By Dejan Kovacevic | 12:40 a.m. Saturday
PHILADELPHIA -- Best way to understand Zach Duke's pitching in general is to ask him about it specifically.
So, rather than ask general questions about his stuff and confidence and all that, I asked how he struck out Ryan Howard with a fastball for his final pitch of the evening.
This was his response: "If you look at it, it was a 2-2 count, and he had taken two breaking balls in a way that you could tell he was tracking them really well. If he was going to do that and I came in hard and tight, he wasn't going to be able to adjust."
Howard did not. He got 90 mph, precisely located, and swung through it.
A little extra on that pitch?
"Nope," Duke replied. "I didn't have anything extra left at that point."
It was his 115th pitch.
Linkage to the general coverage ...
> Game story: Phillies 3, Pirates 2: Ryan Doumit and Freddy Sanchez return, but the offense does not. Box score
> Audio: Duke, on being good.
> Notebook: The latest on Sanchez/trades, plus the international signings and Frank Coonelly's rejection of an ESPN report about the fourth-round draft pick.
> Audio: Doumit, on his health.
> Poll result: The Sanchez final straw question from yesterday.
> Letters to the editor: Two readers express disgust with the Pirates' trades, on our Editorial page.
And from other realms ...
> The opponent: The Phillies, as covered by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
> The Seattle Times covers the Yuniesky Betancourt trade, as well as its implications -- if any -- on the Pirates.
> Jonathan Sanchez, the San Francisco pitcher floated in all the Freddy Sanchez stuff, pitched a no-hitter early this morning.
> This is the ESPN report that Coonelly rejects, as it relates to the fourth-rounder. Peter Gammons has a lot of highly useful information in there, but I might offer my own correction, as well: Gammons writes that "the Pirates kept the media advised of their bidding on shortstop Miguel Sano." The exact opposite is the case. The Pirates have been obsessively -- bordering on militarily -- secretive about Sano. In my writings about Sano, the overwhelming majority of information has come from outside the organization.
> Murray Chass, on the Pirates: "They are one of the most confounding teams in the majors. They trade players before they have to sign them to expensive contracts, they trade players after they sign them to mildly expensive contracts, and they trade players whose contracts are still under their control."
> Tim Wakefield, overdue All-Star.
PHOTO of Duke last night: Tom Mihalek/Associated Press
Posted
Jul 11 2009, 12:40 AM
by
Dejan Kovacevic