Nolan Ryan’s recent edict was that pitchers in our entire organization need to pitch longer into games. He must have loved this one. Matt Harrison pitched a complete game shutout. His line was specacular. Nine innings pitched, five hits, four walks, and ZERO runs allowed. The kind of line that would make any team president happy, but one with the pedigree of Nolan’s? Oh yeah, he was loving that. It also was a historic win, too, as Matt Harrison is now a record holder for a lefthand rookie pitcher with eight wins.
Offensively Hank Blalock had another home run, and looked like he had a second (would have been a slam), but it didn’t quite get out. Chris Davis hit a few balls around the yard hard, too. Taylor Teagarden also continued to shine offensively with another home run. Extra base hits were the order of the night, as we had six of them (out of 10 hits). Three doubles (Hamilton, Davis, Laird), one triple (Davis), and two home runs (Blalock, Davis).
But the night belonged to Matt Harrison. Nights like this will go a long way towards 2009. However, one always wonders about these kinds of things. I’ve seen a ton of pitchers have great Septembers, but by the time spring training comes around, they seem to have forgotten all of this. Hopefully it sticks around.