Freddy Sanchez had six hits in six trips to the plate, knocked in three and scored four times to pace a season high 18 hit attack. Andy LaRoche and Jason Jaramillo each had three hits. Andy LaRoche drove in two runs and Nate McLouth contributed the go ahead RBI with a two run homer off of losing pitcher Neal Cotts.
Neither starter was around long as both Paul Maholm (4 IP, 7 H, 7 ER) and Ryan Dempster (4 IP, 7 H, 6 ER) were used as BP pitchers.
It was a see-saw event as there were seven ties or lead changes. Tom Gorzelanny pitched two innings to get the win. He was followed by five pitchers. Matt Capps was hit in the elbow by a line drive in the 9th inning and was pulled from the game. The P-G reports that there is no “structural damage” to his elbow. Sean Burnett relieved to seal the game.
The Good
Season high 18 hits.
Jesse Chavez is unscored upon in his last seven outings, covering seven innings.
The Bad
I don’t think it has ever been good to have a pitcher get hit in the elbow by a liner.
Maholm is allowed to have an outing like this every once in a while. But it wasn’t pretty.
The Rest
This is the second time in 2009 that Maholm has allowed six or more earned runs in a start. He did it twice in all of 2008.
This is the second time in 2009 that one player had a five hit a game and another had six hits on the same day. Today it was Sanchez and Alex Rodriguez. On 4/15/09 it was teammates Ian Kinsler (six knocks) and Marlon Byrd.
This was the 52nd time in the Retrosheet era that someone collected six or more knocks in one game. There have been 144 different instances of a player hitting for the cycle in the same time frame.
This was Jaramillo’s first three hit game of his career.
