Middling Maine
To paraphrase the utterly mortal words of one Randy Jackson, "Mainey... it was just aight for me tonight, dawg." For the second straight start Maine was effective, but a glance at his final pitching line leaves me anything but impressed. Sure, two runs allowed in 6.2 innings is great. He was generally conservative with his pitches, induced lots of flyballs, and was able to limit the damage when he did get into trouble. That was good enough to beat the Nationals tonight.
I don't think it's fair to compare Maine's first three regular season starts to that six-pack of whoop-tooshie heretofore known as his spring training performance. Spring training starts might as well occur in a vacuum given how little they correlate to regular season starts. Four walks in fewer than seven innings -- plus only four strikeouts to go against them -- probably won't get it done against the tougher teams in the National League, whomever they turn out to be (wild guess: not the Nationals).
Maine is 1-1 but has pitched shabbily enough to be 0-3, having allowed 30 baserunners in 16.2 innings anchored by a discouraging 10-to-12 strikeout-to-walk ratio. It's still early and there are plenty of small sample size (S3) oddities out there. C.C. Sabathia has a 14-to-14 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Fausto Carmona is at 17-to-8. Chris Young is at 12-to-13. Maine will get that sorted out over a large enough set of starts, but the results are unremarkable to this point.
Delgad-whoa!
Remember when Carlos Delgado looked good at the beginning of the season? I guess right now would still qualify as the beginning of the season, but he's down to .245/.351/.367 after taking an oh-fer last night. Just like old times?
WTF of the night
Chad Cordero was slinging junk in the eighth inning last night, and I'm not talking about his genitals. He hit 80 on the radar gun once, hovering in the high-seventies for the majority of his appearance. He made Angel Pagan look silly and was a Luis Castillo infield single away from a 1-2-3 inning. A return trip to the disabled list seems likely.
What else?
Carlos Beltran hit his second homerun of the season and the first that was officially recognized by the umpiring crew assigned to make those sorts of distinctions. He also picked up another walk, his thirteenth of the season. His .448 on-base percentage is drool-worthy.
Jose Reyes has come alive the last two games, collecting six hits in his last nine at-bats. He has just two walks in 52 plate appearances this season, which is bad. I guess I'll worry more about his discipline when he isn't slugging .458, but it'll be a cause for concern if his OBP is still hovering in the .320 range come June.