Friar Watch

Yeah, I know I’m slacking. The biggest series of the year and not only am I late, I have all three games in one post. I’ll try to make this quick so I can get caught up.

Game 1
Greg Maddux: The Professor pitched a great game considering the opposition. He really deserved a win but the Padres bats once again could not break through when they had men on base early.

Cla Meredith, Scott Linebrink: Both guys looked good. It was especially gratifying to see Meredith get some of those little squib grounders that he gets when he’s really on.

Royce Ring: In his return from Portland Ring was absolutely filthy, striking out the side on 11 pitches.

Game 2
Chris Young: I think you have to consider CY the ace of the staff, the one guy you would start if you had to win a single game. Peavy is great but there’s always that X factor, you never know if his emotions will get the better of him or if he’s got a cracked rib he’s not telling anyone about or God knows what else. Young, on the other hand, is able to turn that extra adrenaline to his advantage. Young was as focused and confident as I’ve ever seen him; he was throwing all his pitches for strikes and really mixing them up.

CY has always relied on his fastball, usually he mixes in his slider and curve to keep the hitters honest. But for this game he was throwing a lot more breaking balls than usual and getting them over for strikes. Take a look at his pitch velocity:

One other point: Young was throwing harder than he normally does, as high as 93 mph out of the hand. Normally he’s around 90. You can see he started to tail off towards the end but he was still punching guys out.

What I enjoy most about watching CY pitch is some of the hacks the hitters take against him. It really reminds me of Nolan Ryan, guys are just overpowered. Considering the relatively mediocre velocity it truly is amazing.

Heath Bell, Justin Hampson: Bell looked good, not great but good. The Red Sox finally broke through for a run in the ninth against Hampson but he did his job and closed it out without requiring another pitcher.

Game 3
Jake Peavy:
Coming into this game we should have felt confident that our ace would match Josh Beckett pitch for pitch but I think most of us had our doubts. Jake hasn’t been the same dominant pitcher over his last 4 or 5 starts. His slider hasn’t been as sharp and his velocity was very slightly down. I speculated he might have arm trouble; if he does he’s not telling anyone. Jake seemed to be fine in the first inning but a couple of freak plays in the second seemed to affect him negatively; he really labored after that.

Once again, here’s Jake’s velocity chart:

The second inning starts at pitch 14 and ends at 35. Look at how his peak velocity drops off after that. The third inning is pitch 36 through 73; at that point you can see Jake is really laboring. I give him credit for battling though a tough outing but it sure would be nice if he could just cruise through a big game for once.

Royce Ring: Another terrific outing for Ring. He’s a lefty but he’s no LOOGY, he can get anyone out.

Scott Linebrink: When you’re only down 1 to the Red Sox you can sort of convince yourself you have a chance but when Linebrink gave up that home run it had to demoralize the team. You’re just not going to get 2 runs against Papelbon.

Trevor Hoffman: Trevor came in just to get some work and he really made the Boston hitters look foolish, retiring the side on 5 pitches.