Cassel Pitches Padres to W, Hoffman's Struggles Continue

Jack Cassel's major league debut was impressive. Changing speeds and tossing a whiffle ball-like pitches, Cassel wasn't hit hard as we allowed 3 run over 5 2/3, pacing the Friars to a 6-4 victory over the hated Dodgers. Mike Cameron, Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Kouzmanoff and Josh Bard each collected to two hits. The Padres would likely have scored more than 6 runs had it not been for a pair of base running mistakes that led to outs at third base. More on the ugly truth of the Friars base running later today. Doug Brocail and Heath Bell each had strong outings in relief, while Trevor Hoffman earned a save despite allowing a run.

Hoffy allowed runs in 6 of his 14 August appearances (43%) after making just 6 appearances in all of July. This lack of work in July is hopefully behind his rusty August. Perhaps of greater concern are his 6 walks, 8 multi-hit games and 8 earned runs allowed over that time frame. For comparison, the future Hall of Famer had only 7 walks, 4 multi-hit games and 7 earned run allowed from April through July. Hoffy had only allowed 1 earned run over the the May-to-July time frame. It appears that he's not getting as much action on his change up as late. The Mets, for one, seemed to take the approach of sitting on his change piece as a result. Overall, Hoffman's strikeout-to-walk ratio is down to 2.6, from 3.9 in 2006, 4.5 in 2005 and 6.6 in 2004. The trend of this favorite stat of the Front Office is both obvious and disturbing. Hopefully Hoffy can make an adjustment and tightening things up over the rest of the season.