I never say thought I'd say this -- at least this early this season -- but Mark Buehrle could stand to learn something from Boone Logan.
No, not grooming tips. Logan's jet-black
goatee chin handle is going for a look that's a cross between Abe Lincoln and
Scott Ian. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he has to go on the DL because his facial hair got caught in a cab door and the driver dragged him three blocks from the hotel before he finally looked in his side-view mirror.
(I'm not sure which is worse -- Logan's or Bobby Jenks' Flock-of-Seagulls-for-the-face soul patch.)
No, Buehrle could learn from watching Logan put hitters away after getting ahead 0-2. During his seven-run meltdown in the second inning of
the Opening Day loss to the Indians, his entire day hinged on two at-bats where he had the biggest advantage.
A 2-1 Sox lead turned into a 4-2 Indians lead when Franklin Gutierrez hit an inside-half cutter into the left field seats. Buehrle jumped ahead in the count with a low cutter chopped foul, and a cutter in on the hands. He followed with a high fastball to a standing A.J. Pierzynski, and a high, outside cutter A.J. had to lunge for.
Two batters later, he started Grady Sizemore with a nice outside-corner curve and a slider Sizemore fouled back, but after Sizemore didn't bite on the low and outside slider, he hammered an inside-half fastball into the right field seats. The game got away from Buehrle after that.
On the other hand, Logan was
Boone the Merciless. Against Sizemore:
- 0-0: Outside half slider, strike looking.
- 0-1: Outside corner slider, strike swinging.
- 0-2: Outside corner slider, strike looking.
And Travis Hafner:
- 0-0: Outside half slider, strike looking.
- 0-1: Low, inside slider, chopped foul.
- 0-2: Outside fastball, just missed.
- 1-2: Low, outside slider, Hafner checks
- 2-2: Low, outside slider, Hafner strikes out feebly.
Booner made perfect use out of his waste pitches today and never gave in afterward. The strikeout of Hafner was especially impressive considering Pronk was 4-for-5 with a slam against Logan in his career. Logan could -- and should -- destroy lefties this year with the stuff he has.
(Idea for the Sox PR crew: When Logan gets two strikes on a lefty, can we get
"Finish Him!" over the PA system? Maybe with a correlating scoreboard graphic if he succeeds? Thanks in advance.)
Seven has been an unlucky number for Buehrle, as he gave up early seven-run innings to the
Cubs and
Twins two years ago. If there's any redeeming note in today's performance, it's that he was able to get deeper into counts today. The Twins (29 pitches for 11 at-bats) and Cubs (24 pitches for 10 at-bats) jumped all over his first pitch. He threw 40 pitches to 10 hitters in the second inning today, which indicates that he was able to get hitters against the ropes. He just couldn't finish them off.
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Speaking of redeeming factors, it's a good sign that Ozzie Guillen only used four pitchers on a day where the starter couldn't complete two innings. Of course, Nick Masset had a helluva lot to do with that.
Masset pitched 4 1/3 innings of scoreless ball today, without taxing his defense or anybody's patience. He threw only 50 pitches, and didn't walk a batter.
I'm not quite sure how he did it. He only threw two pitches, with a range of 5 m.p.h. between them (no, 98 wasn't the high end), and neither of them remarkable. He did do a great job of hitting his spots, and watching the Indians try to hit him reminded me of how the Sox look when they can't figure out Paul Byrd. It looked like Cleveland hitters felt as though they
should be hitting Masset, and didn't know why they weren't. When Masset did leave a pitch up, they couldn't take advantage of it.
Kudos to Masset for taking the Tribe lineup out of its gameplan. However, it bears mentioning that Masset he did
a similarly effective job against the Indians in the first week last year -- and not only that, but also in relief of Buehrle, and also after he was knocked out in the second inning.
Maybe
the Indians want to keep Masset around. Or maybe Masset has the concept of
sandbagging backwards. Either way, I'm going to call him "Nick Magic" from here on out, because as long as he's throwing 91 instead of 98, it works.
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And even if you're not going to give Nick Magic an inch, you have to admit he was better than Octavio Dotel.
To me, Dotel's problems were simple to diagnose:
No. 1: He didn't go up with his fastball. Casey Blake's game-deciding double came on a 93 m.p.h. fastball Josh Fields could hit -- heart of the plate, just above the knees. And as we know, if it's a 92+ m.p.h. fastball from a right-hander and Fields can hit it, just about anybody can hit it (with the exception of Juan Uribe).
No. 2: He didn't go inside with his fastball or slider. Hitters were practically toppling over in their stances, ready to cover the outside corner. I'm no scout, but it looked like Dotel could've made them flinch stupidly with an inside-half slider, or turned them away with some inside-corner heat, Instead, he kept giving them what they were looking for. That's what the results indicated, at least.