Sean Burnett looks great, then hurt

Sean Burnett responded to Reed’s strong outing with a quick, effective inning of his own. He induced a lot of tappers and ground balls, foul and in play, and Jose Castillo made a nice play in shallow right on the hardest-hit one to end the inning.

In his second inning of work, the inning began with Jose Castillo "robbing a base hit from Omar Vizquel." Hegan and Hamilton then started talking about Burnett. Jody Gerut flied out. Hegan and Hamilton agreed that Burnett's tough on left-handers because he throws three-quarters and turns his back to the hitter. "It's almost like he's throwing sidearm against the left-handers." "He would be tough for a left-hander to hang in against."

"How'd you like to have this guy coming out of the pen?" asked Mike Hegan. "You have to wonder if he'd be more effective as a starter or as a reliever," said Hamilton, who wondered if Burnett wouldn't be good as a set-up guy or a closer. Then Burnett walked Escobar.

After talking about Burnett's age (21), then they digressed and started talking about Oakland's rotation. Burnett got a swinging strikeout to end the inning.

The Bucs subbed in a whole new team to play defense behind Burnett in the seventh inning. Burnett continued to throw strikes and get ahead of the hitters. Ahead of Ben Broussard 0-2, he threw a big sweeping curveball that missed. He came back and got Broussard swinging. "Boy the young lefty has been impressive," Hegan said.

In his fourth inning, Burnett gave up his first hit, a smash single off the bat of Raffy Belliard. Burnett induced a 5-4-3 double play and got ahead of John McDonald 0-2 and something is wrong with Burnett. Lloyd McClendon went to the mound, and the umpire gestures that Burnett has been called out of the ballgame. Lloyd McClendon started screaming at the umpire, maybe saying that he came out for the injury and not for a pitching change. I'm not sure what happened, but McClendon is ready for the season I think.