If its High, Let it….Go?
Rockies 1
Red Sox 2
Pedroia, Youkilis, Ortiz, Manny. It’s got that 900 run new-car-smell already. Keep the speed at the bottom where they can steal bases, and keep the hot hand and OBP at the top. This isn’t rocket science.
Big things tend to happen against sinker-ballers when they’re forced to go to something besides the sinker. Entering the game, Cook had thrown a version of his fastball 82% of the time (insider). Even fellow ground ball specialists Derek Lowe (71%) and Brandon Webb (77%) mix in their off-speed stuff more. Last night Cook showed in a few curves early but relied exclusively on the hard stuff after the third inning. He struck out Mirabelli and Manny with the hook, but Lugo also laced a curve for his third inning double and Youkilis’ two out RBI double was a poorly located slider. Cook has to keep those secondary pitches in the back of hitters’ minds, and his success depends more on the quality of his breaking stuff than the consistency of his sinker. Good and bad, big things happen when a sinker-baller shows his other stuff.
Against an American League lineup Wakefield would have been knocked around like a pinball last night. Well, he certainly wouldn’t have made it to the eighth, and handing it to Papelbon would be out of the question. Knucklers were high were regularity. There were a bevy of good ones as usual, but Wake gets hurt on the mistakes. The S.S. Colorado was sailing uncharted waters – Helton led the team with one at bat against Timmeh – and it showed.
It was a good win, now its time to string them together.
Tonight: Josh Fogg (1-5, 5.06, 1.62) at Curt Schilling (6-2, 3.49, 1.25)
The Velvet Fogg gets by on smoke and mirrors. His stuff is underwhelming, he possesses a fastball that tops at 88 mixed with an average curve and slider that he has trouble throwing for a strike. I can see David Ortiz licking his chops. Last week I said “a win this afternoon would go a long way to convincing me to trust Schilling in a big spot.” And what did my fellow blogger journalist do? A near perfect game. Well, I bow to you, Curt the Verbose.
I agree last night’s win was somewhat underwhelming but 6 or 7 more would not hurt. Sox need to continue to dominate the (inter)national league patsies.