BANZAAAAI!

So I'm sitting on the bus yesterday, riding home from work, and I get a phone call. Being too deep into a great podcast of NPR: Car Talk, I took a quick look at the caller ID, saw it was my parents, and figured I'd give them a call when I got off the bus.

As I got off the bus and the podcast was over, I gave them a call. My Mom says "A friend of mine called and asked if I wanted some free tickets to the Red Sox. So your father and I are going to the game. I figured I'd call to let you know." I was like "yeah more like rubbing it in." Then it hit me.....Daisuke (or Dice-K for the kids out there) Matsuzaka was pitching last night. This would be great!

Now let me give you a little background on my Dad. He grew up an avid Sox fan during a handful of the good years, but mostly bad years. So he still has this mentality that the Sox (and Patriots for that matter) are born losers and that no matter what they do , they will end up on with the shit end of the stick. Basically he's the typical New England pessimist when it comes to sports. So this off season when the Sox paid $52 million to talk to the Seibu Lions about acquiring Daisuke, he thought they were on drugs. He thought they were more-so on drugs for shelling out $51 million to a pitcher who had never thrown a pitch in MLB. So after Daisuke pitched his first game against the Royals, you could tell my he had my Dad's attention, but I think he wanted Daisuke to prove himself against a real team and not the armpit of the American League, the Kansas City Royals.

Soon thereafter, Daisuke hit a rough patch. I specifically remember my Dad calling me after his Fenway debut and saying "We got stuck with a loser again. I can't believe we spent that much money on this guy. He stinks." The old pessimist that I kn0w and love was back!

Now where's this going? Well I thought it was great that for my Dad's first live game of the season, Daisuke was taking to the mound against a team which I believe is the second best in the American League. I knew it was going to be a great evening. Either Daisuke would be shelled and I'd have to listen to a 10:30pm phone call from my Dad spouting off about how the Sox wasted their money or I could call him and rub it in that Daisuke rocked the mutha-F'in house. Yeah....option #2 became a reality last night as they were leaving the Fenway.

So now that takes us to last nights game. Daisuke? Nuff said! Dude was a wizard up there. With the exception of a few huge hacks by Curtis Granderson, Daisuke was a beast. I especially loved that one pitch he blew past Gary Sheffield where the Sheff almost fell on his keyster!

The key to this game was the Red Sox batters. Now as most of you know, I'm a stats guy. I live, eat, breathe, crap this stuff out. It's my life and it pays the bills very well. So last night I started thinking about the batters and their stats. Like all season I've noticed how ALL the Sox batters like to take pitchers deep in the count. BUT, I didn't really take notice until last night.

Now Nate Robertson (Tigers) is a good pitcher. The guy gets up there and throws some quality games. He was a big part of the Tiger's success last season. The Red Sox took him for 115 pitches in 5 complete innings last night. That right, 115 pitches in 5 complete innings! We're not talking about a Mitch Williams-esque pitcher who's got the accuracy of a blind man at a skeet shooting range. We're talking about a bonafide, quality American League pitcher who had 13 wins last season in the Tigers run to the World Series. With that said, the Sox just pecked away at him all night. I saw multiple at bats go 8, 9 and even 10 pitches deep. It was just foul ball after foul ball to the point where Robertson was worn down and started to hang em out over the plate.

With most teams, it's usually one or two players who are that masterful in the batters box that they can do this. On the Red Sox, with the exception of Wily Mo, I think everyone does it and does it well. Now this probably won't be talked about by the likes of your favorite ESPN analysts, but check the box scores. The Sox batters wear down the opposing pitchers good and fast and that is why they are winning. They are getting to the bullpen early in their games. And we all know a tired bullpen early in the series leads to a big advantage for the other team in later games. To prove my point, lets look at the box scores from the pats week. Notice when the Sox do well, they wear out the starting pitcher early.

Monday: Nate Robertson - 115 pitches in 5 innings - Sox win
Sunday: Jeremy Guthrie - 91 pitches in 8 and 1/3 innings - Sox eeek out a win thanks to a tired bullpen.
Saturday: Steve "AARP" Trachsel - 102 pitches in 4 and 1/3 innings - Sox romp!
Friday: Brian Burres - 100 pitches in 5 innings - Sox lose but it sets up a tired bullpen for the rest of the weekend which helped the Sox in both Saturday and Sunday.
Thursday: Roy Halladay - 86 pitches in 5 innings - Sox win in a very non-Halladay like performance.
Wednesday: Tomo Okha - 96 pitches in 4 and 2/3 innings - Sox win
Tuesday: Victor Zambrano - 57 pitches in 2 and 2/3 innings - Sox win and Blue Jays use their bullpen very early in this game, setting up an utter mess for their staff later in the series.

The proof is in the beer folks! Read the numbers. This is going to be the reason the Sox win it all this season. They wear down that starting pitching early and then stick it to the bullpen. Now that I've brought this to your attention, watch over the next week and you'll see what I mean.

Ok well enough of that....time for work. Later people!