Pitching In

I had my last chance to see this year’s Portland SeaDogs on Monday night playing in Manchester, N.H., against the Fisher Cats. I was very lucky to miss Dice-K and his 49-pitch first inning the day before, but they were handing out pictures of Matsuzaka throwing in the game. I think it was pitch number 44.

The hitting star for the SeaDogs was shortstop Yamaico Navarro, a recent callup from A-ball when Argenis Diaz was traded to Pittsburgh as part of the Adam LaRoche-for-a-week deal. Hitting a robust .159, Navarro nevertheless drove in the tying and winning runs and later scored an insurance run in the ninth inning, when Portland came out of its game-long trance to score four times.

The SeaDogs started a good-looking righthander named Ryne Miller, who could someday be the third Ryne in the big leagues after Ryne Duren and Ryne Sandberg. Miller pitched five innings of one-hit ball, then gave up a one-out single in the sixth and struck out the next batter. His line: 5 2/3 innings pitched, no runs, two hits, seven strikeouts. That earned him a trip to the showers IN THE SIXTH INNING!!!! Why? Because he reached his pitch count, whatever it was. Couldn’t have been much, though.

Out from the bullpen jogged reliever Tommy Hottovy, just up recently from Lowell, who pitched to a total of seven batters before he was pulled in the middle of the eighth inning.

When he came out, Derrick Loop came in. A tall right-hander who had 16 saves at Salem in the Carolina League, Loop pitched to three batters and left after getting the first out in the ninth on a strikeout. Why not leave him in to finish the game? But of course not! The SeaDogs brought in Bryce Cox, who nearly blew the game giving up two singles and a walk to load the bases with one out. A game-ending double play bailed him out.

The way the pitching was handled in this game is precisely why the Red Sox have the perpetual problem of short outings. Starting pitchers have trouble getting out of the sixth inning and relievers can only pitch one inning at a time at Double-A. It is drilled into them from the low minors to the majors that they just can’t throw too many pitches.

The Sox need to let their pitchers grow up looking at ways they can get batters out instead of looking over their shoulders for the manager and his short leash.