Nothing like a series with the Rays to cure what ails you. The Sox disposed of Tampa Bay for the fourth time this season and barely broke a sweat doing it. In the four games, the Sox have outscored the Devil Rays by a combined 33-11. It almost – check that – it isn’t fair. Every pitcher the D’Rays carted out was worst than the one before. Jason Hamel, who actually pitched OK – has a season ERA of 5.33. The Sox knocked Hamel out in the sixth on back-to-back walks, and then the crap-fest that is the Tampa bullpen came on.
Juan Salas gave up a three run bomb to Youk on his fourth pitch, then the real fun began. The next three stiffs out of the ‘pen all had ERA’s over 7. Fossum, Stokes and Camp – not exactly Delcarmen, Okajima and Papelbon are they. To illustrate the level of such achieved by the Tampa bullpen, Brian Stokes has an ERA of 7.42 and has pitched over 47 innings. How does that happen? Is the logic that if they keep sending him out there he will somehow unsuck?
Frankly, these games are pretty friggin‘ boring. The stadium is butt-ugly. Like a giant bubble held afloat with cables and catwalks. Indoor baseball in Florida makes no sense to me anyway. It’s like wearing a snorkel jacket in a hot tub. With one Tampa Bay fan – Leatherlung – and the rest of the crowd the traveling RSN club, even the Trop is subject to the embarrassment of the Wave. And the boys don’t even brawl anymore. Bring back Hot Rod Williams and Zim and Pedro for these series, they’re like exhibition games anyway. A little throw-down would break the monotony.
Jon Lester pitches Saturday night – at least that’s a reason to watch.
