Tampa Bay 0
Boston 3

Back when I was in college, we had this baseball video game on Nintendo 64 (if I recall correctly, it was endorsed by Ken Griffey Jr.).  A few friends and I drafted our teams, and would play each other in tournaments every weekend.  As you can probably deduct from this, we were pretty popular with the ladies.

Anyway, I had the pleasure of drafting Tim Wakefield on my team, along with a hard-throwing reliever, John Wetteland maybe.  My strategy would be to start the game with Wakefield and his fluttering 63 MPH knuckleball, and later bring in John Wetteland and his intimidating fastball.  After my opponent squinted for 7 innings while trying to hit the knuckleball, Wetteland’s heater appeared to be going 200 MPH, and was virtually unhittable.

This same dynamic is what we witnessed last night against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  Tim Wakefield started the game, and his knuckleball darted about like a hummingbird for 8 innings (he actually took a no-hitter into the 7th).  Instead of the 1999 version of John Wetteland, the Rays were forced to try to catch up with Jonathan Papelbon’s 97 MPH heat and a knee-bucking splitter in the 9th innings, and they managed to look extremely futile in the process.

Tim Wakefield has been the anti-Steve Irwin, if you will.  He has dominated the Rays over the course of their existence, and is the all-time win leader against Tampa Bay.

Aside from an excellent pitching effort by Wakefield and Papelbon, the Sox also received some production from Julio Lugo, as the SS had 3 hits and is now hitting .341/.364/.439 in the month of August.

Tonight, it’s a battle of young hard-throwing lefties, as Jon Lester (1-0, 6.43) makes his 2007 Fenway debut against the dreaded Scott Kazmir (9-7, 3.58).  This isn’t a very favorable pitching matchup, and would be a huge win for the Sox if they could manage it.

Comments are closed