Josh Beckett (1-0, 5.26) @ Dana Eveland (2-0, 1.93) Clay Buchholz (1-2, 2.70) @ Shaun Marcum (0-1, 4.00) Jon Lester (0-2, 6.23) @ Brett Cecil (1-0, 5.40) The guys that are supposed to be the two best pitchers and the guy that has been the best pitcher go in this series, anything less than 2/3 is a disappointment.
I wonder if he was hurt. They were commenting on his velocity being down tonight. Maybe Wakefield will stay in the rotation after all. Also, I wonder why they had Matsuzaka throw a simulated game before the game tonight. Why not wait until after the game, and if something like this happens have him throw an inning or two in relief?
It looks pretty bad right now, the pitching has been awful, but to be fair two of our best defenders are on the DL.
This guy? :smile: Seriously, though, I don't think Cameron or Ellsbury would have saved your pitching that much in the way of runs over the past ten days or so. You've just been shitty. As has your defense, in general. I strongly doubt the trend continues throughout the season, but I certainly find it amusing at the moment, given all the fanfare surrounding The Boy Genius's amazing new philosophy of trying not to let the other team score runs.
Ya you're right, which is why I said the pitching has been awful. I think the philosophy is more of a cover-up of a bridge year so to speak.
It definitely has not been working up to this point. I loved the Beltre signing during the off-season, but this month has made it pretty obvious that you can't plan on winning games with defense when your catcher is mediocre at best defensively. At this point I'm starting to think this team will end up finishing third behind the Rays and Yankees. Clearly those two teams remain stacked, but there's just been a malaise surrounding this team pretty much going back to when they blew that huge lead to Baltimore last June. They probably will start playing better, but I'm definitely starting to see 85 wins as a possibility. Right now I'm just gonna hope this ends up being just as accurate as when I declared the Yankees season dead after they lost their first 6 games to Boston last spring...
Hell of a start by Buchholz tonight. Exactly what they needed. Hopefully Lester can turn it around tomorrow.
Finished the sweep. Lester over the last 2 starts- 12.2 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 18 K, 6 BB. Seems like he's starting to turn the corner. Hopefully he keeps it up.
