Excitement and W's: Pitching Wins at Fenway This Weekend

Aside from Penny's botched attempt at being fantastic, was this weekend not great from a pitching perspective?

Our bullpen on Friday night was incredible. Penny gave up 8 runs in 3 innings, and our bullpen shut them down after that. I think it was Strike Out King that allowed the inherited run to score, but other than that, nothing. Silence from the O's bats... giving our Sox the opportunity to stage a comeback. They tacked 10 runs on the board, and ended up winning a game that we looked completely out of early. Brad Penny is not allowed to pitch home games any more.

Jeremy Guthrie shouldn't be given big leads at Fenway, because he cannot win with big leads. If memory serves me, I've seen him win games with smaller leads, but those games that look like W's for the O's... they usually turn into memorable wins for us. I don't know what it is about having a large lead. Guthrie can't handle it.

Either way, doubles for Munchkin and Green, a triple for JD, home runs for Kazerud and JD. 12 H and 9 BB's... luckily, I didn't give up on this one. It looked bad early, but I had a pinched nerve in my neck, so I wasn't going anywhere anyway. Glad I stuck it out.

Saturday night, with Commander on the mound, I felt good. He looked good, until the 5th inning, but still managed to come away with the win. The thing about Joshua is that he almost always has one inning where he seems to fall apart. I'd say it happens 90% of the time. Granted, he doesn't always fall apart completely... sometimes damage is limited to one or two runs, but he falls apart. It's usually the 3rd or the 6th inning, so when he fell apart in the 5th, I was shocked and appalled. That Josh... always switching it up on me. Just when I think I know the guy. He still managed to go 6, and his ERA is still a respectable 3.79. No, it's not a GREAT ERA, but show me one guy in our starting rotation that has a great ERA right now (besides Wakey and his magical 3.00 ERA), and I'll call you a magician. That sort of thing is going to happen slowly. Still, I love watching Josh pitch.

Oki, Saito and Paps pitched one clean inning apiece, and all of them looked good.
Offense on the night was, again, excellent. Doubles from Youk, Tek, Drew, and Mikey. A home run from Youk, and a stolen base from Kazerud. 12 H and 5 BB... granted, we left a collective 20 guys on base, but I care about that so much less in games that we win. When we lose a game, I'll go right back to complaining about it.

I can't remember which game it was that Youk got hit in the head. I think it was Friday's game... but that right there was a scary moment. Even when I don't necessarily like a guy, I never EVER want to see anyone get hit in the head. Thank goodness he was A-OK. I also had a moment of schadenfreude when I saw the score from the Yankees game... but I won't repeat it here, because that's just not polite. Tee hee...

Then, there was Sunday, and we had Binky back on the mound. I felt so good about this game, I was nearly giddy to watch it. Ok, I WAS giddy to watch it. As much as I love Joshua, that's how much I love Jon. And believe me when I say it, I love the two of them dearly. I always think we're going to win when they're on the mound. Johnny gave the best pitching performance of the weekend. It's only right to save the best for last. 7 IP, 4H, 0 ER. He was excellent. I couldn't have asked for a better start. I know, I know... it's just the Orioles, and he still has a 5.50 ERA, but he's trying. He'll be ok. He'll win games against teams that can actually go somewhere.

Not for nothing, but how good has Ramon Ramirez been so far?

We only eked out 2 runs in this one... Munckin and Mr. Awesome gathered up the RBI's.... and Saito allowed a run in the 9th, but this was a good, exciting game.

Can't ask for much more than that during an entire weekend, can you?