Meet the Sox

Jon Garland

People always expected more than they should have from Jon Garland.  And a lot of people expected him to care more about what they thought.

In that respect, Garland might be one of the toughest pitchers to never be regarded as “tough.”  

A lot of teams would be thrilled to have a 21-year-old join a rotation and post league-average ERAs and 180 innings for a few years, but many fans and talking heads were dismayed.  Garland, who enjoyed as smooth an ascent through the minors as a prospect can have, didn’t quite meet the hype.  And they definitely wanted more from Garland because the Sox stole him for the Cubs, only costing a soon-to-be-injured Matt Karchner.

It didn’t help that Garland wasn’t one for the Crash Davis quote, and the lassez-faire perception was bolstered every time Jerry Manuel exercised an early hook.

When Ozzie Guillen took over, Garland finally progressed.  He took his lumps in the early going, but Ozzie let him work through it.  Eventually, he trusted his sinker against major-league competition.  When he stopped being afraid of allowing balls in play, he became reliable.

And when paired with the best Sox defense in recent memory, he became a rock.

He burst out of the gate in 2005, throwing back-to-back shutouts in the first month of the season – and the other shoe never truly dropped.  He wasn’t the pitcher with the 1.38 ERA after six starts, but he wasn’t the five-and-dive pitcher Sox fans feared, either.  He became a guy the Sox could give the ball to in a big game and not think twice.

And did he deliver in the postseason.  Garland tossed the second of four consecutive complete games in the ALCS, but I think he actually showed more in his far less spectacular start in Game 3 of the World Series.

Had Jerry Manuel managed the 2005 Sox, Garland may not have started the fifth inning.  He was nearly singled to death, with the exception of a home run that wasn’t one, and fell into a 4-0 hole after four innings.

But when the Sox gave him a second chance with a five-run rally, Garland didn’t waste it, finishing his seven-inning outing by retiring 10 of the last 11 hitters he faced.  He should’ve earned the win, but Dustin Hermanson couldn’t get one more scoreless outing from his balky back.

For the most part, Garland was the same pitcher for the rest of his Sox career.  He had his ebbs and flows, a recipient of massive run support at times, droughts at others, and battling through the occasional bout with dead arm, but he didn’t lose the trust of his teammates the rest of the way.

He deserved equal support from the general public, but I don’t know if he ever received it, because he didn’t make connecting with the fans or media a priority.  If true, that’s unfortunate, because he’s the kind of player I’d want all prospects emulating:

• He never went on the DL (hell, did he ever miss a turn?).
• He didn’t blame teammates for his failures.
• He held baserunners with the best of them.
• He fielded his position at a Gold-Glove level.
  

If a pitcher has those four things going for him and he’s throwing 200+ innings at an above-average level, I don’t know how anybody could expect more.

Maybe Garland would’ve been appreciated at a greater level had he come along a couple years later, when the price of league-average pitching shot through the roof.  There probably would’ve been less kvetching if his early performances were commensurate with an annual salary of $9 million or more.

Fortunately, Garland probably doesn’t care, so I won’t either.  After all, in a career that featured plenty of setbacks and doubt, a thick skin and an indifference to things out of his control turned out to be his most valuable assets.