Another day and the same story. The bench battle gets tighter and tougher, and the battle for the fifth starter spot is just begging for someone to stand up and take it. Anyway, no one on the team really had a bad night at the plate, which is a good thing, meaning a lot of players were on the good list for stats, so lets go to box highlights:
The Good:
Sullivan 2-5, 2R, RBI, HR
Valentine 1-2, R, HR, 2 RBI
Murphy 3-5, 2 RBI, 2B
Evans 2-5
Reed 1-4, 2B, 2R, BB, SB
Kielty 1-4, BB, 2B
Rivera 1-1, R, 2 RBI, HR
Parnell 2.2 IP, BB, 2K
Villone 1.0 IP, BB K
The Bad:
Garcia 2.1 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, K
O'day 1.0 IP, ER, 2H
Rivera I think has locked up the third string catcher roll. He continues to come out and hit the ball hard a well, and probably will come up if something happens to Castro or Schnieder (he is also getting a lot playing time. Anyway back to the bench, Sullivan took a step back in game 15 but in this game he came back in a roaring way in this game. It looked like last week that Evans could be the odd man out, but he has also put together some awesome power numbers to show he deserves to stay around.
Finally on the pitching side, there is really nothing to say about Garcia, he really stunk again. Villone is doing really well since he has been in games, you have to start wondering if he can sneak his way into the pen. I think the last bullpen spots will be very hard to determine because there are many arms that are similar and are all trying to get their way in.
