So now it’s Daniel Bard’s turn in the boat for the Portland Sea Dogs.
When Boston promoted Portland closer Beau Vaughn to Pawtucket on Friday, the 27-year-old reliever took his 2-1 record, 2.12 ERA and Red Sox minor-league leading 16 saves with him.
As a result, the closer’s role now falls to Bard, Boston’s first-round pick (28th overall) in the 2006 draft.
Obviously, Boston has somebody named Jonathan Papelbon in its bullpen. But if Bard performs as expected he’ll eventually force his way into the Red Sox’ bullpen — perhaps in the not-too-distant future.
Bard, 23, held opponents scoreless in 15 of his last 17 appearances through August 8. He allowed 17 hits in 29 innings and had a microscopic 0.62 ERA.
Perhaps the only nit that could be picked was the fact he’d walked 16 – although he had fanned 31.
Overall, since being kicked upstairs to Portland on May 18, Bard’s posted a 2-1 record with three saves and a 2.30 ERA in 43 innings – replete with 21 walks and an impressive 54 whiffs.
Bard’s role takes on added significance because the Sea Dogs are battling the Binghamton Mets for the second and last playoff berth in the Eastern League’s Northern Division.
Entering Saturday’s action, Portland led the B-Mets by a mere 1
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Sorry, but your information on Anderson is wrong… he was not promoted to Portland until 7/15 and had thirteen rbi in 19 Double-A games entering play yesterday (he now has seventeen rbi in 21 games after his four-rbi effort in the second game last night)
Thanks for the correction! Sounds like he’s really rounding into form.
Letting Bard develop his skills is smart, as he could be that 8th inning guy sometime in 2009, and maybe get a 9/1 callup.
If Anderson comes up fast (like Ellsbury, Lowrie, Buchholz) where do we put our Gold Glove, 300+BA/25-30HR on base machine (who is currently upsetting his critics for still hitting deep into the 2nd half?) Not LF, not 3B, not DH and definitely not for Teixera or Street. What a great dilemma.
Lars is still striking out at a 33% rate but his walk ratio is healthy so it is not too detrimental at this point. At some point that may catch up to him. Either way, can’t wait to see him at first and Youk at 3b, hopefully by August ‘09.
By the way Caleb Clay was supposed to start for the GCL Sox today, almost a year after he had TJ surgery. MLB is terrible at getting scores/results so I have no idea how he did. He was a pretty exciting, albeit raw, pitching prospect out of high school.
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