Bad Timing
Mother Nature has cruelly thrown a wrench into our playoff plans. Double-headers are never good, but right now the timing could not have been any worse. This has a negative impact in so many different ways.
First, is the starting pitching, both starters are affected by this, but the results could be good or bad. It affects Schilling in 2 ways. First of all, he’s now pitching on an extra day of rest. Sometimes extra rest can affect a pitcher negatively because they end up being too strong and overthrow the ball, although in Schillings case the extra day could help him because of his situation. Secondly, we always want our starters to go deep into a game, but this double-header combined with the bullpen situation (which I’ll discuss next), practically forces him to go deep into today’s game, although again, the extra day of rest could help him out there as well.
The bullpen situation also affects Wakefield the same way by forcing him to go deep into a game, although that hasn’t been a problem for him lately. The second way he is affected, is by being forced to pitch on only 3 days rest in his next start. One of them has to do it and Wakefield is the obvious, and really only, choice.
Next is the bullpen. We’re already short on guys out there that can be depended on to come in and get the job done. Now, if we don’t get long performances by either, or worse both, of the starters, we may have to ask one or more of these guys to pitch twice in one day. This not only affects the pen for today, but it could have an affect for the rest of the week. Of course, the Blue Jays will be in the same situation, but I’m more concerned with how we're affected over the weekend against the Yankees.
Gabe Kapler and Kevin Youkilis have never been more sorely missed on this team than they are right now. Both guys would be playing at least 1 of the 2 games today, Kapler in place of Damon, and Youkilis to spell Mueller. Instead, we’re left with few options and none of them are good.
The first option is both guys play both games. This is not a great option for either player, Damon is too banged up, and although Mueller has been healthy, he does have knee issues and playing fatigued in the second game increases the risk of injury too much in my opinion. This means that Hydzu will probably play one of the games in centerfield and Cora may end up being in both games. There’s no way Graffanino plays 2 games with the groin problem, so Cora will play second for one game, and possibly 3rd for one game. It’s either that or Mueller plays both games.
Then there’s the matter of Manny. It’s almost a given that he’s not going to play left field for 2 games, which means he DH’s one game, Millar goes to left, and Ortiz plays first. There’s also a chance we may see Hanley Ramirez get his first ML start to spell Renteria in one of the games. Or maybe he’ll even play second to allow Cora to play third to spell both Graffanino and Mueller.
No matter how you slice it, we will not have the regular lineup for 2 games, and Francona needs to mix and match to keep as many regulars as he can in both games to give us the best chance to win both.
Even if it all works out for us, we win both games, the starters go deep, the bullpen and the starters suffer no adverse affects and we go into the weekend in great shape against the Yankees, there’s still one thing that’s changed, cannot be fixed, and really stinks. Schilling’s next start is pushed back to Sunday. It was originally scheduled for Saturday against Randy Johnson in a game that could quite possibly have decided the pennant. How great would that have been?
First, is the starting pitching, both starters are affected by this, but the results could be good or bad. It affects Schilling in 2 ways. First of all, he’s now pitching on an extra day of rest. Sometimes extra rest can affect a pitcher negatively because they end up being too strong and overthrow the ball, although in Schillings case the extra day could help him because of his situation. Secondly, we always want our starters to go deep into a game, but this double-header combined with the bullpen situation (which I’ll discuss next), practically forces him to go deep into today’s game, although again, the extra day of rest could help him out there as well.
The bullpen situation also affects Wakefield the same way by forcing him to go deep into a game, although that hasn’t been a problem for him lately. The second way he is affected, is by being forced to pitch on only 3 days rest in his next start. One of them has to do it and Wakefield is the obvious, and really only, choice.
Next is the bullpen. We’re already short on guys out there that can be depended on to come in and get the job done. Now, if we don’t get long performances by either, or worse both, of the starters, we may have to ask one or more of these guys to pitch twice in one day. This not only affects the pen for today, but it could have an affect for the rest of the week. Of course, the Blue Jays will be in the same situation, but I’m more concerned with how we're affected over the weekend against the Yankees.
Gabe Kapler and Kevin Youkilis have never been more sorely missed on this team than they are right now. Both guys would be playing at least 1 of the 2 games today, Kapler in place of Damon, and Youkilis to spell Mueller. Instead, we’re left with few options and none of them are good.
The first option is both guys play both games. This is not a great option for either player, Damon is too banged up, and although Mueller has been healthy, he does have knee issues and playing fatigued in the second game increases the risk of injury too much in my opinion. This means that Hydzu will probably play one of the games in centerfield and Cora may end up being in both games. There’s no way Graffanino plays 2 games with the groin problem, so Cora will play second for one game, and possibly 3rd for one game. It’s either that or Mueller plays both games.
Then there’s the matter of Manny. It’s almost a given that he’s not going to play left field for 2 games, which means he DH’s one game, Millar goes to left, and Ortiz plays first. There’s also a chance we may see Hanley Ramirez get his first ML start to spell Renteria in one of the games. Or maybe he’ll even play second to allow Cora to play third to spell both Graffanino and Mueller.
No matter how you slice it, we will not have the regular lineup for 2 games, and Francona needs to mix and match to keep as many regulars as he can in both games to give us the best chance to win both.
Even if it all works out for us, we win both games, the starters go deep, the bullpen and the starters suffer no adverse affects and we go into the weekend in great shape against the Yankees, there’s still one thing that’s changed, cannot be fixed, and really stinks. Schilling’s next start is pushed back to Sunday. It was originally scheduled for Saturday against Randy Johnson in a game that could quite possibly have decided the pennant. How great would that have been?
posted by Bob at 9/27/2005 08:22:00 AM
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