Keith Foulke could be back in the Red Sox pen early next week -- or he could be seriously considering retirement.
Foulke will pitch for Lowell (A) Friday night and for Pawtucket (AAA) Sunday. If that goes well, the team might activate him (and David Wells?) on Monday.
If not, Foulke says: "I don't know what to do. ... It's not worth my time. It's not worth anybody's time." (Since the 2004 World Series, Foulke has allowed 88 hits and 22 walks in 77.2 innings.)
Jeff Horrigan writes that Foulke has "reworked his delivery during the past few weeks in hopes of relieving stress from the elbow. He has lengthened his stride and moved his arm farther away from his head at the start of the throwing motion."
(For their game against Vermont tomorrow night, the Lowell Spinners will rename themselves the "Mike Lowell Spinners" -- complete with new uniforms.)
Kason Gabbard is back in Pawtucket. The team will make a corresponding move tomorrow, though that pitcher (lefty Phil Seibel?) will likely be up for only the weekend. ... Boston has expressed some interest in RHP Jon Lieber, but the Phillies want either Jon Lester or Craig Hansen.
David Ortiz's 34 homers through 100 games are a club record (Jimmie Foxx had 32 in 100 games in 1932). ... In his 12-game hitting streak, Manny Ramirez is batting .500 (20-for-40).
The unofficial 2007 schedule has the Red Sox making four trips to the West Coast. Interleague play will bring the team to Arizona (for the first time) and Los Angeles (and maybe San Diego).
10 comments:
The Globe goes into an analysis of what's wrong with Kyle Snyder. What's wrong? He's not a major league pitcher, that's what's wrong! Again, the lameness of a Sox sub starter didn't hurt the club, because Wake or Wells or Sandy Koufax probably would have lost that game. Still, the team can not win trotting out this caliber of starting pitcher once (or twice!) every five days.
True, but where have I read that before. And Keith is as unsure of his future as we are. Wish him the best? Of course!
On the trade front, some noise about a three- (or four-?) way trade with the A's and Mets? Yahoo! Sports has some teaser about it here (http://tinyurl.com/mklxe) but I don't subscribe so it wouldn't give me the goods. Anyone have them?
Actually, while I think Snyder is a guy who needs a little polishing, he has actually pitched great early in most of his starts... I have to think this guy could be a really good middle man, if nothing else.
He has four quality pitches, and out of all the pitchers I've seen on GameDay this year, he actually has thrown more low strikes right on the corners than any one else I've watched. That might not be definitive, but Snyder is too valuable to simply toss aside.
If it turns out he can't shake off his third/fourth inning funk let him take Seanez's place in the pen, I'd surely entrust a game to Snyder before I would Seanez, or Tavarez for that matter.
And seriously, the kid has had his lopsided innings, but overall he's pitched fairly well, I mean he does have two wins AND the Sox managed to score one run in each of his losses, no pitcher alive is going to thrive with that kind of run support. Besides when Jason Johnson took the fifth starter slot for a moment he perfomed not just badly but nightmarishly; he makes Kyle Snyder look like a Cy Young candidate by comparison.
Oh please. Guys with ERAs over 7 are not pitching "really well!" Sure, I'd give him a shot as a mop-up man, but right now he's in the rotatation, which means that little problem of getting clobbered in the 4th and 5th is a bitch. It's ridiculous. If Theo can't dig up the equals of Aaron Small or Chacon like Cashman did last year, he should have stayed in the gorilla suit. I'm shocked that the amateur hour in the 5th slot has continued this long.
Rob Neyer in his on-line chat today suggested that if the Sox brass were smart they'd be considering picking up Tom Gordan and moving Papelbon to the rotation.
Gee..where have I heard THAT idea before? No, you're right...it's much better to stick with that guy with the 7.00 ERA....
Jack, I wish you would get off the fence about this Papelbon-to-the-rotation issue and just tell us how you really feel.
Rob Neyer in his on-line chat today suggested that if the Sox brass were smart they'd be considering picking up Tom Gordan and moving Papelbon to the rotation.
Thank goodness they're not that "smart". I'll say thank you every single day for that one.
I promise, Z...I won't mention it again after this post. I'm just right and everyone else is wrong, that's all. And it's not the first time!
An article about Papelbon in the Washington Post today references taking him out of the bullpen and says, "You don't tinker with perfection."
My response: That logic would have left Babe Ruth as the best left-handed starting pitcher in baseball.
Jack:
Feel free to keep bringing it up. I'm a broken record on the media's moronic Manny-bashing, so why not ...
Let's say the club took your advice after the trade deadline passed -- August 1. What do you think would be the process, and how long would it take?
I think that the time involved in this would be detrimental to the team -- wouldn't it have to take at least a month? -- and could cause undue turmoil in the pen.
It seems moot, though, since everyone involved has said no big changes will be made this season.
I am on record as saying he should stay where he is for 2006 and then go into the rotation (depending, I suppose, on what pitchers we have next spring). The next best thing to that would be making him into a 2-3 inning closer, which would cut back on his possible appearances by one game a week, but allow him to pitch more innings.
Having the opportunity to bring him into 2-3 games a week for the 7-8-9 innings would be nice.
My response: That logic would have left Babe Ruth as the best left-handed starting pitcher in baseball.
If that had happened, he might have stayed in Boston. Which would have been good.
Redsock: I don't think it would take any time at all, actually. Joe Black, the All-Star rookie Dodger closer in 1952, stepped into the starting rotation for the first time in the World Series and did great. Ditto Jim Konstanty, the Phillies closer in 1950, who won the team's only game as a starter in that series. Greg Harris, who was a Sox set-up man but occasionally closed, stepped into the Sox rotation in an injury crisis in 1990 and was terrific immediately, helping them make the play-offs. Heck, people forget that Luis Tiant was pitching 2-3 innings in mop-up in 1972 when he had to start in an emergency. He pitched a complete game shutout, and kept pitching them for six more years as the Sox ace. Papelbon's young and healthy and has started his whole career before this season;surely he could pitch 5 innings first time out.
In '86, the Sox were desperately in need of a closer, and Roger surely would have been a Papelbon-like solution. But everyone knew he was more valuable as a starter. Why can't people see that the same logic holds? A dominant pitcher is more valuable in the rotation than in the pen, period. Most closers CAN'T start...they are limited by stamina and pitch variety, so the issue doesn't arise very often. But this is a clear-cut case of misallocation of talent.
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