Guthrie Pitches One-Hitter

Jeremy continues to dominate in Buffalo. Check out his latest game:


Guthrie Pitches One-hitter

By MIKE HARRINGTON
News Sports Reporter
7/27/2006

Dunn Tire Park has been crawling with Cleveland Indians front office officials the last few days, and General Manager Mark Shapiro has been in town since Monday preparing for the imminent call-up of Buffalo Bisons third baseman Andy Marte.

Marte could be gone as soon as Friday night. On Wednesday, pitcher Jeremy Guthrie sent the GM a message he rates a look as well.

In easily the most dominant performance of his four-year Buffalo career, Guthrie fired a one-hitter as the Herd silenced the Louisville Bats, 3-1, before an announced crowd of 9,077.

With one out in the first, Guthrie (6-3) walked Ray Olmedo and wild-pitched him to second. Matt Kata followed with an RBI double down the right-field line, but that was Louisville's only hit of the night.

Guthrie retired the next 11 hitters before a walk and hit batsman in the fifth. He got out of that jam and retired the final 15 men.

"In the middle innings, it almost looked like their hitters were just giving themselves up, but that's a credit to Jeremy," said Bisons manager Torey Lovullo. "He was putting pressure on them from the minute they stepped in the box. It was probably one of the most impressive pitching performances I've seen since I've been managing."

It was the Bisons' first nine-inning one-hitter downtown by a single pitcher since Kevin Blankenship beat Oklahoma City, 5-0, on Aug. 1, 1991. Several others have been combined jobs or come in seven-inning games, such as Jeremy Sowers' gem May 19 against Pawtucket.
Guthrie struck out seven, walked two and got 13 groundball outs in lowering his earned run average to 3.07. He threw 109 pitches, 76 for strikes.

"He was awesome, consistent the whole game throwing strikes," said Marte, who made several strong defensive plays on Guthrie's behalf.

Ryan Garko led the offense with an RBI double in the first and an RBI single in the third. Guthrie, who declined to speak to reporters, did the rest to earn his 23rd career victory as a Bison and move into fourth place on the franchise's modern-era list behind Rick Reed (35), Dorn Taylor (34) and Joe Roa (28).

The Indians have never given Guthrie, their No. 1 draft pick in 2002, a shot to start in the big leagues as he's made 14 relief appearances the last three years. But the word out of Cleveland is Marte is going to be anointed the starting third baseman in the coming days.