Talking points for tonight's game

[adam_jonzin']

Guthrie

He was fantastic tonight. His off-speed stuff was working so well he somehow managed to confuse Gary Thorne on a few of them. Oh, wait...but seriously, I'm not sure I've seen him pitch much better than he did tonight. He worked down in the zone, made very few mistakes up in the zone, and used his off-speed and breaking pitches tremendously.

Wieters

Called a fantastic game. Pretty much embarrassed Upton early in the game. Really did his homework. Didn't look that great at the plate though, and I noticed his stance has changed a bit.


Markakis

He's just such an artist at the plate. I'm not sure where things go wrong for him every year, or how this guy hasn't won a batting title yet. He sometimes reminds me of Peyton Manning up there. Great job driving Hardy in early in the game, and when he sacrificed B-Rob in later on, you could tell he went up there knowing exactly what he wanted to do, and just did it on the very first pitch.

Was kind of bummed he didn't come up with that shot from Johnson, kinda thought he would for a second.

Roberts

What an at-bat! Of course that triple was gift wrapped from Damon out in LF. What the hell was he doing, lol??

Hardy

This guy plays hard. I can tell he's a pretty emotional dude, almost giving away the missed interference call, and dropping his head in disgust on the double (I guess he thought he shanked it).

Not sure he should have called off Jonesy for that play in deep-shallow center. That was definitely the CF's ball. But made the catch none the less. Also flashed his great arm on that plan on Manny.

JJ

Bad...no...HORRIBLE pitch made to Zobrist. A sinker high in the zone. After that he was just lights out nasty.

All in all, it was a great job by the majority of our offense. Price looked unhittable early in the game. After the 2nd inning I was honestly concerned he'd drop a no-hitter on us, he looked that impressive. But Vlad broke through, then Hardy drove one off the wall - and Kakes really broke through with his first RBI.

[backwardsk]

Balance of the Lineup. I could breathe easy once Guthrie got past Upton. Their bottom third won't scare anybody (I do like Brignac long term though). Markakis is going to have plenty of RBI opportunities with Reynolds, Wieters, Hardy, and Roberts in front of him. A fine at-bat to get the 2 out RBI to open the scoring. They also had him played perfectly in LF on his first at bat. If Damon's straight up, that could have been a double.