Late Inning Letdown
Curt Schilling pitched well enough to win. He left with a 4-3 lead after pitching through the sixth inning, giving up 3 runs on 8 hits. But the bullpen, without the services of Gagne and Papelbon, who worked the three previous games, was not up to the task. Corey pitched a clean 7th, but Manny Delcarmen let in the tying run in the 8th and a tired, bruised and battered Hideki Okajima gave up a two run tater to Vernon Wells to lose the game. Coupled with another Yankee win over Seattle, giving them a 3 game lead in the wild card, the Sox have a six game bulge in the AL East. That's good, but I like seven better. With four games coming up at Baltimore, maybe that will happen, for the Sox will take 3 of those 4 games. I know it....the O's pitching staff is in shambles and ripe for the taking. Here are the pitching matchups........
Tim Wakefield (16-10, 4.16 ERA) vs. Garrett Olson (1-3, 7.22) tonight
Jon Lester (3-0, 5.26) vs. Daniel Cabrera (9-14, 5.06) Friday
Matsuzaka (14-11, 4.11) vs. Jon Leicester (0-1, 12.60) Saturday
Beckett (17-6, 3.30) vs. Jeremy Guthrie (7-5, 3.65) Sunday
We have to hope that Wakefield's injury interruption does not cool him off, for he was white hot before his forced break. We need you Timmy. The magic number stays at 17, and the earlier the Sox can clinch the division, the more time some of the players, one example being Okie, among others, will have to rest. To heal. To rejuvenate. And it will give Tito and John Farrell the needed days to set up the post season rotation and to use the 5 starters for, say, 5 innings instead of 7 or 8. That's why these upcoming games with a team in trouble (Baltimore) are so important to the team. And to RSN. To us all.
Click on the title of this post for Tony Massarotti's article about our newest sparkplug and future All Star, Jacoby Ellsbury. Great stuff! Have a wonderful Thursday, and I'd like to hear your comments on Massarotti's piece. And this....do you think the Sox are NOT going to hold onto their lead? Are they in trouble? I'll answer each and every one. Thanks!
posted by Peter N @ 6:11 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Wake still has the outside chance at 20 wins. Let's hope tonight is #17!
Hey Sul. I hope so too! And I just received a comment, via email, and I will print it right here, right now, from Scott......
Hey Peter,
I came across you blog and wanted to let you know I totally agree with you….I think that this series with the O’s is going to dictate next weeks series with the Spankees. We have to go into this series and take 3-4 (especially with the O’s pitching staff falling apart the way it has) in order to set ourselves up for next week. There is still a lot of baseball to be played and I get nervous when the “magic numbers” come into play. I feel like that hasn’t worked in the past so we should just forget it and take the remainder of the season day by day. I’m not much of a superstitious person, but when it comes to the sox…..sleep, eat, breathe baseball! Haha
I read Massarotti’s piece as well and liked it a lot. I think he made some great references to Ellsbury and Buchholz especially the fact that their careers need to be looked at separately. The life of a pitcher has to be slow and gradual, a position player on the other hand needs the opportunity to explode and come out of the gates gunning. I feel like position players (especially rookies) have so much to prove so they are not overshadowed by the “starters” (example JD Drew ) who gets paid FAR too much to do so little.
With the upcoming Yankees series I think you should start prepping your audience. I read red sox blogs all day (luckily my job allows me to do it haha) and the best conversations are ones about the rivalry. I found this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7BC7X0Oi3E#GU5U2spHI_4 with people talking about the rivalry and its things like this that make October so enjoyable. Anyways, Sorry to lay this all on you but your post got me fired up haha. Great way to start a Thursday!
Scott, thanks...you just said hello to EVERYONE!
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