Thursday’s First Pitch

Leading Off

Ty Wigginton hit another home run yesterday, and you know what that means. Of course, maybe I should be more upset about the double play he grounded into with the bases loaded. But his home runs are loss predictors, so I sure wish he’d stop that!

The Good

Ubaldo Jimenez. 7 innings pitched, 2 earned runs on 4 hits and 2 walks. He wasn’t dominant, and he had one tough inning in which the White Sox scored both their runs, but he kept things under control. He also picked White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle off 2nd base, which was pretty kick-ass since usually Buehrle’s the one picking guys off.

The Bad

The winning run scored in the top of the 9th after Huston Street gave up a pair of singles. A.J. Pierzynski flied out to left and Seth Smith made a terrible throw to home. Chris Iannetta couldn’t come up with it. The Huston-Seth-Chris triumvirate combined to allow that run to score, and any one of them should have been able to stop it.

The Ugly

The Rockies scored 2 runs yesterday, both on solo homers by Wigginton and Jason Giambi. Giambi came to the plate after Jonathan Herrera hit into a double play. If he’d managed to get on, that’s a 3-run home run for the Giambino. Wiggy chose to lead off the 7th inning with his home run, and when he came to bat in the 8th with the bases loaded and 1 out, he hit into a double play. Just bad, bad situational hitting. Period.

On Deck

Daily Matchup coming in a bit. I expect Todd Helton in the lineup for his 2,000th career game this afternoon!