R&R in KC
After winning the home opener, the Sox looked quite sluggish in their encore performances against the Yanks. What they needed was a little R&R against a weak out-of-division opponent — and the KC Royals came to the rescue.
Though the pitching staff managed to make the series interesting — including dropping the first content by virtue of Okajima’s and Bard’s eighth inning bullpen lapses — there were many positives to take away from the road trip to Missouri.
For one, Tim Wakefield looked excellent in his season debut in the series opening loss, throwing seven strong with six punchouts and just one walk.
While experience dictates withholding judgment on players until May at the least, the rules are thrown out the window when discussing 43 year-old knuckleballers.
Especially when considering that Wake appeared in the fewest games of his career in ’09 (other than his rookie season in ’92), was noticeably hampered by injuries in September, and struggled mightily in that last extended taste of big league action (Sept ’09: 14.0 IP, 12 BB, 8 K, 4 HR), it’s hard not to be excited about his most recent performance.
Like it or not, Wakefield is the backbone of this Red Sox pitching staff and will continue to be until he retires. Yes, there are plenty of more talented pitchers on this squad, many in fact. But, there is no pitcher more versatile and better suited to plug holes than the veteran.
Let’s face it, if there’s an injury in the rotation, who’s the first guy to get called to action? When most teams are reaching for the AAA duct tape and reciting their Hail Marys, the Sox calmly tap two fingers to their right wrist for the knuckleballer.
If there are pitchers struggling in the bullpen, Wakefield is more than willing to answer the team’s needs. A hurler who could be the number three starter on plenty of second-division squads, his selflessness dwarfs that of countless similarly talented pitchers — many of whom would complain or terrorize the locker room in light of such a “demotion.” Wake, on the other hand, takes it in stride as the most fluid asset in the Majors, having made the transition countless times in his career.
While many testaments to the value of the so-called “team player” are blown out of proportion, this is one instance where it may be a player’s biggest asset.
Seeing Wakefield succeed at this early juncture is very important to the teams chances, demonstrating that the team’s ultimate fail-safe will be ready again this year.
The “B-Team”
On a similar note, one that was perhaps more encouraging than the success of Tim Wakefield, was the performance of the B-Squad on Saturday night.
Though the team plated just two runs off starter Zack Greinke, the AL’s reigning Cy Young award winner, the Red Sox offense threatened all game long, lead by contributions from the bench.
Mashing two home runs, including shots by reserve outfielder Jeremy Hermida and Varitek, officially the team’s #2 backstop, Mike Lowell also added a hit, making it a total line of 4-for-11 with three home runs from the 6-8 hitters.
The B-team followed it up Sunday afternoon by helping to spank Gil Meche with Hermida adding a two RBI double to make it 3-for-8 on the series — an excellent sign considering that his services will be called upon often in light of Drew’s incessant injury concerns, which have already begun cropping up.
Papi’s Struggles Continue
Despite the performance of the rest of the team, the main storyline for the beginning of the season continues to be the absence of Big Papi’s bat.
Eighteen at-bats. Two hits. Patience, everyone, patience.
Still, it’s not a good sign from the big fella.
Sure, I did say earlier I liked that he wasn’t getting blown away by C.C. Sabathia’s fastball as he did last season — he wasn’t overpowered as he had been early last year. (Though, you have to wonder whether or not that was because Sabathia wasn’t using the change-up much in that matchup.)
Either way, it’s impossible to ignore 9 Ks in 18 at-bats.
Again, it’s very early, but a 57.7 contact percentage obviously won’t cut it especially when you’re only connecting on 64.7 percent of swings inside the zone.
Eighteen at-bats is nothing to hang a season on, but things will have to turn around quickly or else Papi will start losing at-bats.
Lashing out at the media isn’t a good sign either. Anyone can tell you, athlete or not, that when people cast doubt a few times, it tends to be OK. But, when you hear it consistently for extended periods, it does effect the way you approach the task at hand.
For Papi, being driven crazy by the media will only damage his swing. Though he’s probably questioned himself plenty of times over the last year, when anger is demonstrated publicly, it shows a level of self-doubt and frustration that has reached a tipping point — one that may be hard to recover from.
Whatever hole he has got himself into, he won’t be able to climb out of it if he no longer has confidence in his abilities. Last week’s display is a fairly strong signal that things have gone firmly in that direction, possibly making his swing harder to get back than it was a year ago.
Buchholz’ Debut
We’ll give him a bit of a break because he hadn’t pitched in ten days, but Sunday’s game was not a positive start to Buchholz’ season.
Overall, it was quite the perplexing debut. He was aggressive and brilliant at times, while passive and hittable at others — leading one to wonder what may have been going on in Buchholz’ head.
Though I usually prefer to leave subjectivity out of player analysis, it would be very naïve of us to assume that frustration did not play a role in Buchholz’ Sunday outing…
…because it was another in a long line of disappointing outings from the right-hander that should have ended far better.
In the early innings, it seemed as if he had two strikes on just about every batter. Yet, somehow, he managed to send down only one hitter by way of the K.
As the were Royals laced his offerings all over the field, it seemed as if Buchholz got more and more timid as each hit reached the outfield grass.
Though he was consistently ahead of batters 0-2 and 1-2, he would get predictable once there, trying to get batters to chase or nibbling high and outside until 2-2 and 3-2. Then, fearing a walk, he would cruise a fastball middle-in that would get slugged by the KC batters.
It’s really quite astounding how exceptional he looked until he got two strikes on a batter. At that point, his approach fell apart, he became predictable and inefficient, and was hit hard. Sadly, this has been the story of Buchholz’ career to this point — a guy with exceptional talent who fights himself on the mound far too often.
He had his stuff working on Sunday, but, as always, failed to be aggressive with two strikes.
There were a couple at-bats in the early innings that may have shaken his confidence when he got to two strikes. Jose Guillen’s 2-2 homer to left-center was definitely one, as Buchholz had already induced a swing-and-miss with the fastball in the at-bat before leaving the fastball low and in on the home run.
I regret to say that I don’t clearly remember who the other batter was, but if my memory serves me correctly, it was Alberto Callaspo’s single to right center in the bottom of the third. Again with two strikes, Buchholz got timid, got deep in the count, and cruise a hittable pitch down the pipe. Had he been aggressive, he could have coaxed a K out of Callaspo instead of nibbling and hoping the batter would chase.
Whatever the problem was, there is no doubt that it is fixable. The fact remains that Clay Buchholz is just a tweak or two away from becoming the pitcher everyone has expected for years. He still misses bats, has decent command, and gets his fair share of groundball outs — all the ingredients of a solid #2 or better.
His successful 2009 campaign was just the beginning. As evidenced by his plate discipline indicators, a contact percentage of 77.5 is far too good to yield K/9 rates in the 6’s, having ended ’09 with a 6.65 mark.
If these indicators had played out on par with the expected league average, Buchholz would have posted an 8.61 K/9 rate and 3.42 BB/9 rate — rates comparable to the upper echelon hurlers in the league.
In the end, Buchholz has too much talent to continue to underwhelm, and, though we say this every year, 2010 could be the year.
As with so many young pitchers, he needs to trust his stuff and let the pitches fly. If he challenges hitters more, avoids being predictable, and attacks hitters on 0-2 and 1-2 instead of looking for the chase, he’ll get that breakout.
Still, though it sounds like a simple fix, it’s easier said than done. And Buchholz seems like the kind of guy where his progress will be touch and go from outing to outing.