I Dislike Your Favorite Team

I mean, I know ESPN doesn't have a moment for Brian Duensing--they are very busy covering qualifying rounds in the Little League World Series, mentioning how much Sam Bradford made in guaranteed money before showing pre-season NFL highlights without context at all, and showing every woeful putt of Tiger Woods.  I am also aware that baseball this year has been nothing but a series of no-hitters and perfect games and shit.  But still, I think the pitcher's duel that was the Twins vs. the A's deserves a bit more than the 20 seconds it is getting on ESPNNews.  There's no mention of the game anywhere on the front page of Yahoo Sports, nor on their Baseball Page.  Just a Division leader in a close race, with a young gun going nine innings of 3-hit shutout baseball.  Why would you mention that?  Not when the Foul Ball Couple are breaking up!

If you are looking for a great game of pitching, on both sides, you could do worse than the starts put up by Trevor Cahill and Duensing tonight.  Trevor Cahill is another guy who doesn't get talked about a whole lot on the national networks, so you are forgiven if you did not know that he went into this game against the Twins "with the second lowest ERA in the American League (2.56) while holding opponents to a league-low .192 batting average."  And lived up to that billing in his seven innings.

Dave Campbell, of The Associated Press, who is paid to care about such things (unlike ESPN anchors), has noticed that Duensing has been good, real good, when asked to be a reliever, and when he's asked to be a starter:  "Duensing posted a 1.67 ERA in 39 appearances as a reliever. He is 3-0 with a 2.43 ERA in five starts since the switch, raising his career record as a starter to 8-1."

And in this game, when he knew the bullpen was kind of shagged out, and he was going against a guy in Cahill who hadn't given up a Earned Run in 28 innings, Duensing was dominant.  The phrase "complete game shut-out" certainly suggests dominance, but it doesn't actually give Duensing enough credit.  Between 3 hits, and 2 walks, the A's had five base-runners all night.  Only one got to second, and he got picked off.  Duensing (103) threw fewer pitches than Cahill (107), even though Cahill went seven innings to Duensing's nine.  And the hits Duensing gave up, all three of them, were scattered over the first 3 innings--he threw no-hit baseball for the last six innings of the game.  It was a damn impressive performance.  And you'll barely hear about it on your TV, because it has been nearly 5 minutes since they let you know what Tiger thought of his shitty, shitty putting today.