The Boston Pro Sports Blog

OK so we finished out our roadtrip through Minnesota and Atlanta at 3-3. Not bad but I wouldn’t say its good either. The offseason philosophy shift from hitting to pitching and defense has only worked half way. The defense has been impressive but the pitching has sucked. Lester pitched very well in his major league debut, giving us hope that the hype around some of our prospects is in fact legit(see Papelbon, Jonathan). However its way too early to tell with some of the younger guys like Lester, Delcarmen, and Hansen.

We all know that Theo Epstein has struggled to put together a decent bullpen. Just take a look at Eric Wilbur’s Blog. However our starting pitching has been disappointing as well. Only two of our regular starters have winning records. Schilling(9-2) and Beckett(8-3) have been very solid overall. However neither have dominated in such a fashion that we can be completely comfortable with them on the mound. Wakefield has yet to find his groove and Matt Clement has been worse than a deaf guy playing musical chairs.

And if you haven’t been paying attention, the Sox have adopted a fifth starter-by-committee approach to our end of the rotation woes. Double-A David Pauley got the first few calls with Jon Lester getting the most recent last Saturday. However the Sox brass don’t want to rush Lester, so Francona will start Kyle Snyder tonight versus the Washington Nationals. Snyder was picked up off of waivers from the Kansas City Royals. If you don’t know what that means exactly, it means that Snyder was good enough to play for the Royals and was cut. The Royals! He was cut from the Royals! This isn’s a misprint. He wasn’t good enough for the Royals and now he is pitching for the Red Sox(who have a $130 million payroll and can’t find more than two starters with winning records). This should be interesting.

I am sure Theo is as frustrated as anyone. Acquiring Snyder and dealing Riske to the White Sox for Javy Lopez this past weekend demonstrates his willingness to at least attempt to fix this problem. Although Lopez and Snyder might be the furthest thing from the solution. With all the pitching problems the Sox have right now, if you don’t think a deal is coming in the next six weeks, you’re crazy.

Everyone is certainly hopeful that the kids will turn out to be what everyone has cracked them up to be, and thus alleviate some of Theo’s blunders and our pitching woes. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t very excited about these prospective Sox pitchers. However, they are going to have to wait until they are ready. To prevent the harsh and merciless bigs from mutilating their fragile little prospect psyches. I just hope Theo doesn’t deal them in an attempt to fix our problems right away. These guys could just be the Sox studs of the future. But for now we have to deal with Kyle Snyder. Yippee.

theaveragefan@bostonprosports.com

The Red Sox just announced that Jon Lester will start in the first game of Saturday’s double header against the Texas Rangers. The lefty hurler was just called up from Triple-A Pawtucket and will make his major league debut replacing David Pauley who will be available in the bullpen. Lester is 3-4 in 11 games and a 1.46 WHIP with the PawSox this season. He has given up 43 hits in 46.2 innings pitched.

He is also one of the key components in a group of highly touted Red Sox pitching prospects that also includes Jonathan Papelbon, Manny Delcarmen, Craig Hansen, and Dustin Pedroia. Even during an offseason that brought a lot of new faces to Boston, these minor leaguers were mostly considered untouchable by Theo and Co., a mark of how valuable and how good they are expected to be.

It would be great if Lester would demonstrate this Saturday. We certainly want him to be successful so that his fragile young psyche is preserved yet a perfect outing might lead to a premature start in the majors and a Cla Meredith-like result. On the other hand, if we ever needed a boost from a prospect(besides Papelbon), 2006 might be the year. I just hope the Sox brass proceed carefully with the young’ns, something I am sure they will do after learning their lessons. I would suspect we get a little taste of why Lester has been so exceedingly hyped on Saturday though. It might be worth watching, especially if Lester is the lefty stud of the future that everyone has been making him out to be. Go Sox.

Glavine already beat Schilling to the first to 9 wins this season, but Schill could become number two tonight against the Yankees in the Bronx. He would also be trying to prevent a sweep, something that would be more important for morale than actual record, although as I’ve said earlier, every game against The Rival is important.

Last night’s rainout prevented any chance of a series tie as our four game series in the Bronx was demoted to three. Although with the way Pauley pitched Tuesday night, you could almost reconsider calling that a loss. Not only did he pitch effectively, he pitched really well. With an effort like that, he certainly made his case for being the fifth starter, at least for now. The concern right now would be that Pauley has a let-down in his next start. With every endorphin in his body running on max speed, its not unlikely that Double-A David could come back to Earth and pitch like he did in his first start. That’s the funny thing about starting pitching. It can be a very long or very enjoyable five day rest between games. For the time being, I will continue to ride the high of Pauley’s one run gem, despite its notch in the L column.

