Inconceivable: Dice-K Went How Many Innings?

Seven. Dice-K went seven full innings, allowing only one run. It's an incredibly unexpected surprise. Believe me! Taking a quick look at his game logs (and not counting 2007 when he pitched incredibly well for us and logged over 200 innings), I can see that Dice-K has gone seven or more innings a total of ten times, including last night, from 2008-now. There was a lot of injury in there, but there were also a lot of high pitch counts. In 44 games, Dice has gone seven or more innings ten times. So, 1/4th of the time we can count on him to give us quality starts, I guess.

Just to compare... in that same time frame (and I know it's skewed because he didn't have as many injury problems, but he's my Binky so I don't care), Jon Lester has played 72 games, and has gone 7 or more innings 31 times. 43% of the time, Jon is taking you deep into games. 23% of the time, Dice-K is taking you deep into games. You can understand why I'm so shocked and excited about his really good start yesterday. It's not that common. I'd look up Beckett's numbers for comparison, but I'm not happy with him so I'm not giving him the attention right now. Just in case you don't know, Beckett's been bumped from this week all together. Thank you for messing up the rotation for me, Josh. Thanks. A lot.

Dice-K... whatever he was doing last night, can he please keep doing that? We need THAT Dice-K, especially with the inconsistency of our entire pitching staff. I mean, I know the Jays aren't the toughest opponent in the world, and we've handled them pretty successfully so far this year (thank goodness), but it was a really good start for him. 3H, 9K, and ZERO BB. ZERO! The last time he had zero walks in a game was June 7, 2009, in a loss to the Rangers. Before that? You have to go back to May 27, 2008, in a game where he only pitched four innings in a loss to the Mariners. Ah, what the hell... let's just chart his zero-walk games!

May 11, 2010 - 7 IP, W 6-1
June 7, 2009 - 5.2 IP, L 6-3
May 27, 2008 - 4 IP, L 4-3
April 1, 2008 - 6.2 IP, W 2-1
May 30, 2007 - 5.2 IP, L 8-4
May 19, 2007 - 8 IP, W 13-3
May 14, 2007 - 9 IP, W 7-1

76 games, and only 7 that he didn't walk a batter. See? Rare. His performance last night was rare and appreciated, and I have nothing bad to say about him today.

You know who else I have nothing bad to say about? Aw, come on, you know. That's right. The Captain. Oh, Jason makes me so happy. Two hits (one a solo HR... he loves those solo HR's) and an IBB. That, my friends, is just pure awesome to me. The extra rest is definitely benefitting him. He's up to six HR's on the year, trailing only mighty Munchkin, who has 7. If reduced playing time is what we need to get the most out of Jason, I'll definitely stop complaining about it. I love Jason. I love when he's in the game, and I definitely feel more confident in our pitchers when he's playing. Sure, he's only had 43 plate appearances, but you know, it's fine. He's doing great. I love everything about him today... and most other days.

Not to mention, the Blue Jays were just playing sloppy baseball. I don't think they were charged any errors on the game, but again, they look baffled in the field. I don't get it. They're not that bad of a team. They're ahead of the Sox in the standings. We're in 4th place, 5.5 back. The Sox need to keep chugging right along and get some momentum going. Winning is always fun. I enjoy winning. And I love Jason Varitek