FanHouse Rick Vanden Hurk

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing matchups

San Francisco Giants (43-57) vs. Florida Marlins (48-55)-ESPN 10:15PM Est.

Seriously, Barry, this is getting old. Yes, I'm enjoying all the banter between you and Bob Costas as much as everybody else, but I'm getting tired of waiting. I'm an impatient man, Barry. I'm getting tired of waiting for you to hit a couple more home runs. I mean, you've hit 753 of them in your career, why the hell is it so hard to hit three more? Do you just like all the attention? Are you afraid that once you break the record nobody will care about you anymore? What is it, man!? You're going to be facing some guy named Rick Vanden Hurk today, and I think Vanden Hurk is Dutch for "batting practice fastball." If you can't hit at least two home runs off of this guy tonight, you should probably just retire now and forget the record. You don't want to disappoint Bob Dupuy do you? He's such a sweet man!

One thing that got kind of brushed under the table this off-season among the crazy free agent spending was the fact that Major League Baseball actually made a couple of rule changes for the first time in quite a while. The Marlins and Brewers became the first teams to test those new rules last night. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

The Milwaukee Brewers and Florida Marlins will be the first major-league teams to benefit from the rule amendment for suspended games.

Play was suspended Tuesday night - actually at 12:03 this morning local time - during the third rain delay of the game with the Brewers and Marlins tied, 2-2, after 10 innings at Dolphin Stadium.

Under the rule amended over the off-season, the game will resume tonight where it was halted, with the Brewers coming to bat in the top of the 11th. That resumption is set for 6 p.m., with the regularly scheduled game between the teams to follow.

Before the rule amendment, all games halted by rain after five innings with the score tied were replayed from the beginning, with the statistics counting from the suspended game.

"It's a good rule," Brewers manager Ned Yost said. "We'd be in trouble if they didn't (amend it). The Marlins, too, would be in trouble.

I imagine Ned Yost isn't the only person that thinks it's a good rule. In fact, it's kind of nice to see baseball introduce some logic based rules. No one wants to start over after 11 innings. Before the delay, Geoff Jenkins and Prince Fielder both had three hits for the Brewers, but neither managed to score or drive in any runs. That seems kind of unusual. Beyond that, there really wasn't much special about this one besides being the first use to of the new rule.

I guess that it's back to the drawing board for Jorge Julio.

He thought he had it all figured out. He thought that a mechanical flaw was causing him to rush his pitches and open up too soon, which threw off his command. So against the Brewers on Tuesday night with a 2-1 lead in the ninth, he slowed down, and threw the ball nice and easy.

Turns out the only thing that slowed down was the inevitable, a Jorge Julio blown save. Julio walked the lead off hitter, then gave up a long one out game tying double to J.J. Hardy. In the process, he performed a deep disservice to Marlins fans, who had to sit through two rain delays to even get to the ninth inning. Then, after Julio performed his latest disaster, they had to sit through another inning only to have the game suspended by rain with the score tied at 2-2. They'll finish it up on Wednesday at 7:05 before the scheduled game (unless Bud Selig panics and decrees that they play the rest of the series in Tampa Bay to avoid the possibility of rain).

He also did a disservice to the family of Rick Vanden Hurk, who flew all the way in from Holland to watch their son make his major league debut, and pitch well he did for 4 and 2/3's innings before Fredi Gonzalez decided not to bring him back after the first rain delay. Holland is a long ways to travel from to see Jorge Julio blow a save for your son's team, and I think the least Julio can do is pay for their plane tickets back home.

But seriously folks, did you know that Vanden Hurk is the second major league player of Dutch descent? Did you know that the first was Bert Blyleven? And did you also know that in Holland, baseball is referred to as Honkbal?

Previously on The Fanhouse:
The Nationals only win so far is courtesy of Jorge Julio

They say that one man's dead arm is another man's excuse to fly his family from Holland ... or something like that. The bottom line for the Marlins is that another member of their starting rotation is down, and a guy with a career 5-12 minor league record in four seasons is getting the call.

The photo you see represents the highlight of Ricky Nolasco's 2007 season, which is watching a Pat Burrell home run fly into the stands. He'll have to wait a little bit to improve on that as he has been placed on the 15-day DL and will miss a couple of starts.

Nolasco went 11-11 with a 4.82 ERA as a rookie for Florida last year. He said his fastball was in the mid-80s Friday, instead of his normal low 90s, and "red flags" went up. "Stuff wasn't the same," he said. "It didn't feel good. I could definitely tell there was some discomfort there."

An MRI exam Monday came back negative. "Just got to do what's safe," Nolasco said. "Just get some rest, let it heal completely and go from there."

So while Nolasco's arm recovers, yet another young pitcher from the Marlins gets a chance to show his stuff. Rick Vanden Hurk may not have the record, but he's got talent ... and he has family in far away places.

Vanden Hurk said his family plans to fly in from Holland to watch his big league debut, including his father, who taught him the game. The 6-foot-5 Vanden Hurk signed as a non-drafted free agent in 2002. "I'm going pretty crazy right now," the right-hander said. "Getting the call up, it means a lot. Getting the first big start, that's pretty exciting."

The Marlins are dropping like flies with Nolasco and Josh Johnson out of the rotation with injuries. But the Fish must have an endless supply of young pitching talent since they felt they could afford to trade Yusmeiro Petit to Arizona for Jorge Julio. So whatever Vanden Hurk does in the majors shouldn't surprise anyone. A good outing by Vanden Hurk would not only make the Marlins happy, but it would make the trip from Holland well worth it.