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Key stat:
Rick Porcello had one groundball out and seven flyball outs. That stat might not mean much in a vacuum, but he's a sinkerballer. His lowest groundball total in his career (not counting the Boston game when he got ejected in the second inning) was four, last May against Oakland.
Key play:
Brian Roberts broke open a 1-1 game in the fifth inning with a three-run home run off Porcello.
Key thoughts:
I think I'm going to do a separate post on Porcello. But in short: He generally throws his sinking two-seam fastball almost half the time. This start he used it almost directly proportional to his four-seamer and slider. He left the ball up too much against left-handed batters too. A bright spot: He had four strikeouts in five innings. (That's a rate of 7.2 per nine innings).
Alex Avila went 0-for again -- he did walk once at least -- and allowed a wild pitch (that scored a run) and a stolen base. It's too early to be giving up on him like many seem to be, but it's not a good start to the year to state an obvious point. ... Before you get too far ahead of yourself, remember that Victor Martinez went 0-for-4 today and is batting .176 to start the year.
But geez, another unforced error leads to a run. Not good, no matter if you blame Porcello or Avila for the WP.
Magglio Ordonez and Will Rhymes both got their first hits of the season. Good to see. Hope Ordonez starts to get more, he's batting .091 right now.
Meanwhile Austin Jackson is up to seven strikeouts in 14 at bats while batting .143. Good thing for this glove, which came through again today.
Brandon Inge said Miguel Cabrera was throwing up between innings, because some sort of stomach bug is going through the team. I'll leave the next part up to you ...
Following that RISP storyline? 2-for-9.
Today's bright spot? Watching Brayan Villarreal bounce back from Saturday. He struck out two in two innings.
I hate days off. Especially after this season's start.