http://firebrandal.com/2008/04/27/boston-continues-to-slide.html Analyzing the Boston Red Sox since 2003 Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:47:11 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://firebrandal.com/2008/04/27/boston-continues-to-slide.html/comment-page-1#comment-23823 Ian Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:22:22 +0000 http://firebrandal.com/newblog/?p=2589#comment-23823 It's been a depressing four games, but given the circumstances I agree it's hard to point fingers and lay blame. I strongly suspect the flu affected a lot more of the team than the official word; whether there were bullpen pitchers officially available who really were just sitting there, propped up, to make the other manager think; or whether some of the offense was playing through weakness and dehydration -- they just haven't looked themselves for a few days. If that's the case, hopefully they'll starting to feel better and be able to field a full, healthy team soon. Buchholz looked terrific, and given that he had a few starts with relatively shaky command it was great to see him getting in to the eighth with with a decent pitch count. That's been rare these days. Tito's usually not hesitant to use the pen, and letting Buchholz pitch to Aki (though understandable in itself, as you say) also made me wonder if, say, Okajima had a touch of flu and Tito was concerned about him. It’s been a depressing four games, but given the circumstances I agree it’s hard to point fingers and lay blame.
I strongly suspect the flu affected a lot more of the team than the official word; whether there were bullpen pitchers officially available who really were just sitting there, propped up, to make the other manager think; or whether some of the offense was playing through weakness and dehydration — they just haven’t looked themselves for a few days. If that’s the case, hopefully they’ll starting to feel better and be able to field a full, healthy team soon.
Buchholz looked terrific, and given that he had a few starts with relatively shaky command it was great to see him getting in to the eighth with with a decent pitch count. That’s been rare these days.
Tito’s usually not hesitant to use the pen, and letting Buchholz pitch to Aki (though understandable in itself, as you say) also made me wonder if, say, Okajima had a touch of flu and Tito was concerned about him.

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