Dutch is clutch He didn't have, statistically, his best performance last night giving up five runs in the 11-6 win over the Kansas City Royals.
Statistically, that is.
If not for a five-run fourth inning, Holland might have pitched a complete game and probably notched his best overall performance in the bigs.
Holland pounded the strike zone all night. Seventy percent of his pitches were strikes. He struck out nine swinging and looking.
Honestly, he got better after the fourth inning when in the past he might have completed five innings and been pulled. Instead, he regained his confidence, continued to attack the zone and made his pitches without doubting his ability.
If you think about it, the fourth inning could not have been more of a blip. It started with a groundball that spun away from Adrian Beltre and Elvis Andrus was unable to recover and throw the runner out. Five batters later, Brayan Pena, the catcher sitting in the eight hole, with 10 total Major League homers, hits the flukiest, wind-aided, opposite field home run you'll ever see.
That does not excuse the walks and hits in between, but had Alex Gordon's groundball been fielded and Pena not launched his fly ball into the wind tunnel, maybe two runs score and we think differently about things.
Afterwards, Holland sat down 11 of 13 Royals, getting six strikeouts and four groundballs. This is why Holland, for right now, four starts into the 2011 season, looks for real.
