That's Better

Mariano Rivera has got a big problem. He has lost his confidence against us, and Bill Mueller in particular. I know yesterday I wrote that I didn’t think his problem was mental, but after what I witnessed yesterday, I have changed my mind.

I’m now convinced that HE is convinced that he cannot get this man out. We have the game winning blast into the Sox pen on July 24th last year, the single up the middle in game 4 of the ALCS to drive in Dave Roberts and tie the game, and Tuesday’s single after he gave up the game-tying home run to Varitek.

Then yesterday, he’s got a 3-2 lead, with Mueller leading off the inning. He walks him on 5 pitches and the 4 balls were nowhere near the plate. That to me is a sign of a man who has absolutely zero confidence that he can get a hitter out.

And of course, it goes beyond Mueller. It’s the entire team; and there is more to it than just a loss of confidence. He has also lost some velocity on his cutter and seems to be having trouble locating it. Add all of this to the fact that we’ve seen him so much that we are able to make adjustments, and it’s going to be a scary 9th for the Yanks when they have the lead against us.

Wakefield looked good, that was nice to see, and although Moose only gave up 2 runs to us, he DID give up 9 hits in 6 innings and was lucky to get away with only giving up the 2 runs. Once Schilling comes back, they may still have a slight advantage over us in the starting pitching department, but that’s the only place they have an advantage.

All right, enough about the Yankees, at least until next week.

On to Toronto.

It looks like Francona is going to be all right, which is good news. Hopefully he’ll be back in the dugout for Opening Day on Monday.