Tyler

Ugh. I hate feeling full. I just had Chinese food on a whim and though i dont feel sick, i dont feel like my lunch was very productive. Also, there's so much food left over. I hate throwing all of this away but there's no question, I'm not taking it home and i'm not finishing it.

Yesterday I got up early to beat the traffic heading east to Rancho Cucamonga. The Quakes played the Storm in the last of their 4-game series. Pretty good game; I continue to be greatly entertained when I make the drive to the Epicenter. The reason I wanted to be there was so that I could see Tyler Chatwood in action, finally. I read about him the night before and found out that he was invited to the major league camp in the spring. So. He's one of THOSE minor leaguers. A "prospect". He's got two plus pitches, his fastball and curveball. Short guy, but the downward angle of his fastball is more pronounced than you'd expect; his curve is "kneebuckling". Both of these analyses, I witnessed first hand. His fastball stayed between 92-94, hitting 95 once that I saw. His curveball often baffled hitters. He's young and I think over the next few years he's going to be altering a few things... for instance, he doesnt use his lower body much. He relies heavily on his upper body strength. His delivery is pretty smooth, and the ball looks like a rocket out of his hand. Reports say that he can reach 97mph. Obviously he needs to expand his repertoir... I'm pretty sure he's working on that currently. Change up, i think. Some other trivia.. he had Tommy John Surgery at the age of 15. 15. He's 20, born in 1989. So young. One of his biggest hangups is his command. I'd read about it, but I saw it when he walked the first two batters he faced. He went 5.2 innings and pitched a laborious 105 pitches... the last inning.2 that he pitched were better, i think 11 and 9 pitches respectively or something reasonable like that. Otherwise, he was at or up over 20 pitches almost every inning. Pretty wild. Struck out a bunch of guys out, but ran up the count very often.
But, all in all, he came away only giving up 3 hits, and didnt allow any runs. The Quakes won it 4-0, and the Storm hopped on a bus and went home.




How about those Red Sox? Mike Cameron is on the mend. Jacoby Ellsbury is in my dreams as a healthy man, so he must be getting there too. We're winning games even if it's not effortless. Dustin Pedroia and Jon Lester continue to surpass expectations. Beckett is hurt... maybe? Jury is still out on that one. I'm still trying to figure out how a team gets swept by the Orioles. Perhaps I should just let that slip into the "ancient history" realm. It was a weird game last night vs Toronto, both pitchers (Lackey, Morrow) struggling very early on. I barely take heart that our guy went an acceptable 6 innings while Morrow lasted 1.2.... Lackey was nothing special. "Subpar" as written on www.redsox.com , in fact.
On an unimportant note, I'm happy that J Van Every made the best of his time on base (a walk and a hit last night); he came away from the game responsible for scoring 2 of the Red Sox' 7 runs. I feel a little more positively about him than the term "lukewarm" implies. Not a favorite, but it's always nice to see a quiet, hardworking, good natured, sort of on the older end former Paw Sox player get something done. Chris Carter is being called up to the Mets for some service time. Maybe he'll finally be able to translate his minor league success into major league magic.



Agh, I miss New England baseball. I'm loving the Quakes, but it's not... relevant. To me. It matters because I make it matter, but really, I'm not studying the Angels' farm system so it doesnt make a ton of difference whether or not I know what's going on with their High-A club. I miss being immersed in Paw Sox, Spinners, Sea Dogs, and Salem Red Sox action. I miss wishing that Greenville was a little closer. Now Greenville is the least of my worries. Hard enough to be around in the late afternoon to catch a radio broadcast of any of those teams. Catching games at 7pm is so much more convenient than at 4pm. No wonder people over here dont care as much. Noone's day is done by 4. Then by the time you fight traffic and get home and havent had dinner... forget about watching out of market games.



Well, I must get to another Quakes game one of these days. I want to meet Tyler. I dont know why I havent yet. Dice-K tonight. Try not to think of the possibilities. The safest thing is to just... watch and see. Go Red Sox.

Back for more

That was fun last night. I think I'll try it again.

I hadnt seen a Sox game since last week, so as soon as I was awake I started up Boxee and caught the game around the 3rd inning. Ugh. Terrible. And it seems like that's how it went while I was away up north. Swept by the Rays in a 4 game series, that's just embarrassing. The Rays are a strong team, so the embarrassment has nothing to do with them... but WE should be much better than that.

..and then I look at our team. I take a good concentrated look, and see that maybe we're really not better than that. I'm not sold on one single acquisition we made in the offseason. Beltre, Scutaro, Hall, Cameron, Lackey- none of them feel like they're part of our champion-caliber, gritty, tough, always-contending team. They're still strangers. I didnt have that feeling with Bay or VMart when they joined us.

