Turk Nowitzki wrote:There's a pretty extensive body of work that suggests Zach Duke is just not a very good MLB pitcher.
I thought he's pitched pretty well so far this year, except for mostly some bad luck.
In Boston there was bad defense behind him and today he did give up a run, but the Revere triple would have only been a single if Davis hadn't foolishly dove for that flare and Rollins followed with a non-hard hit seeing eye grounder which just found an opening between Segura and Aramis. Duke after that got through the 3-4-5 hitters with two K's and a weakly hit flyball.
I was leery of the team keeping Duke, but overall i thought he's pitched well so far when looking strictly at how batters have hit against him. I don't hold against a relief pitcher seeing eye grounders which just find a hole, shaky defense, and a flare leading to a triple instead of a single because our LF made a mistake diving for the ball.
Plus, by keeping Duke it allows for using Will Smith in full inning situations. That said, it would be nice to see Wang get some innings because eventually a pitcher or two is going to suffer an injury that doesn't require a DL stint and we can't have a guy in the pen who rarely ever pitches.