Particularly impressive was the season debut of Ivan Nova. In 6 innings, he allowed 3 earned runs on 6 hits and 1 walk, and struck out 3. He was efficient, throwing 83 pitches through his 6 innings of work, and showed the confidence and maturity on the mound his second and third time through a lineup, something that escaped him last season, after running into trouble in the 4th and 5th innings. With the Twins closing in, he got Joe Mauer to ground out on a curveball in the 5th and then struck out Jim Thome in the 6th to keep the lead intact. He wasn't dominating, but he didn't have to be and didn't try to be. Nova's 5 swing strikes weren't as important as the 20 strikes that were put in play by the Twins. He trusted his defense, kept the ball down in the zone, and pitched to contact, particularly ground ball contact (11 ground ball outs to 4 fly ball outs). I'll take that 25 hours a day, 8 days a week.
6 quality innings from Ivan Nova, giving the team what they needed after a loss and picking up the lackluster performance from Phil Hughes the previous day. Yes sir, just how the Yankees drew it up. Wait, what?
(Nova The Terrible returns. Even though he was pretty good last night.)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment