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First, a public information statement. If you're going to go around ringing people's doorbells and offering to cut their palm trees, you will get a much less terse and negative answer if you wait until after 9am to do it. Thank you. It does, however, mean that the Gameday Thread gets posted in a timely - if somewhat grumpy - manner. It's the finale of the Brewers series, and I'm pleased we've taken two out of three thus far. That means I can approach a Petit start with equanimity: the expected loss would still mean we've split the set, a decent result on the road, and anything else will be gravy.
I would certainly like to think that Petit is pitching for his roster spot, as the last start was rank bad. Admittedly, it would be wrong to judge him purely on that - Jon Garland had an awful one, as you may recall - but the long-ball really hurt Petit. It wasn't so much that, as that they were multi-run shots. However, all Petit's numbers are bad. His walk-rate has doubled [4.60 BB/9 IP, compared to 2.25 in 2008], and opponents are batting .333 off him [2008: .216]. To some extent, that is a BABIP issue; in his last start, even excluding the homers, the BABIP was .462! But that's just regression to the mean, after a minuscule .212 last season.
Bush meanwhile, has been close to average: three quality starts, but the wheels fell off a bit last time, the Pirates scoring five runs, four earned, in five innings. There's very little platoon split for Bush - over his career, BA, OBP and SLG are no more than seven points apart for right-handed and left-handed batters against him. He'll probably be good enough to beat Petit. Yes, the benefits of pessimism: if we lose, I'll say "told you so." If we win, I get to be pleasantly surprised.
Lineup
- Lopez 2B
- Ojeda SS
- Tracy 1B
- Reynolds 3B
- Upton RF
- Jackson LF
- Young CF
- Montero C
- Petit P
I'm just hoping our highly-paid fourth outfielder appears as a pinch-hitter and gets plunked on the glove, before the next batter homers. This would allow us to use the headline, "A Byrnes in the hand is worth two off Dave Bush." Sprankton, I hope you have your limbo shoes on for the recap, because the bar has just been set, and it seems really low...