Kevin Millwood Pitched Poorly Against the Dodgers Monday, but More Importantly He Pitched

SURPRISE, Ariz. - The results from Kevin Millwood’s third spring outing Monday stuck out sorely. He allowed 10 runs and 12 hits in three innings in the Rangers’ 13-7 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. And he didn’t even have to face Manny Ramirez.

Double-doubles may be fine accomplishments for basketball players, but never for a starting pitcher. This is spring training, however, and, in general, results don’t matter quite as much. In particular, this is Millwood’s spring training, and only two things matter:

• He left the game healthy.

• His pitch-count kept marching upward; this time to 63.

Millwood made progress on both the health and endurance fronts,  a departure from his previous spring trainings with the Rangers in which muscle tweaks sometimes outnumbered innings pitched. In each of his last two camps, Millwood, the Rangers opening day starter, has pitched less than 10 innings in “A” games. His performance during the season has suffered because of it.

This spring he’s piled up eight innings in three starts and with five more outings left, he should approach 30 innings for the spring. By the end of camp, he could have a 100-pitch outing, on par for a regular-season game.

“If we stay on the program we’re on, we’ll absolutely be ready to go,” pitching coach Mike Maddux said. “It wasn’t his day, but he went out there and executed and kept extending himself. That’s the most important thing.”

Millwood has started the season opener in all three of his seasons with the Rangers. He’s never made it past 91 pitches. He’s been the loser in all three games. His opponents have averaged an extra third of an inning in the openers. And each of them has gone to at least 96 pitches in the outing.

Millwood said he had problems getting pitches to the bottom of the strike zone Monday.

“I threw strikes,” he said. “Just not quality strikes.”

“Yeah, he was getting the ball up,” manager Ron Washington acknowledged, “but the big thing is that he got three innings in, he got his pitches in and he’s ready to be pushed a little further next time.”

Millwood labored through a long second inning in which Los Angeles scored seven runs. He was hurt by Andruw Jones’ misplay of a fly ball to center that became a two-run triple. Millwood then had a hard time getting the third out.

Long innings can be even more stressful on a pitcher than high total pitch counts. The Rangers were encouraged to see Millwood go back out for the third and get three more outs.

It also should be noted that Millwood was hit on each hand by grounders, but stuck around to extend his pitch count.

“He keeps doing this, his endurance will be there come opening day,” Washington said. “Even after that long second inning, he wasn’t gassed. That was good to see.”