Garcia’s much belated debut

After starting the season on the disabled list and two rain delays the Phillies biggest off-season acquisition Freddy Garcia played his first game in 2007. Garcia’s line 4 2/3 IP, 8 hits, 3 runs, 2 walks, six strikeouts, and one home run is pretty ugly. But there is a silver lining to the storm the Mets offense unleashed.

Garcia had two rough spots in a mostly well-pitched game. In the second he gave up a two run bomb to Moses Alou. For Garcia giving up home runs is par the course. Last season Garcia gave up 6.76 home runs per nine innings. Freddy ran into more trouble in the fifth when he gave up singles to Tom Glavine and back up catcher Ramon Castro. He then served up an RBI double to Carlos Beltran.

There are a few things to be optimistic regarding Garcia’s first start. He didn’t pitch far in the game because he ran so many three ball counts. However, this wasn’t due to a lack of command. Garcia was pounding the strike zone. The umpire just wasn’t calling his pitches strikes. Also Garcia probably would have stayed in the game to pitch his way out of the jam in the fifth if it hadn’t been his first game of the season. Next time Charlie Manuel will let Garcia go over the one hundred-pitch mark and finish what he started.

Sources:
Picture of Freddy Garcia from tsn.com