Nothing wrong with Wang's outing - 棒球

Nothing wrong with Wang's outing
August 10, 2011 12:10 AM by Phil Wood

I don't know whether Chien-Ming Wang is a country music fan or not, but
I'd like to think he walked off the mound in the bottom of the sixth last
night with the old Toby Keith tune "How Do You Like Me Now?" playing in
his head.

Six one-hit, shutout innings is only one start, I know, but it should at
least quiet some of Wang's critics following his first two starts, which
resulted in losses. Wrigley Field is no picnic for many pitchers, but
particularly ones who are coming off roughly a two-year layoff. The
command was there - shades of his days in Yankee pinstripes - and the
defense behind him kept the Nats in the game until they were able to go
deep - twice - against Matt Garza, for whom the Cubs rarely seem to score
many runs.

GM Mike Rizzo joined us Monday on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Report and
confirmed that, barring some kind of setback, Wang would be on the mound
every fifth day for the remainder of the season. If his performance
remains consistent - though no one expects him to only give up one hit
every six innings - he'll further muddy the picture insofar as
Washington's April 2012 starting rotation is concerned, but that's a g
ood kind of mud.

I was admittedly relieved when Tony Campana's hard groundball off of
Michael Morse's glove was ruled a hit in the sixth; I saw no way that
Davey Johnson would allow Wang to go nine, even if a no-hitter was intact,
if his pitch count wasn't below 90 after eight innings. As it was, he
threw 81 pitches - 53 strikes - before coming out for a pinch-hitter in
the top of the 7th.

Wang's ERA dipped from 6.00 to a far more impressive 3.60 - right around
his career-best - after three starts. It's really too small of a sample
to read anything definitive into, but it's a major step in the right
direction.


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