It is safe to say the Smoltz experiment has failed, and failed miserably. Last night Smoltz did exactly what I said he has been doing all along. He has no faith in his fastball, and refuses to throw on the inside part of the plate. When a pro knows that the pitch is going to be from the middle out, he adjusts, and what happened last night happens. Smoltz is done. Best case scenario is he figures it out enough to be a bullpen guy, and even that might be asking too much.
Anyways, the Sox got smoked last night as Smoltz let up 8 runs over 3 1/3 innings. With a Sox bullpen that has just be so overused lately Boston had to throw in Billy Traber who also got lit up. I felt bad for that guy, because in any other game if he was getting hit that hard (5 runs) the Sox would have taken him out, but they are so depleted they needed him to eat some innings.
I guess if you had to take a positive out of this game it would be that the Sox have been putting up runs since adding V-Mart. Pedroia, and Kotchman (my boy) both went deep and Lowell had a couple hits and an RBI. The next 2 games for Boston are very important. They have Beckett and Lester going, and they need to win those 2 games, because the last game of the series is CC vs. Buchholz, and there is not a lot of signs that it will be a close game.
With the loss the Sox are now 3 1/2 games behind the Yankees for 1st place in the AL East, and just 2 games in front of Texas for the Wild Card.
No comments:
Post a Comment