The Dirty Dozen

Not that the BoSox pitching staff is comprised of ex convicts or court marshaled military men, but they are made up of a mostly patched together group. After the month of April that patchwork of starters, relievers, and one homegrown closer came together and looked pretty goddamn good in the process.

Overall, the Sox 3.28 ERA is second-best in the AL, they posted a 3.14 ERA in the past 19 games, and are tied for first in opposing batting average with .228 against them. The Sox have allowed three or fewer runs in 12 of those 19 games. The Sox accomplished it by establishing their pitching staff as the premier dozen in the majors in the month of April and hopefully in the months to come.

Boston’s starters are averaging more than six innings a start, which is almost unheard of when in this day in age when a starting pitcher will rarely go six innings consistently. Just as a note, the New York Yankees are averaging less that five innings per start in the month of April. This kind of output from the starting rotation put less stress on some weaknesses that are in the Boston pen, namely JC Romero, Joel Pinero, and even Brenden Donnelly to a lesser degree.

After Curt Schilling’s meltdown opening day in Kansas City he’s gone 3-0 with giving up only one or no earned runs in each start. Josh Beckett has been nothing but short of dominant in four out of his five wins. Daisuke Matsuzaka is even beginning to show his talent, tenacity, and mental toughness that made him a phenom in Japan. Tim Wakefield is off to a slowish start reprising his role this year as old reliable and coming out of April with a 2-3 record. His ERA is low though, in the top ten of the AL, showing that the losses are not out of control. Julian Tavarez (while ripped on by me quite a bit) has even shown signs that his eventual move to the bullpen should be fruitful, as he’s good for about two or three solid innings at a time. He knows it, and everyone knows that he’s just keeping Jon Lester’s spot warm until he’s done with assignment in Triple A.

On to the bullpen now, that sweet sweet bullpen that is a big change from last year. Sox relievers have a 2.18 ERA, which is the lowest in the majors, with a dazzling 1.07 mark during the past 17 games. Are you seeing a theme with that last stretch between the relievers and starters? The bullpen has allowed only one run in the past 21 1/3 innings on the road, pointing to the Sox AL best road record in April. That stretch of games also came against mostly AL East opponents, and division games are the ones they need to win.

The bullpen, led by Papelbon’s 0.00 ERA along with lefthander and former Nippon Ham Fighters ace Hideki Okajima who has a surprising 0.71 ERA (surprising because he sucked in spring training), hadn't allowed a run in 14 innings before Derek Jeter's homer off Mike Timlin Sunday, and has stranded 24 of 28 inherited runners. Which basically means that not only do they take care of their own, they take care of those that the starters cannot handle at the end of their day. To me that seems to be the best statistic there is when it comes to relief pitching. Getting out of jams, and I’m cautiously confident that it will stay that way.

I’d like to close on the fact that Okajima’s dominance has been eye-opening. I touched on it a bit, but I want to go back to it because I am that fucking stunned at his performance. Even though he spent parts of 11 seasons playing for the Yomiuri Giants and the Ham Fighters in Japan, the Sox didn’t exactly know what to expect from the lanky left-hander even though the guy’s not exactly a rookie. Despite the considerable experience, he surrendered three home runs in 13 innings during spring training and was taken deep by Kansas City’s John Buck on his very first major league pitch April 2. I’ll credit that to the Royals playing like overachieving world beaters that afternoon though. They’ve been known to do that. How about the 2003 Opening Day Royals fans? Anyone?

Since then, however, Okajima has been nearly perfect. He has tossed 12 scoreless innings in his past 12 outings, allowing only three hits, and 15 of his past 26 outs have been strikeouts. Okajima quickly and obviously has earned the confidence of Francona, who opted to use him to close against the Yanks on April 20 after mounting a serious 8^th inning comeback when Papelbon was given a prescribed night off after working the previous two games. Papelbon, meanwhile, continues to dominate as the closer and has saved all eight opportunities while striking out 15 in 9 1/3 scoreless innings. Hey, I’m big on Papelbon, sue me.

Tonight on the mound will be one half of the book end of the ageless wonders, Curt Schilling. Schil’ is 3-1 with a declining ERA of 3.27 and batters only hitting .232 against him. His 23 strike outs show that he can still hit the payoff pitch this late in his career. Opposing will be fellow fat guy Joe Blanton for the A’s. Blanton (2-1) has been solid but not great the past few seasons for the East Bay A’s, even though he docks into Fenway with similar season numbers as Schilling. Blanton also has two no decisions from this year as well.

**Oops**
In my entry from Thursday, April 26^th I had said that Curt Schillings bloody sock from Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS was in the Hall of Fame. Actually, it is his other bloody sock from Game 2 of the 2004 World Series that is in Cooperstown. Sorry, I gave my fact checker the week off.