Thursday, May 01, 2008

Inauspicious Debuts - with a bunch of updates

As I write this, the Angles trail Oakland 4-0 in the second inning. After a nice start, Nick Adenhart, making his major league debut, gave up a hit, four walks, and another hit, which led to those four runs.

It's times like these I like to recall Ervin Santana's major league debut. On May 17, 2005, Ervin Santana faced the Cleveland Indians in Cleveland. He gave up a triple to Grady Sizemore, a double to Coco Crisp, a Single to Travis Hafner, and home run to Ben Broussard. He gave up the cycle to the first four batters he faced in his career. Since that game, he's 40-29, and that inlcudes an awful year last year, plus he's only 25.

The moral of the story? Stuff happens. Adenhart will be fine.

Oh, and now it's 4-1, thanks to Jack "Glove-butcher" Cust.

Update: Now it's 5-4 Angels, thanks to Cust and a lack of mental toughness on the part of the Duke. Back to you, Nick.

Further Updated: The Angels bullpen proves that if you're the Angels brass, it's pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don't when it comes to the Angels seventh starter position.

Updated again: This is what I wrote on BTF in response to all of the doom and gloom:
Ervin Santana - Major League Debut: 4 IP, 6 ER, 8 H, 3 BB, 2 HR, and he gave up the cycle to the first four batters he faced.

Ervin Santana - Next Major League Start: 9 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 1BB, 7 K. That was against the eventual World Champion White Sox.

Something tells me that when a kid who is a top prospect is called up and stuggles in his debut, it's not the end of the world. It's May fer chrissakes. Can we please pull back from the ledge?

1 comment:

Rob said...

Adenhart had slightly worse peripherals than Santana in the minors, but on review, I don't think they were that much worse. I'm not worried about him in the future, but I do think he should be spending as much time as possible in 2008 at AAA.