I know it is really late, as I make my 4th start of the season tonight but I thought I would post a quick recap of my 3rd start. I pitched against the Dodgers affiliate Inland Empire. I faced the most of the guys on Inland Empire last year in the Midwest when they played for Great Lakes. Great Lakes was known for having a bunch of players who could hit the ball out of the ball park especially Kyle Russell who had 27 home runs, which is a tremendous feat in the minor leagues, in 2009.

Any time you are facing a team that hits for power you really need to focus on getting ahead and keeping the ball down in the zone. This is because you don't want a hitter with power to be able to sit on a certain pitch and take an aggressive hack at it, rather you want them to be on the defensive, constantly behind in the count. You want to keep the ball down because it is harder to lift a ball over the fence that is down in the zone because the natural path of the bat is going to hit the top of the ball more times than not.

I was pretty effective in getting ahead and keeping the ball down (I gave up 1 home run on a 1-2 curveball that would have bounced had Kyle Russell not reached out in front of the plate and hit it over the fence) going 6 innings giving up 3 runs, walking 1 and striking out 8 for my 2nd win of the season.