Yeah, I’ve posting somewhat slowly - it’s been a slow news week, besides the endless media sessions, plus, hey, it’s my birthday. But here’s a thought on this quote in Gammons:
“Wells is one of the most underrated pitchers of this era,” Red Sox GM Theo Epstein said. “He has made 30 starts nine of the last 10 years, and he’s a quality left-hander with one of the best deliveries in the game.” Fenway is very much a left-handers’ park, and after being shelled there early in his career, Wells has made 14 regular-season and postseason starts since 1997 and is 7-2 with a 3.53 ERA in those starts.
I’m really looking forward to seeing a regular Sox lefty starter. And if Halama makes it that’ll be two lefties starting for the Sox - how strange is that?
Also from Gammons comes this quote:
“We lost a couple of quality pitchers who won a lot of big games for us,” manager Terry Francona said of Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe, who left for a combined $88 million. In their place, for a guarantee of less than $30 million, are Matt Clement, Wells, Wade Miller, John Halama and Matt Mantei.
But beyond ability, both Pedro and Lowe pitched a hell of a lot of innings over the last few years. For all his rep as injury-prone, Pedro and Lowe both pitched an average of 200 innings each year for the last 3 years, and that’s not even counting the post-season. My worry is not so much that Clement-Wells-Miller-Halama-Mantei don’t pitch as well, but that they spend too much time on the DL. It was nice to see a 5-man rotation without injury last year (well, until that business with Schilling’s ankle), and that seems less likely to me this year. Fingers crossed.