“Pourquoi
Eric Gagne suce-t-il des boules de chien pour Les Chaussettes Rouges?”
Sais pas.
Is he falling victim to the infamous eighth-inning closer disease? He
just can get the competitive juices flowing unless it’s a save situation and
it’s the ninth inning?
Pshaw.
I understand it exists, but I really fail to see how that’s an excuse.
Shouldn’t the paramount goal of any pitcher, in any inning, to simply get outs?
If he needs to trick himself into thinking it’s the ninth, fine. But he
shouldn’t need to fool himself that the game on the line. Because it quite
clearly is — it was
yesterday, and it was on
Friday night, once he made it a
save situation for himself.
Or does he just suck?
Whatever it is, the pen seems quite suddenly to have gone from a strength
to a weakness. It’s like Gagne’s arrival jumbled up the formula, that that one
extra piece has sent the old roles into disarray.
This SoSH thread on modern
bullpen usage brings up a troubling fact:
“The
Sox lost 2 games due to late-game bullpen meltdowns. Yet their best relief
pitcher by far pitched only 1/3 of an inning (and a meaningless 1/3 of an
inning at that, to protect a 4 run lead with 1 out to go) while our lesser
options combined to choke away 2 games.”
Think about
that.
And the
starters were so good.
Dice-K pitched
a gem, and saw it all go down the toilet. (He almost never shows much
emotion, but he looked disgusted as he paced around the dugout after Gagne blew
the lead.)
Beckett was
just
inches away from a complete game shutout when it all came unglued.
And
Schilling was good in his second start back, the first outing of his career in
which he didn't walk or strike out a batter. Should we be very worried that that’s
the second
game out of three in which he’s notched not a single K?
I am.
But, then,
I’m worried about a lot of things these days.
And while,
I wish I could get excited that we’re playing the Devil Rays, it’s worth noting
that they aren’t exactly a team of creampuffs.
Scott
Kazmir — both of whose next starts
are against us — has a 1.16 ERA with 45/12 K/BB in six starts since the All
Star Break, and avowed Sox killer Carl Crawford is batting .413 in the same
period.
Happy
times.