posted on Sunday, July 09, 2006 2:23 AM
by
Jim
Midseason Review: Javier Vazquez
| W-L | ERA | IP | H
| R
| ER | BB | K
| SV | SvOp |
9-4
| 5.07 | 108.1 | 118 | 64
| 61
| 28
| 86 | 0 | 0 |
Something nice: His peripherals are pretty good in spite of his ERA. He has the most strikeouts on the staff, the second-lowest number of walks, and his homers allowed his reasonable in comparison to his previous seasons.
Must improve: Testicles. More specifically, his lack thereof. I strive to be as fair as possible with my criticism, but I can't think of another word to use except "Soft. Soft, soft, soft." Maybe that's four words.
Three best games April 25
After
dropping the first game in Seattle, the Sox gain a rare victory there
as the offense puts up big numbers and Vazquez shuts down the Mariners
for six innings before running into trouble in the seventh. It didn't
help that Boone Logan did his thing and allowed both of the runners he
inherited from Javy to score.
May 1Javy shuts down the Indians for six innings, protecting a big lead built for him by the Sox offense. The bullpen made this game more interesting than it should've been, but Javy did his job.
May 29Javy shuts down the Indians for six innings again, this time allowing zero runs. This time, the bullpen keeps the Tribe down and the Sox roll to a shutout victory.
Three worst gamesApril 14Our first taste of a typical Vazquez start. He allows the Blue Jays to only score in two innings, but they post crooked numbers in both of them, including a five-run fifth. Three of the hits came with two outs, and Javy needed a Jermaine Dye-Tadahito Iguchi relay throw to get out of the inning.
June 3A pair of balls were sorely needed in this one. The Rangers are smacking him around, Vicente Padilla hits A.J. Pierzynski, and Vazquez doesn't go inside on a Ranger once? This exhibition only looks more ridiculous when considering he's hit 11 batters in 18 first-half starts. He hits batters in random and often bad situations in other starts, and when he could actually use one, he doesn't do it. Great.
June 25
Houston scores in three innings, posts a crooked number each time. They scored their first six runs with two-out hits, and he allowed more runs in a seventh inning he shouldn't have even started. The real kick in the ass was that he pitched four 1-2-3 innings. Basically every time he didn't allow a baserunner (or pick him off), he was fine.
Grades
Arm: B
I didn't see Vazquez all that often before the Sox acquired him, but it doesn't seem like anything's wrong stuff-wise. He throws in the low-90s, with lots of movement on his fastball and decent secondary pitches.
Head: DI only compared him and Garland, but Vazquez has to own the highest rate of multi-run innings on the entire rotation. I've documented his struggles
here and
here, but seemingly whenever a runner gets on, he's going to score. It's grown fairly ridiculous, and it's hard to believe he's making eight figures.
Fielding: BNo complaints about his fielding, and runners don't have a field day on him, as evidenced by their 6-for-10 success rate over his 18 starts. Man, Freddy is really, really bad at that.
Awards
Pitcher of the Weak,
June 25-July 1Pitcher of the Weak,
June 11-17Pitcher of the Week,
May 28-June 3Pitcher of the Weak,
May 14-20Pitcher of the Week,
April 30-May 6Pitcher of the Week,
April 16-22Pitcher of the Week,
April 2-8