Games 16 & 17: Sox sweep day/nighter

by Randy Booth on Apr 23, 2009 1:16 PM EDT in Game Stories

Not much is better in baseball than sweeping a day/night doubleheader.

Tim Wakefield was a hero -- again -- in the day game for the Sox. He earned the rain-shortened complete game victory, 10-1. He allowed one run, five hits, one walk and struck out four Twinkies on the day.

With a potential 18 innings on tap yesterday (worked out to 16, though), Wakefield needed to save the bullpen. He did just that and was effective. Sometimes we can run Wakefield out there, have him get smashed and he can still chew up innings, but not this time.

The offense was anchored by three two-run home runs in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd innings. Kevin Youkilis, Nick Green and Mike Lowell all went deep. Lowell and J.D. Drew each had three hits. (Green, while he knocked in three runs, did have two errors on the game.)

In the second game, Brad Penny wasn't horrible, which the Sox really need out of him. While the offense only managed five hits but knocked in seven, it was good enough to have the Sox win 7-3.

Penny went six innings and allowed six hits, three runs (two earned), one walk and struck out two. Penny's not really doing anything special this year, but he's getting the job done. He's not striking out a lot, but he's getting some ground balls and working out of jams.

Sox are off today, but the Yankees are in town Friday.

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Penny is doing what a #5 pitcher should do

By giving the Sox a decent chance to win two-thirds of his starts. He was awful against Baltimore, but the Sox won. In fact, they’ve won all of Penny’s starts so far.

Ideally, you want your #4-#5 starters to give you quality starts in two out of every three starts. If they’re much better than league average, that’s great. I’m not worried about the ERAs of the back or the rotation. For example, Penny’s ERA is 7.80, which is pretty bad. He also has an awful 1.67 WHIP. But in his two wins (both quality starts), he has an ERA of 3.75 and a WHIP of 1.17. In my opinion, Penny is doing his job well so far.

I gotta go 'cause I'm probably definitely gonna nod out again.

by Drugs Delaney on Apr 23, 2009 1:51 PM EDT reply actions

+1

WBULTV - BDale TV Prod

by bdalebs on Apr 23, 2009 6:37 PM EDT up reply actions

To be fair to the nay-sayers

Penny’s only had two starts so far, and one of them the Sox won in spite of Penny. He’s done his job in the second start, but the first wasn’t anywhere close to adequate.

Of course, you then have the problem of small sample sizes. I’ll try to avoid Chicken Littling or singing mighty hosannas for him until we’ve seen him a dozen or so times this year.

by lone1c on Apr 24, 2009 12:04 AM EDT up reply actions