Dojji

The biggest things were the strike rate, which was high and got better as he went along, and the fact that his fastball topped out at 93, where it hasn't been consistently in more than a year and a half.

Tito uses pitch counts as guidelines.

Blah. Blah, I say.

Dang

Time for a double, Mr. Lowell. Those bases need to be cleared.

good enough, Papi. That'll do nicely.

why aren't they walking Bay here?

OK, that'll do.

87 through 6, that's 8 innings territory. They'll probably take him out now though. First game back and all.

He's been pouring on more strikes too. The ratio has gone from about 50% to about 65 in the last 2 innings. If we get this Daisuke for the rest of the year we have to be favorites to take it all.

Tek could you please at least only get yourself out???

What a great job by Daisuke to get out of it!

Well, you wouldn't mistake him for Greg Maddux, but he's doing alright out there today. I think the Angels are helping him out a lot though. He's only throwing 50% strikes and that counts swinging strikes and foul balls.

Why do you care? You really want him back?

Pretty good so far.

I'll respond to that one, since I said it. It's pretty simple, and it's a big part of the reason why Yankees teams haven't done well in the postseason. Your strengths rely on a powerful lineup and an above average rotation. The problem with that is that this strategy is only truly effective against a mix of strong, average and weak pitching. You molest the average and weak pitching and trust your half decent rotation to keep you from getting into too much trouble against the strong pitching. A one-week slump from a key hitter in the regular season is annoying. In the playoffs, in all likelihood, it's all strong pitching, and worse, most of the rest of the lineups you face are also pretty strong. Unless your lineup is firing on all cylinders good pitching is going to figure out enough of your hitters to limit your primary advantage, and your "above average" rotation, which usually isn't better than the rotations of the pitching build teams you face in the playoffs, can wind up getting exposed. A one week slump from a key hitter in the postseason is deadly.

Why not? But really, I'm reserving judgement. I'm waiting to see what he looks like when he gets to the mound.

Rotation: BOS (Beckett, Lester, Buchholz) DET (Verlander, Jackson, Washburn) LAA (Lackey, Weaver, Kazmir) NYY (Sabathia, Burnett, Pettitte) Bullpen: BOS (Papelbon, Wagner, Bard, Okajima, Ramirez) NYY (Rivera, Hughes, Aceves, Robertson) LAA (Fuentes, Bulger, Oliver) DET (Rodney, Lyon) Lineup: NYY LAA BOS DET

He's also a year older and hasn't been able to stand up to the rigors of a fulltime starter's schedule for 4 years now. I think that bringing him back and watching him get bombed would be so sad that t's not worth the risk. Unless he wanted to pitch out of the pen. That might be fun.

Nice to see you guys aren't setting yourself up for disappointment.

I feel much better about bringing wake back, for the record, now that VMart has handled him a couple times and found himself up to the task.

haven't you guys gotten tired of failing to transition NL relievers to the American League yet? I strongly suspect that Valverde is going to sign with the Washington Nationals anyway. They're in a good position to spend money on their pen.

yes but Morales is no slouch and they need to improve more in other areas. Especially if they lose Lackey. In fairness, we have an all star caliber 1B ourselves. It just happens he's ALSO a star caliber 3B, and those have been harder to find over the last several years.

I'm not sure who else would. Most of the contenders and near contenders have all star caliber first basemen of their own. The exception is the Giants and I'm not sure they want to get into a bidding war with a system as deep as Boston's. They'll probably just sign Adam LaRoche anyway.

Except that Bedard is an AL East veteran, unlike Smoltz or Penny, and unlike specifically Penny, he never lost effectiveness, he just couldn't stay on the field. And I think you're going to have to pay Bedard a high base because he did remain effective in the games he actually pitched, and to convince him to walk away from some multi-year offers he'll be getting. Remember, our angle with Bedard would have to be that he could get more money if he pitched with us for a healthy season then went back on the market at age 32. Starting at 8 and allowing him to work up to 15 is required to substitute for the year's salary he'd lose going for those deals. At least that's how I see it.