Game 5 – Middle Relief

I’m not sure exactly how Litsch does it, but he continues to get in trouble and pitch out of it. 9 runners in 5+ IP’s is not good, but giving up only 2 runs is. Having watched Litsch pitch last year I was not very convinced he is ready to be the Jays 5th starter. Sure his ERA wasn’t bad, but he was allowing way too many baserunners and that is bound to catch up with you. Plus the fact he came up from AA means most teams wouldn’t have had him on their radar at all and therefore little scouting and video and now 2nd time through it may be a different story. However, once again he battled his way through only giving up 2 runs but only having one 3 up 3 down inning w/o the benefit of a DP. I guess one of the reasons Litsch manages to pitch out of these situations is he has shown the ability to get a lot of ground balls which lead to DP’s. The other is he usually throws a lot of strikes and doesn’t walk guys. And while I don’t have the stats in front of me, I don’t recall Litsch giving up a lot of HR’s. Only time will tell whether Litsch can continue to pitch out of jams.

Good job by the bullpen again, but still no League sighting. Not sure how they expect him to be good when he pitches if they don’t give him work to keep him sharp. I realize Frasor also hadn’t worked and it was a good time to get Wells his MLB debut w/the big lead, but why use Wolfe ahead of League. Clearly it shows Gibbons preference for Wolfe as the main RH setup guy as he was warming prior to the Jays 6 run outburst and I figure that is why he still put him in to pitch the 7th since he had already warmed up.

One of the reasons I don’t believe Boston is as strong as people think is their middle relief, which nowadays is required with SP’s going shorter and shorter. The Red Sox will have to heavily rely on Delcarmen, Okajima, & Papelbon. I don’t think Okajima will be as good as hitters have now seen hit pitching motion and his pitches, and remember it was just last offseason that the Red Sox said Papelbon was not allowed to pitch in relief b/c of the shoulder problems he had in 2006, so you have to think they will still be somewhat careful with how much they use him. Looking at their rotation they may not get a lot of IP’s out of them. They will probably have a very short leash on Buchholz, Matsuzaka has to learn to keep his pitch counts down, Wakefield is over 40 and even throwing a knuckleball takes its toll. The Red Sox better hope Beckett doesn’t get injured again.

On with the stats: Maybe I’m too generous with the reaction plays at 3B as Scutaro picks up his 3rd Web Gem in 5 games.
Adv: Varitek
Pitching Adv: Litsch (1)
WG: Scutaro (3)