(sorry, i couldnt help including this. i miss jason bay .. just a little.)

I feel like I could get used to Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre, but the others... I mean, clearly Lackey has been widely hyped for his performance, so it's not that I think they're all no good. Although Lackey isnt an ace as far as 2010 proves it, and that's all that matters to me, what he can do for the Sox. For a team touted as having 3 aces (and a 4th in the making in Buchholz) we sure dont seem to be able to keep opponents' bats quiet. Look at the facts here, ladies and gentlemen:

The Red Sox have played 13 games as of the time of this writing.
We've won 5 of those games.
(Dont do the math to find out how far under .500 we are... it hurts. Just tell yourself that it's early, there's no sense getting worked up, and read on.)
We've held the opposing team to 5 runs or less in 6 games, and have only won 3 of those 6 (meaning, more often than not when we get beat, the other team is really scoring runs; and even after holding them to 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 runs, we havent been able to produce enough of our own to come out on top).
On the other side of things, we've been held to 5 runs or less in 9 games (9 out of 13 total), and we've won ONE of those (meaning, other teams' pitching has been more effective against us than ours has been against them slash our offense is perhaps just very weak, as supported by the previous bullet point).

If we're not going to be scoring runs, our starters have GOTTTTTTT to be stepping things up. That's the most anxiety-inducing part of these early-season struggles for me... pitchers are strange and wonderful beings, impossible to understand, complex, unpredictable, and filled to overflowing with intensity.

Mechanics, psychological stuff... everything from the concrete to the abstract can throw a pitcher off his groove. If they're not working right, so to speak, how do we make them work again?

I've never been a huge Beckett believer... have seen him toss some gems, for sure, but I've always liked Lester as our #1. Sure, I acknowledge that there's a sort of gruff, constantly pissed, murderous-temper quality that gives Beckett more of an Alpha aura, but when it comes to results I'd see Johnny more surely getting things done right, if anyone.

Still, no matter about my personal preferences... they're both considered to be toward the top of the list in MLB. Lackey too (for the record I was unenthused by this pickup, though I did and still do hope that he would make our strong rotation even stronger).

so what's going on here?!


The Sox need to start assigning laps and pushups for fielding errors. And maybe if they incentivize for increased offense.... say, Tito takes everyone out to JP Licks after every game in which at least 7 of 9 guys get a hit. Or we could dream a little smaller and just say that the team gets a pizza party every time Papi only strikes out once in a game.

Hmm, interesting. I'm looking at the individual player stats.

Petey has 5 home runs, the most of any of the guys- can you guess who has the second most right now? Jason Varitek, with 3. (I should note here that he has only played in 3 games to date.) Pedroia is also breaking away from the pack in Total Bases (37.... next in line is Youk with 21!), Hits (18, Beltre and Scutaro after him with 12 apiece), RBI (13, Hermida/Youk/Beltre each with 6), and then the stats (BA, OBP, SLG, OPS). Petey is a machine of a man right now, more than usual. So while I dont enjoy watching my team bumble around on the field game after game (lately), it is incredibly fun watching Petey be on FI-YA.

Again, we're working off of a small sample size here. They've been playing for mere weeks. But until things have had a chance to balance and settle, what else is there to do but talk about what's happened thus far?

I must be Boston at heart.. I've rambled on about nothing for a long time here, but have done it with vigor. At least, I feel invigorated.

Here, let's end on a positive note. I was reading through my scorebook tonight, looking at the games I'd recorded, and I came across the game Bowdie pitched that nearly ended up being a no-hitter.

(taken at the 7.19.09 game, actually)

Paw Sox vs the Indianapolis Indians, 7.19.09. It was literally down to 2 outs in the top of the 9th with no hits allowed to that point, and Fernando Cabrera gave up a scorcher of a line drive right into left-center. FCab, of all people- around that time last season he could do no wrong, he was on a roll. That was a beautiful day. There was a fair on the neighboring football field after the game with a mini baseball history museum, and some games, and food, and booths, etc. Some notes from my scorebook: I sat in Sec 10, Row C, Seat 9. Bowdie went 5 innings, a somewhat high count of 4 BB but 5 SO, two of them looking. I apparently found it necessary to note that Mike screamed  F&*# from the mound after walking Shelby Ford in the 5th- his 4th walk issued in the game, frustrating as he doesnt think of himself as a pitcher who walks a lot of guys. Oh, and the gun read 101mph on Bowden's first strike thrown in the 2nd inning. Haha. Fat chance. Finally- looking at the Indy Indians' current roster, it seems like they've got a lot of familiar names: Argenis Diaz, Brandon Moss, Jonathan Van Every, Craig Hansen... some old friends :) Anyhow, we won 3-2!

Taken on the night I became a Red Sox fan.