All hail the great Hideki Okajima!
Last year, Okajima burst on the scene with a 69-inning effort en route to winning a World Series ring. Despite a late-season stumble, he ended the year with a 2.22 ERA and a sparkling 0.97 WHIP. People attributed his success to his odd “head-snap” motion in which the back of his head faces the batter as the ball makes its way to the plate. The claim was that Okajima was all deception, no talent and he’d trend back to an average middle reliever in the years to come.
In the second year of his contract (he becomes a free agent if the Red Sox don’t pick up his $1.75 million option…riiiiiight — the option becomes guaranteed if he appears in 65 games this year or 115 total over the two years, which is a virtual certainty at this point) he has shown no signs of slowing down.
He’s appeared in seven of 12 games in the early going and has thrown 5.2 innings therein. He’s whiffed four, allowed no hits or runs and in his only blemish, has walked three.
Okajima has to be considered among Theo Epstein & Co.’s best finds. Okajima helped lead the Red Sox to the best bullpen in the league and is singlehandedly keeping the bullpen this year sans Papelbon from imploding as questions surround the effectiveness of the pen. Without Oki, we’re worried about the bullpen as a whole, not the underbelly of it.
The season is young, so concerns that Okajima may eventually lose his deceptive edge and become exhausted again (he’s pacing 93 games) are well-founded. This makes shoring up the middle relief that much more important so Francona can stop constantly going to Okajima. It’s imperative to keep him healthy all year long.
The onus is on Mike Timlin, David Aardsma, Javier Lopez and Julian Tavarez to be effective enough that we can hold Manny Delcarmen back some games to pitch the end. I have confidence in Timlin, Tavarez is a fine longman, and Aardsma has worlds of potential (and tons of control issues). Despite a shining 3.10 ERA last year, Javier Lopez had a WHIP of 1.33 (a little high for a reliever) and showed a reverse split: he handled righty batters far more than lefties. If Aardsma can continue his progression towards being a viable reliever and Lopez can settle down, we can definitely count on Okajima all year.
If we don’t put the trust in the backend of the bullpen early, Okajima will keep pitching… and pitching… and pitching. And I fear that Okajima will become exhausted again, just like he did last year. Okajima and Papelbon combine to be an absolutely lethal combination in the late innings and having the Trampoline only makes things better. The front of our bullpen is not in question. The question is if the back of the bullpen can be effective enough that we don’t cause the front to run out of gas.
I think that the backend of the bullpen is going to be a mix and match effort all year long and we’ll eventually find some modicum of respectability, whether or not that includes Aardsma, Lopez or Tavarez. Despite Okajima’s early workload, I also feel that Francona will throttle back on the reins a bit once he figures out how to best utilize each reliever.
What do you think? Will Okajima run out of gas again or can we depend on the rest of the bullpen to pick up the slack?