Birthday Spanking
The Red Sox completed a 3 game sweep of the Yankees this weekend to pull ahead in the American League East by 4 games. A few thoughts:
- The Yankees were outscored 21-17 over the three games and some considered this a moral victory for New York because of their pitching injuries. The Sox, however, came into the series hitting poorly. Thankfully, Varitek, Pedroia, and Ramirez all showed signs of coming out of their slumps. While Yankee pitching should be healthier the next time the teams meet the Sox offense should also be improved.
The idea of a moral victory also ignores the first game of the series. New York started Andy Pettitte and brought in Rivera to close. The Sox were without Jonathan Papelbon who had pitched in the previous two games and had to close with Hideki Okajima. A game that favored the Yankees became an impressive win for the Red Sox.
- Whining about injuries is laughable. With a Yankee payroll of 195 million and a Red Sox payroll of 143 million, no one’s going to feel sorry for either team when injuries happen. If money is spent wisely, both Boston and New York should be deep enough to deal with losing key players.
- Boston’s starting pitchers threw about as well as I expected. New York has too much talent to be shut down, but all three kept Boston in their respective games.
Schilling gave up 5 runs in 7 innings. Arod was responsible for 4 of those. Work around Arod instead of trying to sneak fast balls by him and Schilling’s final line would have looked much better.
Beckett gave up 4 runs in 6.2 innings. Not exactly shutting them down, but better than the Beckett of old. He looks like a different pitcher compared to last year.
Dice-k gave up 6 runs in 7 innings. Still, I came away impressed. At least two runs were handed to New York through a walk and hit batsmen. Matsuzaka battled all night, never seemed intimidated, and was still throwing in the high 90s in the 7th inning. If he can settle down and not give away outs I’m confident his line will improve. If it was tough for Beckett to adjust to the American League you have to expect the same for someone facing as many changes as Matsuzaka.
- The Sox bullpen allowed 1 run over three games. Okajima looks like the real deal and could take over the setup role that has seemed shaky in Timlin’s hands for a while now.
Papelbon looked like the Papelbon of last year pre-injury. It went through my mind last year, but I didn’t dare say it. I have no fear saying it now. The Sox have the better closer between the two teams. Which brings me to…
- Rivera. He did not look like the pitcher many consider the best closer of all time. His pitches looked flat and had none of the last second bite they normally have. He’s had rough stretches before and returned to his normal dominant self, and it was just one game, but Rivera’s 38 now. He can’t be lights out forever. Time will tell.
- The Sunday game was also my birthday. My family gave me a Red Sox jersey signed by Carl Yastrzemski. The Sox hit 4 home runs in a row, all bombs. Not a bad way to celebrate.
