Entries Tagged 'Dice-K' ↓

The baseball gods keep smiling on Dice-K. How else do you explain 432 walks and 17,344 pitches? The fact that Dice-K is 8-0 is incredibly deceiving to people who don’t read box scores.

In other words, how ’bout that run support?

Two grand slams by Drew (who must have a non-aching knee cap) and Lowell (washed up, WUT now!?). I’m impressed. Not as impressed as I was seeing Colon get out there and look all smug when he gets a strikeout (incidentally, that same look made me want to throw something at the television when he was doing it for the Angels).

The Sox have a great amount of momentum heading out West where they’ll either be met with a really angry and pumped Oakland team or a rolling over, playing dead group who really wish they’d just get this thing over only to realize that they aren’t even at the All-Star break yet.

I’m not one of those people who makes it past the third inning when they start at 10PM, but I’m more comfortable knowing they head out West riding a seven game winning streak and a rested Varitek.

Again, it’s a roller coaster of walks and biting the nails sometimes with Dice-K, but he was saved by the numbers 8 (Crisp) and 9 (Lowrie) and Paps to remain unbelievably undefeated. He has a Jon Lester record this year; squeaking out wins despite weird and sometimes erratic pitching.

Congratulations to Jed Lowrie, who will no doubt be a big-leaguer someday, who hit his first MLB home run. He golfed it out of the park just in to the third row, but that’s a huge deal for the kid. He explained to the reporters that the person gave him the ball from the stands if he received a Beckett-autographed baseball (which Beckett did… but probably tainted with chawjuice just to show he’s not a pansy when he signs balls and dates your sister).

Manny went 0-5… Not the quickest way to hitting 500.

Ortiz went 0-4. Expect him to be taken out of the lineup this year for his knee again. If not only for the DL rest, then possibly for another trip under the arthroscope.

Mr. Greg Maddux, please come forward to accept your award. Future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux, holder of four Cy Young awards, a World Series ring and 17 Gold Gloves has finally reached a hell of a milestone: he’s the 9th pitcher in MLB history to record 350 wins. Simply, totally amazing. A career that, so far, spans 23 years in which only ONE season was not above 15 wins… this guy is one of the best pitchers of our generation and it’s been a pleasure to follow his career.

Finally, Happy Mother’s Day to all you Moms out there. Children: do something nice, but do it yourself.

Dice-K gave up EIGHT, count ‘em, EIGHT walks last night in a WIN in Detroit. How he could possibly escape after issuing eight walks is beyond me. Just to put this into perspective: Dice-K just gave up more walks in one game than David Wells did in his last partial season with the Sox. So far, the Dice-K gamble is paying off because the rest of the team seems to give him a ton of run support.

His starts haven’t been quality starts, but they’ve been wins. He’s 5-0.

Oh, and as far as Craig Hansen goes: I don’t think he’s major league ready. I’m not sure he ever will be and I don’t fully blame him. He came from St. John’s and pitched in his first-ever season in professional baseball, got knocked around and then sent back to the minors without much fanfare. They tell him, hey, it’s not going to work unless you get that changeup going. It’s still not going. His slider, I will say, is coming along pretty well. Also, I saw a level of anger that he’ll need to tone down; it’s absolutely affecting his delivery.

Want controlled anger (read: insanity)? Paps has his 10th save in 10 tries. He’s like a machine.

The Sox won, in Detroit, and they lead the division by 3.5 games. Not bad for all the issues they’ve had in this young season.

I joked with a friend yesterday that if the Sox lost and went down some sort of spiral baseball staircase and stayed in the cellar that it would dawn a new curse for the Sox.

Bill Buckner’s face after he missed the ball was as miserable as I had ever seen. He was in shock with what was happening as Wilson screamed towards home plate. He knew that moment was going to define him. Sad, miserable, ugly truth.

He said yesterday that he was bitter, not to the Boston fans per se, but to the media. He had to forgive the media. I can’t even begin to imagine what he went through, although there were many times where I would watch the replay and think that he was targeted and thank God no one killed him.

The game itself was great. Dice-K is seemingly pulling his other pitches and sticking to fastball, curve, cutter which is EXACTLY what John Farrel told him to do half of last year. So far he leads the league in strikeouts and he’s got an opponent against ERA of around 1.

So, the Sox win and the Tigers go to 0-7. They may just beat the hell out of the Sox and score 20 runs tonight (they can do it with that lineup), but no one will be beat up like Bill Buckner was for 20 years. Nor should they.

The Sox are on their way. As the start of the regular season goes, it seemed like such a strange, non-regular-season-opener. In fact, with these first four games at such an odd time it feels as though Toronto will be more like the season’s beginning.

Dice-K is 1-0 after a terrific performance last night (I would still love to see him reach the 8th inning) and Paps has his second save in three games. Not a bad start.

HEY. The game is at 3:35 today, so let’s try to stay focused on that whole … job… THAT WAS A STRIKE… ahem.