Saturday, August 19, 2006

Can't Anyone On This Team Pitch Anymore?

The Red Sox and their dubious pitching staff further embarrassed not only their loyal fans but themselves with another piss-poor effort from Josh Beckett. Today they set another record they'd like to forget by allowing the third consecutive game of 12+ runs to an opponent at Fenway Park.

Think about all those lousy teams that they've had in their history, and that is something they have never done before.

Beckett is the worst 13-game winner in the majors, and issued an unbelievable nine walks today. The Sox desperately needed a bigtime effort from him today, and he gave them diddly-squat. The pitchers who followed him were equally inept.

The Yankees are clearly clicking on all cylinders in this series offensively. But they came into this series slumping, as they had lost four of six. They dropped two of three to Baltimore at home, and the Orioles had allowed only 13 runs in that whole series. The Yankees are AVERAGING 13 runs in this series so far.

And there are still two games remaining in this series.

But if I were a Yankee fan, I wouldn't be jumping up and down over these wins. Their starting pitching has not been good at all either, as two of three games so far have been lousy performances by their starters. Randy Johnson's linescore was horrible: 7 innings, 5 runs, 6 walks, 3 strikeouts. Once again, the Yankee offense bailed his ass out against the Red Sox. (During yesterday's game, Fox announcers made a big deal over the fact he beat the Red Sox 5 times last year. Most of those starts were mediocre, with his team's offense saving him.)

You win it all by pitching. I spoke to a Yankee fan yesterday, and we both agreed that neither of these teams, with the state of their pitching, will go far in the playoffs, even if they both make it to October.

These three games have left my head spinning. I don't think it's so much the Yankees offense, but the Red Sox pitching is just simply god-awful right now. The Yankees pitching hasn't been sharp this weekend either, but the Sox are throwing grapefruits up there right now.

The Red Sox have thoroughly embarrassed their fans the last three games. I wonder if they have any pride left and can bounce back and salvage some dignity with the remainder of this series, as well as this season.

They'll have to prove it to me that they do.

1 comment:

Michael Leggett said...

Varitek is THE KEY, as "Sophocles Of The Missing Fact", told everyone, last week(FOX Saturday Baseball-Angels @ Yankees):

Funny, but much of Red Sox Nation, also feel that One Albert Samuel Nipper, "Interim Pitching Coach", was not really of any help;

It may be too-late for Dave Wallace, this season.