After pitching a game against minor leaguers yesterday and giving up his first home run, which was also his first earned run, of the spring John Lackey made some very good comments. The topic was raised after striking out six and walking none in the match-up with minor leaguers.
“That’s my game,” he said. “Especially coming over here to the East, you can’t walk people. Guys are such good hitters, you’re going to give up hits. If you give them baserunners, that’s when those hits are really magnified.”
I don’t think I could say it much better and perhaps he can spend a few days working on his Japanese to teach this to Daisuke Matsuzaka. I say that jokingly as the team has surely tried to work with Matsuzaka on his walk problem, but it sure can’t hurt to have someone pushing the right ideas in the rotation.
The other good news is that Lackey is feeling good this spring and taking it slow. Having missed the start to the season the past two years to rest his arm it will be nice to see him ready to go right away this year.
This commenting by Lackey won’t likely change what he does in 2010 as he has surely pitched with this in mind for his career, but interesting all the same to see a pitcher understand the importance of walks and keeping runners of base. Pitchers seem to be much more accepting of sabermetrics as pitchers like Brian Bannister, Zack Greinke and Max Scherzer have made comments on new concepts of FIP, ground ball rates and WAR.