Jake Westbrook Sells Soul to Satan, Sox Down 2-1
When Jake Westbrook blew Dustin Pedroia away on 3 pitches to start the game, I was afraid it was afraid it bad sign.
When he loaded the bases in the second inning and managed to escape with no runs allowed, I started to become a little suspicious.
When he managed to get Manny Ramirez to hit David Ortiz with a hard ground ball on the base-paths, I was certain he had done it: Jake Westbrook has sold his soul to the devil.
In all seriousness, he did pitch quite well, but baseball is a funny game, is it not? This Boston lineup scores a combined 12 runs against C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona, 2 legitimate AL Cy Young candidates, and is completely baffled by the likes of Jake Westbrook while only striking out twice. This is a guy who gave up 10 hits in 6 innings in his only regular season game against Boston. I guess a tip of the cap goes to a veteran pitcher who probably had the game of his career last night.
Daisuke Matsuzaka came up short once again. Aside from giving up a 2-run HR to Kenny Lofton (who had one of the more animated HR trots I’ve seen, especially from a 50-year-old man), he was fine up until the 5th inning, when the wheels started to come off the wagon train. However, on a night where the offense is completely flummoxed by a pitcher who is the definition of “league average”, he only gets a meager fraction of the blame pie.
Hats off to the bullpen, who pitched as well as they could have (3 hitless innings).
With the recently injured Tim Wakefield listed as the Game 4 starter (8.76 ERA in his last 5 starts), there appears to be a cluster of dark clouds forming over Lake Erie.
Thanks for keeping up the site, as opposed to that other asshole who never writes.
Ugh. I’m just beside myself right now…