Sunday, May 18, 2008 - Posts

Directives from the Commander




Above are excerpts from Carlton Fisk's appearance in Cooperstown Saturday night.

I had thought about asking him about the ill-fated and short-lived move to left field in 1986 to make room for Joel Skinner, but he may have revealed his thoughts about it in an unrelated question about his rivalry with Thurman Munson.

He spoke about a game in the '70s -- looking at the game logs, it may have been May 21, 1976 -- when Munson made a rare start in left against the Red Sox.  He lost a couple of battles with swirling winds in Yankee Stadium, and when Munson came to the plate later in the game, Fisk talked about this exchange between the catchers in his deliberate cadence:

"I said, 'Muns, I feel for you, man, that can't be any fun out there.' And he said, 'You know Fisky, I don't mind screwing up when you know what to do, because then you know how to fix it.  I don't know what to do.'"

He repeated Munson's line again, and lingered on it.  That may have applied to his own situation 10 years later -- especially coming off a season when he set personal bests in home runs and RBI.

Fundman got it right, by the way -- it was Wilson Alvarez.
posted Sunday, May 18, 2008 4:32 PM by Jim with 7 Comments

That'll do, Sox. That'll do.

On one hand, it should be disappointing that Barry Zito managed to lower his ERA on a night when he allowed three baserunners an inning, couldn't locate his fastball at all and threw at a strike zone the size of a thimble Saturday night.

But I was expecting worse.  Two reasons:

No. 1: Remember spring training?  To do the ever-so-popular self-quote from March 22:

Here's a wonderful omen, if you're wondering whether the Sox will finally be able to hit left-handed pitching in 2008.  Look at Barry Zito's spring line entering today, then stack it against his performance against the Sox today:
  • Before: 12.2 IP, 21 H, 24 R, 21 ER, 10 BB, 0 K
  • Today:  5.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 4 K
Zito lowered his ERA by .33 tonight.  In March, the Sox helped him cut it by 4.61.  So there's that.

No. 2:  Zito lost to the Sox twice in seven years.  Now it's three in eight.  Besides, Zito's walked more and given up fewer runs against the Sox before.

It says something about this Sox team that no matter how many bad things we can say about them:
  1. They've won four straight.
  2. They've won two series and split the other on the dreaded West Coast swing.
  3. They stand alone in first place.
Of course, watching the Sox fail to capitalize on a bad left-handed pitcher's struggles makes this Nick Swisher quote even more puzzling:

"I'm not going to lie. I truly believe [Kevin] Hickey still has the arm to do well," Swisher said. "I'm not saying he's going to go out there and be the greatest.

"I've gotten to know him. It's fun because we do a lot of work, and he has a live arm. He's the best left-handed batting-practice pitcher I've seen. He gets you ready to go."

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From the Old Aches and Pains department:
If Contreras does pitch, Gavin Floyd would be set to take an extra day off, which is a good idea considering the way he's missing.

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I'll be talking about Carlton Fisk's Cooperstown visit later this afternoon.  He was two hours late because he missed a flight.  Evidently, he was oblivious to a gate change in Chicago.

But here's a teaser:  Out of all the great arms in the Sox starting rotation in the first half of the 1990s, which one did Fisk think had the most promising future?

I'll have the answer later.

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Minor league roundup:
  • Durham 8, Charlotte 4
    • Dewayne Wise, Brad Eldred and Jeff Liefer all hit solo homers.
    • Tomo Ohka dropped to 0-7 after giving up seven runs on 13 hits over 6 2/3 innings.
    • Dewon Day worked his usual high BABIP outing -- 1 1/3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 3 K.
  • Birmingham 11, Jacksonville 5
    • Ricardo Nanita and Dave Cook each had three-hit games.
    • Javier Castillo tripled and drove in three.
    • Derek Rodriguez picked up the win with two scoreless innings, striking out four.
    • Justin Cassell was touched up for five runs on 10 hits over six innings.  He walked two and struck out three.
  • Winston-Salem 4, Kinston 3 (Game 1, 7 innings)
    • Aaron Poreda went the distance and allowed one earned run on four hits and two walks.  He struck out two.
    • C.J. Retherford went 2-for-3 with a solo homer and two runs scored.
  • Kinston 5, Winston-Salem 1 (Game 2, 7 innings)
    • Paulo Orlando went 2-for-3 with a solo homer; Anderson Gomes also had two hits.
  • Kannapolis 6, Hagerstown 4
    • Sergio Morales went 1-for-3 with two walks, two runs scored, a stolen base and an outfield assist.
    • Dale Mollenhauer went 2-for-3 with a double, two walks and an RBI.
    • Hector Santiago was the only Kanny pitcher unscored upon.
posted Sunday, May 18, 2008 4:39 AM by Jim with 3 Comments