Today’s game brought a close to one book. With a White Sox loss and Detroit off, the Tigers have sole possession of first place. It’s the first time since Oct. 3, 2004, that Chicago finished a day without sharing or holding the division lead. I suppose since the ring ceremony officially brought an end to 2005, it’s only fitting.
At the same time, the game may have started a whole new story, namely:
Is something wrong with Freddy Garcia?
As mentioned before, I didn’t get to see him in action, but I didn’t like what I heard. The Tribe smacked Freddy around, even when he would jump on Cleveland hitters to get them 0-2. He wasn’t locating his pitches, and even worse, reports say that his velocity was down. Ed Farmer and Chris Singleton did not sound impressed, and how could they be when Aaron Boone was doing the damage, going 4-for-5 today?
If his fastball was only 87-89 mph, then that’s why he sucked. He doesn’t have the control to turn into Paul Byrd or Greg Maddux, so teams will rake him around the yard if he loses any bit of heat.
But why was he throwing 87-89? Freddy told the AP that he had trouble getting loose. I heard in a Game Chatter that Hawk and DJ were saying Freddy’s more comfortable throwing 87 than 93.
Even by Hawk’s standards, the latter is a reach. I’m guessing it’s the former, because I remember times last year that he’d top out at 88 in the first two innings before finally getting it into gear. And also,
as the Cheat points out, the radar guns may have been slow.
Barring unforeseen injury, I’m willing to believe this was more of a case of 4+ innings of
First-Inning Freddy, and not the notorious I-Don’t-Give-Two-Sh*ts Freddy who will bend over for the Royals after shutting down the Yankees the start before. After all, it’s only the first start of the season. We’ll be monitoring this situation, though.
The good news is that Freddy would’ve had to turn in an ace performance to overcome a lackluster offense. Jim Thome homered in his second straight game (I was told it was another titanic shot, but I’ve yet to see video), and Alex Cintron singled in his first at-bat as a White Sox. Nobody else showed up against Jake Westbrook. Paul Konerko grounded into a double play in his second straight game, which makes one wonder if he’ll be off to another slow start.
The defense didn’t play particularly well either. Joe Crede let a hard grounder eat him up, and it sounded like there were some communication issues between Scott Podsednik and Rob Mackowiak (making his first Sox start in center) in the outfield. It was hard to tell why Mackowiak and Cintron were already starting in the second game of the season considering Iguchi and Anderson played well Opening Night, but Ozzie’s just probably seeing what he has on his bench.
The bullpen also did its part to struggle – Boone Logan made his major-league debut and was erratic, perhaps due to playing in front of a crowd 10 times the size of the ones he’s used to. Neal Cotts surrendered a homer, matching his entire total from last year in his first appearance of the season. I only left the broadcast feeling good about Bobby Jenks, walking nobody and striking out one.
All in all, a fairly lousy game that an average Freddy start may not have saved, so it doesn’t seem like the time to get up in arms about him.
The Sox and Indians are tied at 1 game apiece with both teams 12/12 in the runs scored/allowed department. The games haven’t been as close as they were last year, but the end result is just about the same.
Record: 1-1 |
Box score |
AP recap