Watching
tonight's game on the Houston feed, the Astros' broadcasters (Bill Brown and Jim Deshaies, I presume), made some points about Nick Masset that a lot of us Sox fans already learned on our own, without the help of anybody in the Sox booth.
The central one: Where is Masset's reportedly great fastball? They weren't exactly ripping on his stuff (though they very well could have), but they were curious that a guy who Kenny Williams said threw a tick slower than Bobby Jenks was only throwing around 92. Unless Williams was talking about an out-of-shape Jenks, and that's possible. The Brandon McCarthy trade happened right before Christmas, which is probably Jenks' prime feeding season.
Masset's problems couldn't have come at a better time as far as self-preservation is concerned. Suffering from control issues and reduced radar gun readings, Masset fits right in -- and because he was never counted on to get key outs late in games, he's fifth in line for the firing squad.
Nevertheless, Masset came into tonight's game against a Houston offense that is
among one of the worst in baseball and contributed his usual lackluster performance:
- He gave up two hits and a walk in one inning -- although it should've been 1 1/3 innings because of a bad throw by Juan Uribe and a worse call at first.
- He threw less than half of his pitches for strikes (the seventh time he's done that in 17 outings), and one of the balls was a wild pitch.
- For good measure, he forgot to back up the catcher on a single with a runner in scoring position.
Opponents are hitting .337 off him, he's walked more batters (17) than he's struck out (13)... there just isn't a lot to like about him right now. The only good thing you can say is that he's limited home runs, only allowing two over 27 innings.
Thankfully, Dewon Day looked absolutely outstanding during his outing. That slider almost made me smile during a Sox game, something that hasn't happened in a couple weeks now.
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Josh Fields is still searching for his first hit after three games and 11 at-bats, but fortunately he's at least bringing the glove to the ballpark.
He doesn't have Joe Crede's flop to his left down yet, but he's already made a nice barehanded play on a bunt, a nice diving stab, and started a terrific 5-4-3 double play with a laser throw to Tadahito Iguchi, beating a runner who got a head start.
Fields has been knocked for being an underwhelming defensive third baseman, but he hasn't shown it at the major-league level yet. Watch me jinx him, but so far he has an errorless 61 innings under his belt at third. Sample size issues abound, of course, but defensive frauds have been exposed much sooner than that.
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The Sox made 40 picks in today's draft, including one Oney Guillen, who I'm guessing is a slightly better prospect than Casey Schueler.
South Side Sox's running Day 2 thread has as good as commentary as you'll find for largely anonymous players.
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Minor league round-up:- Louisville 8, Charlotte 6
- Andrew Sisco threw his first perfect inning since his demotion, but David Aardsma blew the game by giving up a three-run homer in the ninth, which was preceded by a Tomas Perez error. He only retired one of four batters he faced.
- Scott Podsednik went 1-for-4 with a double and an RBI; Jason Borgeois went 2-for-4 and is 12-for-35 in Triple-A so far; Craig Wilson went 1-for-4 with an RBI but struck out three times, and now has 20 in 49 at-bats.
- Brian Anderson went 0-for-3 with two walks and a stolen base.
- Wilmington 4, Winston-Salem 2
- Ryan Rodriguez met the minimum for a quality start but only received two runs and four hits of support. Brian Omogrosso pitched two scoreless innings of relief, striking out three, making 12 strikeouts over his last 6 2/3 innings.
- Aaron Cunningham went 1-for-3; Micah Schnurstein had the lone RBI.
- Greensboro 11, Kannapolis 3
- Faustino De Los Santos struck out 10 over six innings, walking three. He gave up four runs, but only two were earned thanks to three errors.
- John Shelby Jr. went 3-for-5 with two doubles and an RBI; Lee Cruz and Maurice Gartrell also had three hits; Gartrell is 19-for-41 over his last 10 games.
- Chris Carter had his worst game in quite some time: 0-for-5 with three strikeouts.