Padilla begins to unravel
Rangers pitcher Vicente Padilla pitched to the minimum nine batters through the first three innings, but his second time through the Orioles lineup did not go quite so well. In fact, he went through almost the entire lineup in the fourth inning, allowing three runs on four hits and a walk and running his pitch count to 75.
That isn't an extreme number of pitches for four innings, but it seemed like it after he needed just 45 for the first three.
Adam Jones started the rally with a single and Nick Markakis followed with another before Aubrey Huff lined a 2-0 pitch into the gap in right center field for both runs. Huff would score the third run on a balk, but the Orioles put to more runners on base before Felix Pie flied out to left to end the inning.
Meanwhile, Koji Uehara bounced back after giving up a run in the third to retire six straight batters before Jarrod Saltalamacchia lined a single to right with two outs in the fifth. Saltalamacchia has two of the Rangers' three hits in the game.
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Comments
I'm going to go out on a limb ad say this performance by Koji is damn impressive. Palmer was right about him when he faced the ChiSox. He has these Rangers hitters really off balance right now. They're starting to chase ptchers' pitches out of desperation.
Posted by: Basemonkey | April 24, 2009 8:48 PM