Knuckling Under
Saturday, April 7, 2007
![So after the first four games, the Sox are a solid 2-2. In reality, they ought to be 3-1, but surprisingly their bats let them down yesterday. Too bad to TIm Wakefield who pitched a superb game, and actually had a better stats line than Texas’ winning pitcher. All Texas could really muster was Sammy Sosa’s first RBI in 6,378 games (or something like that) on a mistake check-swing bloop. Even a modest offensive output from the Sox could have sealed this game. But it wasn’t to be.
Other items from the past few days:
Daisuke Sits ‘em Down
- As has been extensively covered perhaps every sports related news organization on the planet, Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched pretty darn good in his first outing, especially since it was pretty cold. But how many of those sports outlets live blogged the event? I only know of one: the esteemed Bill Simmons. Here is a sample:
Roll of the Daisuke
11:06 -- Terry Francona chews gum and stares off into the distance. That may have
been stock footage. Can't be sure.
11:08 -- Funny shot of about 10,000 photographers crammed into a 10-by-12 photo
booth next to the third-base dugout. That's followed by a scouting report for Dice-K
that tells us that he has two fastballs (four- and two-seam) and five other pitches he
can throw for strikes (slider, cutter, changeup, curve, split-finger). In other words, he
has seven more pitches than Joel Pineiro.
11:10 -- Our first look at Kansas City starter: Zack Greinke, whose career nearly got
derailed by an anxiety disorder last season. That's really the difference between the
Sox and Royals in a nutshell: When the Sox need a No. 3 starter, they can just say
"screw it" and spend $103 million on the best Japanese pitcher alive. When the Royals
need a No. 3 starter, they roll the dice with a guy battling an anxiety disorder. These
are the things that happen when a professional sports league decides against a salary
cap.
Classic Simmons....
Bully for the Bullpen
Simmons does bust on Joel Pineiro a little, probably for his one bad outing. But the bullpen as a whole has so far been a far sight better than last year’s craptacular showings by Rudy Seanez and Julian Tavarez (Tonight’s Starter BTW). Pineiro & Company (Okajima, Romero, Snyder, Lopez, Donnelly, and Papelbon) have an ERA of 1.50 thus far. OK it has only been 4 games, but I like what I see.
Sox Podcasts
Just a friendly plug for a couple of quality podcasts by real Sox fans.
First out of the box is Corn, Gordon & Flanagan (iTunes or Web).
These guys put together a great podcast, chock full of obsevations that could only come from true fans. And in between the astute commentary, they verbally abuse each other (no profanity mind you) like good friends should.
The latest episode includes “Where are the young arms, Youk chills out, the back end of the rotation, a history lesson or two, and 3 quick strikes”
My only complaint is that they only pump out a podcast every two weeks. But when you have real lives (like I would hope they do) I suppose it can be tough to get together for such an ensemble recording more often than that. I guess I will have to suffer in between....
The second is The Original Red Sox Podcast (iTunes or Web)
This is a Father-Son team providing pretty regular commentary on their beloved Sox. They post shows usually every series, and provide looks at each individual game. I hadn’t seen anything out of them since January, but apparently once again real life has intruded, and they hope to start up real soon.
So, okay, we here in the Redsoxpodcast studios are about as slow out of the Spring Training
gate as Joel Pineiro. With the D either in school, at baseball practice, or laying on the couch
in a stupor, and me getting ready to take two week scouting trip to Peru (The Cusco Cocoas
have this phenom I just have to see), the next ‘cast has had to take a back seat. Rest
assured, we will be back to our regular season antics once the games count....
Geez. Poor Pineiro can’t get any respect!
The Fifth Starter
As I mentioned earlier, the starter of tonight’s fifth game of the season for the Sox is Julian Tavarez. Last year Tavarez started out playing a disastrous tag-team in the bullpen with Rudy Seanez, but ended the season on a good note as a starter going 5-1 witha 4.05 ERA. Lets hope that the Wins will continue.
If Tavarez doesn’t work out, it looks like we should be able to celebrate return of John Lester to the ball club, after beating back cancer. Lester beat some Yankees A-Ball farmhands that will no doubt be trade bait for Vlad Guererro in 2-3 years.
"I felt good out there," Lester told MLB.com. "There were a little jitters, but overall I was
feeling really good. I'm about as close as you can get to feeling 100 percent.
“I would like to return tomorrow. We'll have to sit down and see where we are. Hopefully, in
four starts I'll be in [Triple-A] Pawtucket or Boston."
And if Tavarez pitches lights out, well then....you can never have enough pitching!
Go Sox!](C1B41D7E-76B1-4592-9ED5-BB7635281155_files/shapeimage_1.png)
