With Portland, Gabbard was leading the Eastern League with nine victories and had a .192 opponents batting average. He was promoted to Pawtucket on June 27 and was 1-3 in five starts. In his last PawSox start (Tuesday), he was limited to 69 pitches.
Gabbard was a 29th round pick in 2000. In AAA, he was very tough on LHB (.584 OPS) but RHB hit him pretty good (.842). His total AA OPS against was .554 OPS. ... He is the 11th pitcher to start a game for the Red Sox this season, and the ninth rookie to pitch for the club.
Jon Lester pitched with Gabbard at Portland last year: "He's got a good curve and changeup. He doesn't throw real hard, but because he locates his other pitches, it makes his fastball seem better." ... (More from: RedSox.com, Globe, Herald, Courant)
From a SoSH discussion:
The Boomer, noting the breathing room the Sox have on the Yankees right now:
Pitching tryouts for minor leaguers is a good thing for the organization. It sends a message that merit is rewarded and is great for minor league morale.Carroll Hardy:
I absolutely concur. Moreover, it allows prospects to learn first hand what it takes to get big league hitters out with enough consistency to be successful at the MLB level. When he is 9-2 and dominating AA, it is very difficult to convince a young man how much work remains to be done, and how far away he is. ...MLB says Wily Mo Pena will get a start, with Ortiz at first and Manny DHing. I believe Lowell is back today, so Yook gets a rest.
What remains to do is instructional: teaching and demanding execution, execution, execution. Learning to use -- and repeat with consistency -- one's entire arsenal, at varying speeds, and at all four corners of the strike zone. If you don't do it at AA, it's not a big deal. If you don't do it in the big leagues, you get beat.
I saw that MLB.TV costs only $50 for the rest of the year (2+ months), so I ordered it before last night's game. Since I don't like Joe and Jerry and the other team's radio guys are often simply ignorant of what's going on with the Red Sox, this seems like a really good deal. I hope to get NESN most of the time, but if not, I'll still have the picture and can watch without sound.
Gabbard Gabbard Hey!
Tracer, tracer.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. Tracer.
Looks like Fox on Saturday.
Have you heard about the tracer?
Ugh, my ears are bleeding from the FOX guys....
ReplyDeleteIt gets so annoying when the Umps give away runs for free....
yeah, first base ump needs mf lasik surgery or something, cause papi's foot was clearly on the bag.
ReplyDeletealso they seriously spent about 20 collective minutes discussing manny's 'showboating' of a line drive to right when moments after it happened they reasoned that he was standing there because he didn't know where the ball had gone.
I wish they'd give it a rest about Manny already. Even if I agreed with them, I'd be sick of hearing about it. You'd think he invented showboating, or was the only player to not run out a ground ball once in a while.
ReplyDeleteI don't flat-out love Remy & Orsillo the way many Sox fans do, but these Fox announcers... lordy.
"Well, he's still in there because he really hasn't been in any trouble. He's just made some bad pitches." It was the 4th inning and the score was 6-0 (and 8-0 tw0 batters later)!!
I was scratching my head over that one. Hasn't been in trouble... four home runs... hasn't been in trouble... hmm.
Hendu is The Man to me for 1986.
ReplyDeleteWith those home runs against the Angels and Mets, he was Ortiz before Ortiz was Ortiz.