Gallagher's Dirty Dozen

The season here in Des Moines has had a hard time getting started this year. Bad weather, bad team and bad schedule; you're out!

Yesterday was an exception.

Sean Gallagher served up a tasty lunch in a nooner matinee at Principal Park on one of the very few days so far when the elements didn't cross-up the schedule makers.

After seven innings Gallagher had thrown 86 pitches, allowing one run on three hits with no walks and 12 strikeouts. All 12 K's were swinging, most of them on a nasty breaking ball.

His pitch counts by inning were as follows: 11, 13,13, 14, 16, 9 and 10.

They trotted him back out for the eighth, the only frame when he failed to fan anybody. He walked the leadoff man, erased him on a DP grounder, gave up a base hit and called it a day after 101 mostly carveaceous, to coin a word, pitches.

The lone run he allowed came on a 3-1 fastball that Chris Shelton swatted into the parking lot in the fourth [you might remember Shelton; the erstwhile Tiger who briefly led the majors in homers a couple of Aprils ago].

Gallagher's foils were the Oklahoma Redhawks, apprentices of the Texas Rangers. They came into the game with a record of 15-4.

Nelson Cruz, to name one, had been tearing it up and only been whiffed six times in nineteen games. Gallagher popped him up in the first, then fanned him in the fourth and seventh without ever throwing him a fastball.

He struck out two in every inning from the 4th through the 7th

The scoreboard gun had his curveball in the low 70's and his fastball topping out between 91-93, but a Cleveland scout behind the plate said his readings were 2-3 MPH faster. By the way, another scout told me he works for Baltimore, but was only there because his routine territory is the PCL.

CRUMBS: Eric Patterson played CF on Monday night. Yesterday he was at 2B and already had two hits when he left in the third after pulling up lame on the basepaths with what was described afterwards as a strained hamstring; no prognosis yet...Sam Fuld is listed as active but hasn't played on this homestand due to a bad right thumb. He's only had 20 AB's in 18 games...no one around here expects Micah Hoffpauir back any sooner than 2-3 more weeks. They claim he's in Arizona rehabbing...Jose Ascanio looks good as a closer-in-training. Yesterday he notched his fifth save. He's fanned 11 and walked just two in 10 innings while holding batters to a BAA of .179...Sidney Ponson beat the I-Cubs on Monday night with a nifty seven innings of work...don't yet know why, but the whole team wears their pants tucked up under the knee, a la Reed Johnson; the team looks better than it is...MW