Curt Schilling was motoring along just fine until he tired. He got through the fifth at 95 pitches, and came out for the sixth. In hindsight, it was obviously the incorrect move – but at the time, it wasn’t that bad of an idea. He was cruising through the fourth, shutting the Yankees down. Ran into a spot of trouble in the fifth, but no big warning flags (other than the 95 pitches) to think he couldn’t handle the sixth. Two wrong pitches, two deposits in the bleachers.
Really, this game wasn’t lost by Schilling, nor won by Wright, it was lost by the Red Sox. Wright wasn’t exactly dazzling the Red Sox (although his final line will say he did) … but we were getting on base against Wright, we were threatening Wright all day long and we just couldn’t come up with that breakthrough hit to get the floodgates open and the water (in this metaphor, the water is the hits in case you didn’t know…) to come pouring out.
Anyways, that was the night, basically. A night of fustration, but I’m not jumping off the ledge. We really ought to be winning these games, but hopefully we’ll start clicking. Bronson Arroyo is going to oppose Randy Johnson tonight – if we can win this game, that should be a big confidence booster.
Kevin Youkilis was sent down to make room for Schilling. As much as I like Youk, this was the right move considering we (including last night’s game, where we used Blaine Neal) will have fifteen straight games, an off-day, then thirteen straigh games before off-days start coming at good amounts. So we’re going to need a 12th pitcher – Blaine Neal. Neal happened to be used last night and struck out Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada (much to the amazement of the swearing-a-blue-streak loudmouth in my section who doesn’t understand the concept of shutting up and taking in a good game). I said it before and I’ll say it again – Neal can become a very good reliever for us.
Wade Miller pitched yesterday as well for Single-A. Brian Young has the story. Since he can only stay in the minor leagues for 30 days, that means he has to be back by May 13th. So if we consider that there’s an off-day May 12th, we could see some shuffling here. If we assume Miller pitches every five days, then he could pitch again either the 13th, 14th, or 15th of May for us. I’m not going to speculate on who he’d replace in the rotation, but if this happens, Blaine Neal will probably get the boot then.
As some of you know, I went to the game yesterday. I had an opportunity to go to the game tonight, but I decided not to. Long story why, but it should still be a good game tonight. As for the game last night, I took a lot less pictures, and the ones I did take (plus the obligatory video!) is below. Hopefully Arroyo outpitches Randy Johnson. Hey, if Bruce Chen can outpitch RJ last week, then Arroyo certainly can. Right?
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