Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Running on Fumes
Posted by Joe DiminoBecause I have nothing better to do (actually, I have plenty better to do, but I love to procrastinate) I plugged pitch counts for every single pitcher in the Yankees/Red Sox series into Diamond Mind to see who is tired.
You would probably think that after last night's relatively easy night on the bullpens, several pitchers would be okay. Not so. They are still gassed from the Game 3-5. The only pitchers Diamond Mind would not consider tired in today's game are:
Boston: Ramiro Mendoza, Curtis Leskanic
New York: Kevin Brown, Tanyon Sturtze, Felix Heredia
Terry Francona's potential starters are Tim Wakefield - 43 pitches Monday and 64 on Saturday; Derek Lowe who would be on two days rest after throwing 88 pitches Sunday; or Bronson Arroyo would be on 3 days rest after a 60 pitch outing - except that he threw 40 pitches in relief the last two nights. Oh yeah, his closer has thrown 100 pitches the last 3 days and looked positively awful last night while barely getting past the relatively weak part of the Yankee lineup. I can't imagine he'd be worth anything tonight.
This has been a wild series. With pretty much everyone on both staffs that is any good running on fumes, expect some fireworks in the Bronx tonight.
Additionally, Jason Varitek has had 206 batters faced as catcher in the last 4 days, Jorge Posada 189.
Joe Dimino was an author with The Hardball Times who stopped writing several years ago due to real life taking up too much time, as well as the longest case of writer's block on record. He founded the The Hall of Merit. You can contact Joe by clicking here.