I went to bed last night after the grand slam in the bottom of the seventh made the Twins' deficit 3-9 and so missed Willians Astudillo's pitching performance in the bottom of the eighth. You can watch it above. Changing "speeds" and painting the corners, he retired the Angels 1-2-3 on seven pitches. Worked quickly, too. Two of the outs were liners to the third baseman and the third was a 3-hopper to shortstop. As honest pitchers have confessed, just throw it over the plate and batters will get themselves out. Plus, it's not as if there aren't seven guys with gloves standing behind you within the right angle where batters must hit the ball.
The great ones always make it look easy.
In another strong pitching performance last night, Max Scherzer, of the Nationals, allowed four base runners—two hits and two walks—over seven innings, no runs, 10 strikeouts. He remains winless this season. The only run in last night's game scored on a solo homer in the ninth.
I wish I had seen Bob Gibson pitch more, and I wonder whether the youth of today will wish they'd paid more attention to Scherzer. Probably not: youth and baseball are wasted on the young. Scherzer is a machine, however. Someone recently set out on social media his road-home splits over the course of his career so far.
| Home | Away | |
| Games Started | 184 | 185 |
| Innings Pitched | 1182.0 | 1181.1 |
| Win/Lose Record | 87-45 | 88-48 |
| Strikeouts | 1395 | 1398 |
| Hits Allowed | 979 | 979 |
| Opponent BA | .223 | .224 |
| Opponent OPS | .656 | .656 |
| Hits as a Batter | 39 | 39 |
Coincidence accounts for some of this, and perhaps an artful selection of statistical categories, but still.
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