The Wallace Factor

[mosox]

I know there's been alot of talk about Tek's loss hurting the pitching staff, but the failure of the pitchers also seems to coincide with Dave Wallace's return to the dugout to replace Al Nipper.

Nipper has earned a reputation for working well with young pitchers, and the young arms seemed to do well under him this season.

I'm just wondering if Wallace has changed the way things were being done for most of the season.

[riverside sluggers]

Wallace returned a little over a week ago, yeea even then the Sox starters/bullpen were bad. Wallace has nothing to do with this, case closed

[SchillingIsTheNatural]

I think the entire pitching coach staff should be changed. Its not just the young guys its everyone thats struggling. They clearly don't have a solid game plan when going at teams.

 

An example of many: The last start Jon Lester had he was supposed to throw fastballs to start and get ahead then use his breaking stuff after. He has his best control with the fastball and before anyone says Javy Lopez can't call a decent game....it was the coaches that were calling the game. Suddenly after the 1st inning (which went well) he started off with breaking pitches and got crushed. Why did they make the change and put Lester in that situation?

 

Also, why can't they help Josh Beckett on a game plan where clearly he throws too many fastballs and has no idea how to attack certain hitters. Rudy Seanez, Julian Tavarez, Manny Delcarmen, Craig Hansen, Mike Timlin, Keith Foulke, Beckett, Lester.......EVERYONE sucks. Even if its not necessarily the coaches they should be changed to create a new atmosphere because the current one is terrifying and shows no signs of improvement.

[mosox]

Wallace returned a little over a week ago, yeea even then the Sox starters/bullpen were bad. Wallace has nothing to do with this, case closed

 

Wallace officially came back a week ago, but he has been around the team over the last few weeks.

[yankees228]

I'm thinking the success of the Red Sox pitchers may correlate much more with Varitek being active then with Dave Wallace being with the team. They showed some of the ERA's of the pitchers during the game telecast the other day for the time period after Varitek got hurt until now. It really is pretty remarkable and those ERA's are not indicative of the abilities of those pitchers.

[RoyNHSox]

I have never really been impressed with Wallace. It seems that pitchers coming into the Sox organization rarely improve. Whether it’s the mental approach or even more mechanics, where is the evidence that his tutelage has been effective? And when it comes to game strategies worked out with Tito I think he often times falls short in this evaluation.

 

As much as Joe Kerrigan was disliked I always thought he was able to bring out the best in his pitchers. Even veterans who had been discarded by other teams seemed to find new life under his guidance.