If you hadn’t heard, Curt Schilling has his own blog now, 38 Pitches, and over there he talks about his start on Thursday against the Twins.
First inning and I start Castillo off ball one, 1-0 change up and he pops out to shallow right. One change up in and I have an out, holy crap! Bartlett gets behind in the count and we go to an unconventional pitch choice which I hang in the middle of the plate, kick save and we have out #2. I can tell my fastball has more life but in every one I threw in the first inning was more guided than thrown and the bats are spelling it out for me. Mauer gets a curve ball for strike one, then I throw a split, plate wise it’s in a great spot, height wise it isn’t. He proves, once again, why he’s so damn good. The balls too high, coming in around his thighs, and instead of making the mistake most big league hitters make and trying to pull that pitch, he stays back and punches it into left center, just missing a double. I get Tori down 0-1 by horribly hanging a first pitch slider that he fouls off, then I go fastball away 0-2. Tori can hit fastballs poorly located. He crushes a high fastball on the outer half to deep right center and it’s a 1-0 game. The next kid, playing 1st base, big left handed hitter, hits an 0-0 fastball in to deep right center. This pitch alone tells me I am not getting ‘after it’ when throwing my fastball. Starting someone off on the inner half with a good fastball is a pitch that rarely, if ever, gets hit well if there’s something on it. I know as I am walking off the mound that I need to start throwing my fastball and stop aiming it.
How often do you get that kind of analysis about a pitcher’s thoughts on his performances? Not too often. I think it’s great that Curt is doing this. Being around baseball for 10 years at one point in my life, I was able to listen to the pitchers and hitters talk. I’d really love Curt have a hitter on there talk about what he has seen while he is at the plate. It really does give you a great idea of what is going on in his mind during the game. The Sox ended up losing the game 1-0. The Mayor’s Cup records are now: Red Sox 1-1-1 Twins 1-1-1.
Kyle Snyder had a rough outing on Thursday against the Blue Jays. He gave up 2 runs on 5 hits in 2 1/3 innings. With him being out of options, he is going to have to pitch better to make the roster. It is still early though in spring training and hopefully he can bounce back from this poor outing.
Instead of pitching after Tim Wakefield in the game against the Yankees on Monday night, Jonathan Papelbon will throw a simulated game at camp. Papelbon will make his next Grapefruit League start wearing the green uniforms against the Cincinnati Reds. Wakefield will then pitch the following day. It is that time of spring training where they start to set up the rotation for the upcoming season. Right now as it stands, the rotation is Schilling, Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Papelbon and Wakefield. So for me that means, that I will get to see Beckett pitch on opening day at Fenway unless there are any games postponed at the beginning of the season.
Craig Hansen and Mike Timlin will finally make their spring training debuts this weekend. Hansen will pitch an inning on Friday and Timlin an inning on Saturday. It will be nice to see these two back on the mound. Given the state of the closer’s race right now, it will be nice to see some fresh face’s vie for the spot. I still really think that if Jon Lester is healthy enough to start the season and has a good spring training, he will make the Red Sox rethink their thoughts of putting Papelbon in the rotation. Peter over at Peter’s Red Sox Forever shares my thoughts on this as well.
Last but not least, I want to point out a great read on the blogosphere. If you are an Orioles fan or just a baseball fan that knows a little about Brooks Robinson, I highly recommend you check out Anthony from The Oriole Post‘s interview with him. Kudos to Anthony on getting this interview.
