Thursday, April 30, 2009

Cecil Cooper Is Not Impressed By Edinson Volquez's Dominance

Apparently Cecil Cooper is not impressed by Reds starter Edinson Volquez, even though Volquez only gave up one hit over eight innings last night against Cooper's Astros.

"I didn't think he was all that sharp," Astros manager Cecil Cooper said. "It
looked like he had some life to his fastball. It looked like we had some pitches
to hit, but we just didn't swing it very well. You have to give him some credit,
but I didn't think he was like a one-hit performance tonight.

I saw some of this game in between studying for exams and I can honestly say that I thought Volquez was very sharp. He was as good as any pitcher I have seen this season and was in total control of the game. Volquez had great control (only 1 BB), struck out 6, and induced lots of ground balls that turned into easy outs. I was honestly just surprised that Dusty Baker did not leave Volquez out there for the 9th at 106 pitches given how much Dusty loves to ride young starters...(that's you, Mark Prior).

So what gives? Did Cecil Cooper watch a different game than I did? Or was this some sort of motivational tactic by the Astros manager?

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