by John Scanlan<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jason Schmidt did not look like a major league pitcher last night. Yes, he \u201cwon\u201d the game, but he topped out at 86 MPH and was consistently 83-84.<\/p>\n
Aside from the balls that hit the wall, he gave up several hard hit balls that were fortunate to find gloves.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still a great story though. Granted, it\u2019s tough to pull for someone who has only started 7 times despite making $47 million, but good on Schmidt for continuing to try and come back. He could have just sat back and collected his money, but he busted his hump to try and contribute.<\/p>\n
That being said, there\u2019s no way the Dodgers should even consider relying upon him or be fooled into thinking that he\u2019s back. He\u2019s not the Dodgers 5th<\/sup> best starter. Guys like Jeff Weaver and James Macdonald are better than Schmidt at this point. The Reds offense is the most inept product out of Cincinnati since Herb Tarlek, so they shouldn\u2019t be used as a barometer for Schmidt\u2019s ability at this point.<\/p>\n Russell Martin has had an encouraging month of July, posting a line of .362\/.444\/.426\/.870. He\u2019s probably better suited for the #2 hole, where he hit last night and got on base all 4 times he was up. However, that\u2019s where Orlando Hudson has been hitting and hitting well, so he\u2019ll have to figure it out wherever he\u2019s hitting in the lineup.<\/p>\n If the Twins fall a game short in the AL Central this year, they can look back at last night\u2019s game. The Twins were up by 10 runs on the A\u2019s, only to lose 14-13. The game ended with Michael Cuddyer tagged out at the plate trying to score on a wild pitch. Cuddyer was clearly safe. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire didn\u2019t make excuses though. While pointing out that Cuddyer was safe, he also recognized that the Twins shouldn\u2019t have even been in that position in the first place and refused to blame the umpires for the loss.<\/p>\n Quick update on Rosemead High\u2019s Henry Barrera, who is pitching in the Kansas City organization: He\u2019s been out since June 12th<\/sup> with an elbow injury and has only thrown 3 2\/3 innings this year. He was put on the Royals 40-man roster this winter, so they will be patient with him.<\/p>\n Another local product, San Gabriel\u2019s John Grabow, will certainly be traded by the Pirates before next Friday\u2019s trade deadline. He\u2019s having a decent year for Pittsburgh and has posted 9 straight scoreless appearances, but he becomes a free agent next year and Pittsburgh doesn\u2019t have the luxury of paying millions for a set-up man. Some of the possible destinations include the Dodgers, Angels, Phillies, Red Sox and Rockies, all playoff caliber teams in need of relief help.<\/p>\n Quick Scans is living on the air in the Midvalley every Monday-Thursdays at midvalleysports.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by John Scanlan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[434,432,431,435,433],"class_list":["post-1967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fanview","tag-henry-barrera","tag-herb-tarlek","tag-jason-schmidt","tag-john-grabow","tag-russell-martin"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1969,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967\/revisions\/1969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}