Tom de Blok bounces back with great outing

After struggling in his first three starts, Tom de Blok came back with a blast yesterday. In the game of his Lakeland Tigers vs the Florida FireFrogs, Tom pitched a gem for the win.

Compared to his previous short outings (3 innings, and 4.1 twice), Tom lasted 6 innings last night. He could not complain about lack of run support as the Flying Tigers beat the FireFrogs, where Ray Patrick Didder is playing (he went 0 for 2), 9-1.

The Dutch right-hander worked his way through the first two innings rather easily. The only stain on his record was the leadoff home run he gave up in the second inning to Braxton Davidson. In the third inning, the FireFrogs had three runners on the bases, one thanks to a single, one thanks to a walk and one thanks to catcher interference but Tom also managed to get out of this inning without any damage.

In the next three innings, Tom allowed three runners on base, one on a walk and two thanks to singles, but nevertheless, he kept the FireFrogs from scoring.

In six innings, Tom needed 85 pitches of which 58 were called for strikes. Perhaps 85 pitches in just six innings may be a bit on the high side but let us not nitpick here. Tom recovered in a fine way from three consecutive losses. In last night’s game, he struck out four, walked one and allowed four hits. Thanks to this good outing, Tom lowered his ERA dramatically from 12.34 to 8.66.

Tom’s WHIP is still on the high side with 1.98 but if he continues to pitch like he did last night, this will go down as well.

Thanks to Tom’s performance, the Lakeland Flying Tigers improved to 10-12 and 6-4 in their last ten games. They are in third place of the North division of the Florida State League, trailing the Daytona Tortugas by five games.