Manny Delcarmen: Now Our Best Pitcher

A week ago, I declared to some friends that Manny was not long for this team. But after last night's debacle, I am now declaring him safe. Two scoreless innings. It was brilliant and so very needed.

If you didn't watch last night's suck-fest, consider yourself lucky. There was a lot of suck on behalf of our pitchers. I don't even know if I can call them pitchers. Last night, Josh was a mere thrower. There was no pitching involved after the second inning. Which is funny, because he didn't last much past the second inning. And he still managed to give up eight runs. There are probably only a handful of people in the world who don't know Josh personally who are as big of fans of him as I am. Or maybe there are thousands. What do I know? I base my opinions off of information I have readily available to me. Anyway. While I didn't expect Beckett to have a great season, because it is an even-numbered year, I would like him to pull back on the suck just a little. Like, maybe he could not have an ERA over 7. Maybe he needs to set the damn example for the rest of our starters, being the official ace and all. NESN showed a breakdown of our starting rotation after the game last night. Let's just say this: It makes the Pirates pitching staff look pretty good right about now. Our starters... all five of them... have something like 2 wins combined. I get it; it's not all their fault. Offense and bullpen problems can lead to not getting wins. But pitching like garbage also leads to not getting wins. It all starts with Josh. He needs to be the first to pull his shit together, and then maybe the others will follow.

As far as the bullpen goes, Atchinson did well enough. No, he didn't do well, but he did well enough. Schoe... um... 1/3rd of an inning, 1 run allowed. Not good enough for me, but good enough to get that illusive "W," so who am I to complain? Oki... Jesus, Tito, give this dude a break. He didn't get a single out and still managed to give up two runs. THAT was ugly. That was Beckett bad. He's clearly exhausted. Bard.... meh. He was average, but I'm figuring he's just as exhausted as Oki. Paps, thankfully, was good and he didn't give us that one last heart attack at the end of the game. He'll never know how much I appreciated that. But Manny D... I'll tell ya, we needed that. We really did. So how does everyone thing Rambo felt? Being literally the only reliever that Tito did not use last night? Has to tell him something, I'd imagine.

Now, for the good part... the offense. We had offense! We had TONS of offense, finishing with 18 hits and 13 runs. My Captain... my dearest, darling Jason was able to hit TWICE with the bases loaded. There was a long period of time (think every year before right now) that Jason would see the bases loaded and panic, and more often than not strike out on a high fastball. Not last night. Last night, he knocked in his first four non-solo-home-run RBI's of the season, and finished the night with three hits. Sure, the two AB's that he didn't hit, he struck out, but I'm so incredibly happy with his performance. That's the kind of Captain we need. He was awesome. Maybe could have called a better game, but I'm just going to lay the blame solely on our pitching staff.

We ended up with five batters having three hits of the night. The only slot in our lineup that didn't have a hit was the number 8 spot. Bill Hall and Wolverine combined for 0 hits, 2 strikeouts, and one walk in five total AB's. You'll never hear me say this again, but Mikey Lowell was probably the biggest disappointment of the night. If he had just gotten one timely hit, this game wouldn't have come down to one run (at least I'm assuming it wouldn't). In six AB's, he got one hit and no RBI's. Mikey left eight men on base. Not that I think Papi would have done much better, but I'm sorry Mike, that wasn't good enough. Even JD ".182" Drew had an RBI. This team was 11 for 20with RISP... and... I'm not going to complain about the offense. It was there. It saved us.

Youk, of course, had to be the one to get hit by a pitch. He's ok, but why does everyone target Youk? It's the beard, isn't it? It's scary, and they just want to conquer their fears. Anyhow... 2 SB's for Munchkin (also one of the members of the 3-hit club). Munchkin, of course, was our little spark-plug. As usual. Without Pedroia, there is no game.

I don't know what else I can say about this game. From a pitching standpoint, it was downright horrifying. From an offense standpoint, no one should complain... except perhaps Blue Jays fans. But I'm not a Blue Jays fan, so I don't care.

Also, congratulations to the Bruins in advancing to the second round of the playoffs as a result of a very exciting game that was a great distraction for me while the Sox pitching staff was making me want to rip my hair out. Way to go!