24-8

[oregontrack]

i knew aaron payne had offseason surgery, i did not know he was not expected to be medically cleared until april and played the first six weeks of the season when he probably shouldn't have. for the past few weeks, he's been playing like the aaron payne of 2012, which is to say i think we have our lead-off hitter back. he certainly came up big last night.

the bats, in general, are really rounding into form. hard to find a better 3/4 in the pac-10 than healy (.349) and tolman (.356). it floors me that tolman is a freshman. kid has ice in his veins. thomas, payne, heineman, and baumgartner are all above average hitters who don't have outstanding season numbers but are all hitting the ball well presently. josh graham got off to that wicked start (and i don't mean wicked in the good sense) where he was something like 1/21 or something awful like that, but he's officially over the .200 mark now. his BA has been rising every week, and he hit his first HR last sunday in tempe. he's a born line drive hitter. altobelli is still doing his thing in the 9-hole. steven packard's was my wild card going into the year and he still kind of is. taking two full years off has to be hell on a swing, and i keep hoping he begins to get into the groove of things, but...... he just hasn't yet. i guess i've never been a huge connor hoffman fan, but if it's me i give packard regular ABs and a spot in the OF. if he can start rounding into his freshman form, this offense could go places.

i really wish christian jones was given the start yesterday and allowed to go 5 innings. assuming his shoulder is 100% -- and that is an assumption on my part -- i don't really think we're getting the mileage out of him we could be. cleavinger and sherfy are lights out in the 8/9. darrell hunter is more than capable of pitching the 7th, and gold is extremely versatile out of the 'pen, be it long relief or just an inning. we're just not using jones enough, and we happen to have a starter or two who could currently use a push. i would have liked to have given him the ball yesterday, and again in our next midweek game (next week, i think?) and then hand him the ball on the weekend. assuming all goes well, i think jones/reed/irvin might be our best rotation at the moment. it's not that thorpe hasn't had a nice year overall, but he's a proven commodity in the bullpen, he could continue to work his stuff as a 4th starter, and we're pretty much trading out a lefty for a lefty.

gotta take 2/3 in berkeley this weekend. i'm not entirely sure what they're doing with their staff, but justin jones has the most starts (8) and has been getting absolutely shelled all season. they then have about five guys who have started anywhere from 3-5 games. it looks a lot like they're just throwing everybody out there to see what sticks.