The Yankees are at the fort for the only time this spring. Tim Wakefield is facing off against Carl Pavano. More on the results as the game progresses.
Wakefield simply didn’t have it today. He fell behind batters earlier and began throwing a bit more strikes in his later innings. Still, he was ineffective. He was been hit pretty hard his entire start. I imagine it’s pretty hard to pitch early in spring when you live or die by the ultimate touch pitch. He allowed 8 hits and 4 earned runs in 4 innings of work.
The Red Sox hitters have hit Pavano pretty hard. Unfortunately, many of the balls they put into play were drilled right at Yankees outfielders. Still, they’ve managed 4 hits through the first 3 innings. Pavano actually started off throwing strikes but has since had a little trouble finding the zone. He allowed a walk to Manny Ramirez after almost hitting him and then ran the count full on J.D. Drew before getting a strikeout on what appeared to be a borderline pitch. Overall, he threw a less-than-stellar 60% of his pitches for strikes.
The Red Sox bullpen was very impressive. Donnelly worked very quickly and kept every one of his pitches down. I’m glad I didn’t try to get a hit off of him. Romero and Delcarmen each had 1-2-3 innings with a strikeout each. Javy Lopez was the only bullpen pitcher to give up a run or more than 1 hit. His chances of making the roster however are slim given that his only role would be as a lefty specialist and the Red Sox already have Okajima and Romero. Hansen closed out the game with a 2 run lead. He allowed a single his first pitch to the first batter he faced and then went 3-0 on the second. At this point I was thinking we’d be seeing the Hansen we were used to. However, he then dropped in a real nice slider for a strike and went on to strike out the batter. He then quickly induced a double play ball to end the game.
I want to make special note of Hansen’s slider. He threw it more over the top than he usually does and the results were positive. It looked like the strike out pitch that it was promoted as when he was a prospect and not like the flat, juicy pitch that it’s been in his time with the Red Sox. Today he definitely regained the mechanics that allowed him to be so effective earlier in his career. I’ve been saying all along that we should start Hansen in AAA but if he can throw the slider like he did today, he could be an effective closer at the major league level. Last year he posted an ERA of 2.75 in AAA Pawtucket while allowing less than 8 hits per 9 innings pitched.
I took a look at how the Red Sox hitters were doing earlier in spring. Now that they’ve recorded some more at bats, I’ll be revisiting them again. This time I will actually be able to post their ratio stats so you can get a better idea for how they’ve done.
Lugo
