“It’s never like riding a bike. It doesn’t matter if you close every night, the last three outs are the hardest ones to get.”
One of the things I love about the Sox rotation is that it features pitchers with very distinctive styles: Pedro is man of a thousand pitches, Tim Wakefield is the current flagbearer for the knuckleballing cause, and Derek Lowe is, when on, the prime example of sinkerball pitching - all groundouts (his 2.98 groundball-to-flyball ratio leads the majors). This doesn’t necessarily make it the best rotation in baseball (though it’s certainly up there), but it makes it a great education in the different ways a pitcher can get an out. Add B.H. Kim’s sidearm to the list and you’ve got a plethora of looks to give a hitter.
And the Sox relied on that procession of looks for last night’s nerve-wracking 9th inning. Lowe did a tremendous job, especially in not unravelling after the Craig Monroe homer, but Timlin letting men at 1st and 3rd meant my heart was in my mouth. Fortunately, he’s Mike Timlin, bitch: lately Timlin has a knack of pulling out something when the Sox most need it, and his K of Monroe was a huge moment. And Tito suddenly looked like a managing genius with his use of Embree (sneaky, since Embree isn’t really a LOOGY, and can get the right-handed batters out too) and Leskanic for one batter each. Shades of La Russa. Lowe got the win, as befits the man with the best run support in the majors, and Gutierrez stepped up to deliver. It’s a sweet, sweet feeling, that confidence in the bullpen. It’s like April all over again.
In related news, Alan Trammell has gotten pitch-count religion. Bullpens matter.
The first half of the game, we certainly didn’t play very smart. Mike must have thrown at least 20 extra pitches because of that and that certainly hurt. It wasn’t his fault.