Make Powell Gonzalez's Personal Catcher

Another fun line to add to the fire: 0 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 0 K

Tyson Ross is all kinds of awful all of a sudden, and it's just been in the last couple of weeks. It's real easy to break down what the problem is: he was throwing all of his pitches for strikes before, and now he's pitching none of them. His delivery was so compact before, and now he's wide open, probably because he's afraid of getting rocked. I don't know what to say.

Gio Gonzalez, on the other hand, was a lot worse than his line.

6 1/3 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 6 K

For some reason, Gio Gonzalez cannot pitch with two outs. He gets two outs in an inning, and he seems compelled to walk the very next batter, even though after getting two quickly outs is exactly when you should start believing in your stuff. You can of course, look at the bright side of it: he's getting those first two outs. Chances are, he's going to be able to get a third at some point in the inning. There's another chance, though, and that's the chance that walking a lot of batters is going to cause problems in the long run.

I got to say, that I believe if they had put Powell behind the plate and Suzuki in the DH spot, they would have been better off, as far as Gonzalez goes. Cust was monstrous at the plate; so has every other DH. I had to think, anyway, that when I saw Suzuki batting with two outs in the first, that his mind couldn't have been on hitting. He had a game plan running through his head and he was becoming anxious as to whether or not it was a good one.

Look, I do see the logic in preferring offensive numbers; but the logic only holds up if the DH spot has a better hitter beckoning. I think what you're looking at in Suzuki is a guy whose numbers are depressed because he has so many other responsibilities (which he performs admirably, but not exceptionally) and a young pitching staff that just doesn't seem to respond to his presence behind the plate. I just think you could look at the catching/DH position as responding not only to day/night situations and lefty-righty but also think about the pitcher on the mound, and whether Kurt Suzuki is the guy to have behind the plate for that particular pitcher.