Lowry is Back, Jack!

Just had to post after his excellent outing. 8.1 IP, 8 hits, 3 ER, only 3 walks, and most importantly 6 strikeouts! Would have been a dominating start of 5 if Alou would have took him out after 8 IP, but was only 1 K away from a 5 anyway.

That is the most encouraging thing, the 6 strikeouts. This is his first game all year with 6 strikeouts. He has had only one other game this season where he was close to getting a PQS of 5 because he has been generally been unable to throw enough strikes in any game to strike out that many and even that one game he struck out only 4 in 6 IP, which qualified, but was not the dominating Lowry we had seen previous to this season. That, to me, was a sign that his changeup was not working relative to his fastball, plus I recall some comment about a month ago about his decrease velocity of his fastball, so that jibed with my impression as well.

Maybe I'm being a bit premature, but he was striking out guys in his last start, his first start of the second half, after the All-Star Break, but unfortunately was being hit hard and walking a lot, so he didn't last long. So I was hoping for a continuation of that dominance because when his changeup is working relative to his fastball, he strikes out a lot of guys, but when it's not, well, you saw what happened the first half of the season, pre-ASG. One step at a time, but if Lowry is back, then we'll have three starters - Schmidt, Morris, Lowry - regularly throwing dominating games, plus Cain periodically throwing them and Wright doing OK in the #5 slot. We might not win a whole bunch in a row, but we should be able to, with our offense, run off, say 9 wins in 12, 15 wins in 20, and move to the NL West lead.