Saturday, August 26, 2006

Hernandez Dominates Blue Jays

Game Date: August 26, 2006
Game Score: Royals 2, Blue Jays 0 / Box Score
WP: Hernandez (4–8), LP: Halladay (16–4)
Royal Home Runs: Teahen (17), Shealy (3)
Royals Record: 47-84

Don’t be surprised if this game ends up as a “Sign of the Apocalypse” in Sports Illustrated next week. Runelvys Hernandez threw a seven-hit shutout and beat Roy Halladay. I’m not a betting man, but I’d love to have seen the line on this game before it started. It had to have been astronomical. But, as they say, that’s why the play that games. You never know what’s going to happen.

Halladay really only made two mistakes all day. He left a pitch up to Mark Teahen in the first inning and Teahen crushed the ball off the right field foul pole. Then Halladay left a pitch up to Shealy in the third inning and Shealy smashed his third home run of the season. At one point, Halladay was pitching so well that he’d only thrown four balls in the first four innings. His final numbers weren’t bad either. He threw 110 pitches—84 of which were strikes. Wow.

But this day belonged to Hernandez—who threw his first career shutout. He threw 121 pitches (86 of which were strikes) and he only walked one guy. Impressive outing. I’m not sure why he looks so good one outing and then horrible for two or three, but it’s hard to argue with what he did today. And his excellent outing finally gave the bull pen a little relief.

Tomorrow afternoon in Toronto, Odalis Perez (5–5, 6.11) goes against Ted Lilly (10–11, 4.64). Perez is 2–0 in his career against the Blue Jays with a 0.59 ERA. Lilly is 0–1 against the Royals with a 5.93 ERA.

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