges in 2003)

Giantfan9 said...

True story....after his first two innings and the double.....a man in a D-Back's hat turned to me and said "Why couldn't he do that for us?"

Anonymous said...

Success for Russ is a real thrill for me since I was so sorry to see him go. His 3rbi are just frosting on the cake.

Anonymous said...

Glad to have Russ back. He does look thinner this spring. Man, imagine if he..... I'll try not to get my hopes too high.

#33Fan

Anonymous said...

Hey Russ could be the good luck charm for us this year. But seeing him brings back bad memory a little bit. Hah Dusty why man?

TNGiants said...

Great to have Russ back and I am SO hoping that he pitches well...one of my favorite Giants of all time. Him and Rich are the first two players I remember following their progress through the minors once I started paying attention to the minors. Russ has always struck me as the type of pitcher who was always on the edge of flirting with disaster. If he was on the good side of the line he was very good but once he crossed to the bad side he was just awful. It's been so hard watching what he has been going through the last few years and hope that he rebounds and crosses back over that line.