Shorebird of the Week – June 30, 2011
Because last week was a short week due to the All-Star break, one could argue Jarret Martin wasn’t all that deserving of the South Atlantic League’s Pitcher of the Week honors – after all, he made just one start. Granted, it was six innings of one-hit shutout ball against Lakewood in the first game back June 23, but that may have been a fluke.
So he followed that start up yesterday with six more shutout innings against Greensboro, allowing just four hits in that span before finally tiring in the seventh and allowing two runs. It was enough for another “W” in his column and should have silenced any critics.
Placed into the starting rotation for the May 21st contest at Kannapolis, Martin was roughed up for seven runs in 2 2/3 innings. He also struggled in one other start at West Virginia.
But Jarret has been “on” in his last two starts, which have pushed his overall record to 4-3 and lowered his ERA to 4.47 for the season. He’s reacquainted himself with starting duty over the last month, as Martin was a member of Bluefield’s starting rotation last season – there he went 3-5, 4.07 with a 1.49 WHIP.
Still, Martin has one thing to work on. In 116 professional innings, the 18th round pick out of Bakersfield (CA) Junior College has allowed 81 bases on balls. Allowing over 6 walks per 9 innings is not a formula for success at higher levels.
And oddly enough, statistically Jarret was a more effective long reliever than starter, although the two poor starts probably inflated those numbers to a degree.
We will probably see the native Californian who turns 22 in August for the rest of the season here. But if he can continue putting together good outings such as his last two and trim his walk numbers, there’s no reason to believe he can’t anchor Frederick’s starting rotation in 2012.
Coming around
In news that’s sure to cheer my API friend Jane Van Ryan up, and perhaps build even more clamor for the Keystone XL Pipeline (and thousands of jobs) being debated by the State Department and EPA, Rasmussen released a poll yesterday which states 75 percent of Americans feel we’re not doing enough to develop our own gas and oil resources.
While the Keystone example would promote exploration in both the U.S. and Canada (hence the State Department involvement,) there are plenty of places we can explore and extract in America, both on- and offshore. An April Rasmussen survey found 50% support for drilling in ANWR (they didn’t ask me, so now it’s a majority of 50 percent plus one;) meanwhile, another April survey pegged support for deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico at 59 percent. That’s in the wake of sob stories about the one-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Yet we still have people in the corridors of power who think mandating more fuel-efficient cars is the way to go. I say let the market decide on that one; of course, given this administration’s policy decisions which have led the way to $4 a gallon gasoline they may all but kill SUV demand anyway.
It never ceases to amaze me that the people who believe that certain technologies, created over the last century and constantly updated and perfected to make them even more cost-effective, are a horrible blight upon the earth. And then they turn around and support the methods those tried-and-true approaches supplanted – the sun only shines an average of 12 hours a day and is at a usable angle only a percentage of that time (not to mention the need for cloud-free days) while the wind has to blow just so to make a wind turbine useful.
About the only fossil fuel I’m aware of that, by reputation, is dogged by reliability issues is nuclear power. If we were getting our own supplies of oil, coal, and natural gas we wouldn’t have to worry nearly as much about strife in other parts of the world or bad weather in a particular region of the country. Are some people too dense to figure this simple truth out?
Now I don’t mind at all if the private sector is involved with alternative energy – after all, Perdue is placing about 13 acres’ worth of solar panels behind its Salisbury headquarters, paid for by a utility – but I have to question whether the utility really wants this electricity or is being forced to back this project by government mandate. If, because of the energy savings Perdue might enjoy, we save a nickel on a fryer that’s great; but the question is whether we lose that few pennies paying for mandated “renewable” energy from utilities when it’s far cheaper to create electricity from coal or natural gas.
(I just hope the glare from the panels doesn’t cause any more accidents in a busy area where changing lanes to follow U.S. 50 westbound is frequent.)
We know that someday there will come a time when fossil fuels run out and technology allows renewable energy to be more reliable. But we’re several generations away from that point, considering how much oil is in shale out west and natural gas is under the rocky western end of our fair state. Let’s go out and get it while we can, creating good jobs in the process.
America has a prosperous lifestyle to sustain, whether environmentalist wackos like it or not.
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