The Red Sox dropped their 2009 opening home series against the Rays 2 games to 1. It's a no brainer to summarize -- starting pitching.
Beckett pitched a great opening game & won.
Lester & Dice-K could only go 5 innings & both lost.
End of story.
Other factors -- like the umpire's strike zone & line drives right at people -- didn't help the situation. But it was the lack of the starters to keep the ball down & out of the middle of the plate that led to 2 losses.
No need to get excited. Lester & Dice-K are too good not to bounce back.
3 comments:
Wow, I finally found a sight that tells it like it is!!! I'm a Sox fan in enemy territory and have been looking for a blog that is made for the Red Sox Nation.
That strike zone was unbelievable. How can the umps get away with making calls against only one team? What a joke!
I'm just happy I found a place for real Sox Fans who tell it like it is!
I'll be back!!!!!!!!!!!
Lester's outing doesn't concern me too much. He was great in the first two innings on Wednesday which hopefully will be more the norm than the exception. However Dice-K is a different story.
Let's break it down:
We all know that in 2008 he was 18-3 in 29 starts with a 2.90 ERA in 167.2 innings pitched. That was the good news. The bad however is the 128 hits plus the 94 walks for a grand total of 222 base runners. That is an average of about 1 and 1/3 base runners per inning. Timely defense saved many of his outings.
I believe that lightning won't strike twice in this instance and therefore if he doesn't get more consistant from batter to batter 18-3 will be a very far reach.
Seriously.... I just watched my man Matsuzaka throw 43 pitches, 51% of which were actually strikes, over 1 complete inning with 5 earned runs allowed. This is getting really painful. Way to blow a 3 run lead in the bottom of the first.
ARGGGGH!!!!
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