Seems like the Hosmer & Butler defense gave up more offense than they provided. About the only good thing that I saw was the awesome throw Hosmer made to the plate on the ball he should have caught and Pena should have handled. Yost should have one of them on the bench today with Dyson back in center. They can always pinch hit for Dyson later and give up defense if needed later in the game.

-Good to see Seratelli put together a solid year in AAA. …Seratelli or Falu in the future utility role?

-I think this club gets a huge spark when Salvy Perez gets back on our roster. Maybe he can bring Hochevar along?

Chris Getz – had a “hit” that amounted to a pop-up the SS dropped. Should have been an error. Wish he had missed the northbound I-29 exit over to Omaha and ended up in Canada, somewhere, on his way to the park. He got lifted after 2 AB’s for Irving Falu, and he promptly homered in his only at bat, turning on a fastball and hitting a ball farther than I would have thought possible for him. He put a charge into it.

Salvador Perez – is clearly favoring the knee some, probably on purpose. He doubled off the left center field wall in his last at-bat and he sort of dogged it into 2B. I am sure he’s been instructed to take it easy. Hit the ball hard all night and looked good at the plate, getting a couple hits. He was the DH, he did not catch. I don’t know if this was by design or whether it is because Stormchasers catcher Max Ramirez has 3 major league at-bats against Oswalt—3 for 3 with three home runs (of his 4 career homers, total). Man, Perez is one big dude. Seeing him on TV is one thing, in person is another. He just has the look of somebody you don’t want to mess with although by all accounts he is a great guy.

Jake Odorizzi – He did not start this game, as Craig sort of implied above. Everett Teaford did. Every ball hit off of Teaford was a shot. He fooled nobody. He pitched the first two full innings and Odorizzi took it from there. Odorizzi was simply great and the only reason he didn’t make through to the end of the game was because his defense let him down. I disagreed with Jirschele’s decision to lift him in the 9th. Odorizzi is a fairly small statured, small boned guy. He didn’t look like he throws as hard as he does. He threw pitches ranging from 77 MPH to 96 MPH that I saw and seemed to favor his off speed stuff unless he was in some sort of “trouble”. Few well hit balls off him. He clearly knows how to pitch, too. I hate to say this, but, he really reminded me of Zack Greinke — a lot. I didn’t even realize he’d struck out 10 until I saw the box score this morning, that’s how easy he was to watch out there. Quick workman, too. Might be the highest scoring game I have ever seen that only lasted just over 2 hours. He doesn’t have a lot left to prove to me, if anything, even.

Roy Oswalt – Oswalt said to the press after the game that he surprised at all the first pitch swinging he was subjected to and allowed that 5 of the 6 hits he gave up were first pitch fastballs in the 3rd. I disagree a bit with Craig about Oswalt maybe not being game ready.The only ball that was hit well off him before the 3rd was in Wil Myers first at-bat. Myers pinned the CF right up against the wall in deep right center (the deepest part of Werner Park at 410′) on a ball that, if the wind had not been blowing from the RF corner to the LF corner, would have also been a home run. Up to the 3rd, he was in complete command. As he said after the game, he didn’t even care about the results as he was working on specific things. Was around the plate with everything and he is a very quick workman as well. Felt bad for him because the Stormchaser’s very bush league announcer mispronounced his last name. Oh, well, as Jim Bouton used to say, the minor leagues are very minor.

Wil Myers – When Myers’ came to the plate with bases loaded in his 2nd at-bat in the 3rd, it appeared that Oswalt certainly took notice of the fact that the first time he was up he had just missed homering off him. First pitch was a breaking ball way outside that Myers swung at wildly and missed by a foot. On the next pitch, Oswalt knocked him down. I turned to my wife and said, “Now we’ll see what this guy is made of”. The very next pitch Oswalt threw him a fastball that was up and Myers hit a screaming line drive over the LF wall. He absolutely crushed it. The only question was whether it would get over the wall as it was hit so low. I have now seen Myers three times and he’s homered, impressively, in every game I’ve seen. Has sort of a presence about him as well. He is also a very big guy and runs surprisingly well. He’s been MORE impressive than Hosmer was here last year. That’s saying something. One thing worth mentioning, in his third at-bat, he went down swinging, swinging and missing three consecutive pitches–badly each time. Like a lot of young players, he appears to have some susceptibility to junk away although the third strike was a fastball.

Big crowd to see Oswalt, which was played up huge in the media here and in promos, the largest we’ve personally seen at Werner and looked bigger than the almost 9000 that were announced.