Tim Wakefield's pitching line from last night

I like Tim Wakefield, I really do. The only full time knuckle ball pitcher left in the major leagues, he was one of the reasons the Red Sox beat my Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. He's had success as both a starter and a reliever, and I've never heard anything bad about him as a baseball player or as a person.

Having said that he had a brutal start last night against the Texas Rangers. 6 innings pitched, 7 hits, 6 runs, all of them earned. 5 bases on balls, 3 strikeouts.

Here's where it gets ugly.

Texas stole 9 (!) bases off him. He hit two batters and had two wild pitches. Oh, yeah, and there was a balk in there.

Victor Martinez was the catcher and it was just an ugly, ugly, combination. They need a much better defensive catcher when Wakefield pitches but the Sox don't have anyone at the moment. I really felt bad after a while...the Rangers almost seemed to be rubbing it in. A walk was as good as a triple. Vladimir Guerrero, the guy the Angels ditched because he was slower than Hideki Matsui, stole two bases.

The punch line is the Red Sox won anyway. But they have to do something about the defense at catcher.

You're correct. The dirty little secret is Yankees Fan have been smirking at the idea of Victor and Varitek catching. Many teams are going to run all over this pair until the Sox give up and cut one of the dead weight players and find a good defensive catcher. Either Varitek, Lowell or Ortiz probably needs to go. None can be traded.

Man, that's ugly. I love watching Wakefield pitch (and I loved Charlie Hough and Tom Candiotti, the only other full-time knuckleballers of my era), but he was very stealable even when he was young.

That's a really rough outing. At least they won't do what the Cubs just did to Zambrano, which is to pull him from starting and make him a set up guy for no conceivable baseball oriented reason. Just remember, it could always be worse. Z had a horrific opening day start and we now have a middle reliever with a 90 million dollar contract.

Well it's going to be interesting if/when Daisuke Matsuzaka comes back. The Sox are going to have to move someone to the pen and I bet Wakefield gets the short straw. He's a good soldier though and won't complain.

Speaking of Matsuzaka as a Yankee fan I have to indulge in a little schadenfraude over him. Given the posting fee and salary the Sox paid for him I think it is safe to say his career here has not quite gone like they hoped.

To all of those kvetching in this thread, may I point out that it could be worse? You could be living in Houston right now. :fail:

That is an ugly line for Wakefield, but it's really not that unusual for a knuckleballer. If the knuckle is working, it's damn near unhittable, but when it isn't, it's just a soft, flat batting practice pitch that the pitcher can't control. A bad outing for a knuckleballer is usually an awful outing with a bunch of extra base hits, walks, and passed balls. And as long as it takes to get that pitch to the plate, catchers are at a big disadvantge trying to keep runners honest -- put a couple of shitty catchers who can't throw guys out anyway behind the dish and teams will run all day on them.

I remember watching Charlie Hough pitch a few games for the Chi Sox back in the day and it was hilarious to see Ronny Karkovice not even give him a sign or a target; he just squatted with his hands on his knees and practically dove for the ball at the last second once it started to break. Of course, Ronny K could throw runners out (which is why he played as many years as he did in The Show with as weak a stick as he had), so they were a little more hesitant to go on him with Hough on the mound.

I like Wakefield, but he looked pretty shakey during the second half of last season. It may be time to start thinking about retirement.