One of the good things about yesterday’s rainout is that it gave everyone, especially our bullpen, a day of rest. With Timlin out until next Tuesday and Foulke day-to-day with back stiffness, the young guns and unstable veterans will need to be rested and at the top of their game every day.

Not only will Schilling go for season victory number 9 but he’ll go for career victory 201. If this were a Yankee pitcher and he won, he’d probably take a curtain call. Stupid Yankees. Let’s see if Schill can make 50,000 people from New York shut up tonight.

theaveragefan@bostonprosports.com

So after taking 2 of 3 from the first place Tigers, we drop a bad one to the Yankees. Beckett was beyond bad. So bad in fact we are going to pretend it didn’t even happen. Beckett gave up eight runs in 1 1/3 innings to the Yankees to give them first place? No. Really? I could have sworn that happened. It didn’t. Okay.

There that settles it. Now Pauley will be thrown to the wolves in his second appearance as a Red Sox. If this is a baptism of fire its one where Pauley gets drenched in gasoline before hand and all they have to put out the fire are those ineffective turn of the century fire departments. The same ones that were responsible for every “Great” fire in every major city before 1940. But seriously, if Pauley even comes close to a good outing, we’ll consider it a success. He has less expectations on him than CBS’s fall show Rock Star.

The excessive amount of Sox-Yankees games in the beginning of the season does take a little of the edge off. The thing about this series is that it’s the last one before August. I am obviously hoping to win out these next three games. But with Pauley starting and the bullpen potentially shot after tonight, I am not holding out too much hope. The only good thing is that it’s only June. So a bad taste in our mouths from this series embarrassment might be motivation for a late August surge when we meet the hated Yanks next. At least it will be a good storyline for the media.

Ugh. Look at me. I am talking as if this series is over already with only one of four games played. I guess your blockbuster acquisition of the offseason and ace of the future geting shelled in 1 1/3 innings will do that to you. And that’s without witnessing what’s going to happen when “Double A” David takes the mound tonight. At least our expectations are low though. Its like a blind date. Only a blind date that gave up 6 earned runs on 11 hits in 4 1/3 in their last outing. Hmm. We can’t claim that we are busy “doing our hair” on this one. As painful as it might be we are just going to have to sit through it. Good luck Pauley, in your baptism by blowtorch. We’ll be rooting for you.

theaveragefan@bostonprosports.com

Well the good news is that we won. David Pauley got a slice of humble pie in his major league debut as Toronto ate him up for 6 runs on 11 hits. Pauley only lasted 4 1/3 innings against the Blue Jays, causing Francona to have to dip into the recently promoted youth in the bullpen.

The strange thing about last nights 8-6 win is out of the five pitchers the Red Sox used, only one of them, Keith Foulke, has had more than one year of major league experience. Pauley was relieved in the fifth by Jermaine Van Buren, who pitched a full inning and recorded the win. He was followed by Manny Delcarmen and then Keith Foulke, who combined to pitch the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings respectively. With an 8-6 lead Jonathan Papelbon entered the came to record his 19th save in as many chances.

So only a few hours after I ripped into the Sox pitching for their recent troubles, the Sox bullpen throw 4 2/3 scoreless innings. Although Pauley didn’t exactly have Cy Young material, allowing 16 baserunners in just 4 1/3 innings. He was half way decent for his first four innings, holding Jays hitters to 2 runs on 6 hits. In the fifth though, he collapsed, getting knocked around for four runs while recording just one out.

For reasons unbeknownst to the public, Terry Francona decided not to give up on his fifth starter before the game even began. This time he issued his more potent lineup(with the exception of Mirabelli subbing for Varitek) and the hitters delivered. The Sox had eight of ten batters record hits and nine of ten reach base. Five of the eight Sox who had hits also had RBIs. Ortiz, Loretta, Ramirez, and Nixon all homered in the game as well.

The real story of the game was the defense though. The Red Sox ended four of Toronto’s innings by executing double plays, with few of them falling under the ‘routine’ category. The spectacular defense became the x-factor in a game that easily could have gotten out of control. Alex Gonzalez was the star of the defensive show, getting involved in three of the four double plays and making some impressive plays at short. In the lineup, Gonzalez sticks out worse than Charles Barkley at a MENSA convention, but on the field he’s been worth his weight in gold.

So “Double A” David Pauley escapes his first major league start with a no decision. He’ll be vying for the job as starter in five days when the Sox head to New York to face the Yankees. However, Pauley will have to pitch a lot better if he wants to contain the Bronx Bombers. And we certainly don’t want to dip into our bullpen as much as we did this past series. We were more dependent on our ‘pen than Dwight Gooden is on his dealer. So the pitching still needs to be cleaned up a bit. But at least we know its possible.

theaveragefan@bostonprosports.com