April 28, 2005

Who Starts Tuesday?

"It never fails," Terry Francona said. "Whenever you think you have enough pitching or too much pitching, you're probably fooling yourself."

Tim Wakefield, Bronson Arroyo and Matt Clement will pitch in Texas and John Halama will start Monday in Detroit. The question is who gets the ball on Tuesday. There's not a consensus in the papers and an announcement is expected later today.

Most reports tap Jeremi Gonzalez, who has started for the Cubs and Devil Rays. Gonzalez threw six innings (one run, three hits) on Tuesday. It could be Lenny DiNardo, who threw five scoreless innings for Pawtucket before being recalled. Abe Alvarez has an outside shot. ... The Red Sox will (wisely) stay with twelve pitchers.

Devil Rays reliever Trever Miller jumps into the Piniella-Schilling spat: "You couldn't hear anybody else over Schilling [yapping during the bench-clearing incidents]. He was berating our manager, our ownership, all the way to our waterboys. He was kind of contradicting himself yelling at us and telling us how to play the game when he's going out there stirring the pot and being immature about it. So I find that ironic and pretty sad, especially for a guy that has all that time in the game."

Keith Foulke wants more work. "I could talk until I'm blue in the face. I'm physically healthy. I've got no excuses. I need to pitch three or four times a week. ... I feel great. My shoulder feels incredible. ... You guys see the playoffs last year? You guys remember how I talked all last year about the more I pitch the better I am. Any more questions?"

Francona agrees. "I think his past history is we do use him frequently. The last three days in Tampa Bay some crazy things happened. He'll pitch a lot. He's better when he pitches. We know that." ... With Halama and an AAA arm starting over the next few weeks, the pen should be plenty busy.

Off to see Fever Pitch today.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

please provide a review of Fever Pitch (i'm sure you were going to anyways!)

The lil lady is taking me tommorow!