Stephen King - Faithful

Foulke gets the last out on a long fly to right, then struggles so much in the tenth that the boys quit. It’s 1:15 in the morning and we have to get up early tomorrow. Overall, Foulke throws 41 pitches. After starting the year 10 for 10 in save opportunities, he’s 4 for his next 9, and that shaky streak started against Seattle, that Sunday game when Raul Ibanez took him into the pen and McCarty bailed him out in extras with a walk-off job.

In the eleventh, McCarty, leading off, gets on on an error. Kapler bunts too hard down third, and they get the force at second. Again, we’ve got no smallball. Kapler takes second anyway on a wild pitch, but Bellhorn looks at a very wide strike three, and Johnny flies to left.

Since Foulke’s gone two, we have to bring in Leskanic. He gets behind Olivo 3-1, and Olivo singles through the hole. Dave Hansen wants to bunt him across. Curtis does the job for him, walking him. Then, in what must be seen as team play in Japan, on the very first pitch Ichiro bunts them over. Francona intentionally walks Randy Winn and pulls the infield in for Bret Boone. On 0-1, Boone hits a fly to left-center. It’s deep enough to score the run, so the fielders ignore it and jog in as the ball clears the wall for a walk-off grand slam. It’s 1:45, and I’m so pissed off that I’m glad they lost, because they suck. (See—it’s not we now, it’s they ; the loss is so deranging that for a few minutes I have to separate myself from the team.)

They didn’t hit or field for Arroyo. The three-run shot by Tek was a gift. All they needed was six outs, against the worst team in the league.

I want to blame someone, and the obvious target is Foulke. But I know that closers blow games. Even Eric Gagne blew one the other day. And while it’s true that the pen hasn’t looked good lately, Theo hasn’t helped matters by picking up retreads like Anderson, Nelson and Leskanic. Mendoza, who should be covering some of these middle innings, is taking up a roster spot but may never pitch another meaningful at-bat in the majors. But Theo didn’t give up back-to-back jacks.

It’s just a loss, a brutal, late-night, extra-inning loss of a game we should have won, a game we needed (since we need all of them now), and there’s nothing to do but eat it and go on.

It’s also the kind of loss that makes you nervous the next time the game’s on the line, and tonight we get a nightmarish rerun of last night when Lowe has to leave early with a blister and Seattle chips away at our 8–1 lead until it’s 9–7 in the ninth, with two on and no out and Foulke sweating buckets. Seattle has 18 hits, including 4 from Ichiro (along with 4 stolen bases), but has left 14 on.

Because of last night, I don’t believe in Foulke at all. He could give up another walk-off job to Boone here, and I’d just shrug. Because I’m still pissed off at him (at them ). The Yanks have already won, so a loss would drop us 8 back, and I think, fuck it. 7, 8, 9—it doesn’t matter. If we keep losing on the road like this, we don’t deserve to be in any race.

Foulke doesn’t try to nibble like last night. He leads with his fastball to get ahead, then goes exclusively to the change. He strikes out Boone. Strikes out Edgar. Strikes out Bucky Jacobsen for the game.

For an instant, as the ump rings up Jacobsen, I’m excited, but I cool off just as quickly. We barely squeaked this one out, and it should have been a laugher, after an eight-run fourth (David Ortiz with a three-run bomb, then Manny going back-to-back). Same problem as always: no middle relief. Leskanic let two of Lowe’s runners score. In his one inning, Timlin gave up a run. Nelson allowed two runs and only retired one man. Mendoza sat on the bench and watched. Kim was in Columbus with the PawSox. I have no idea where Theo was.

SO:Thanks for the tickets for tomorrow and the weekend. This six-game home stand is crucial, after the ugly road trip. A bad time to stumble, since the Yanks are faltering as well. Kevin Brown pitched against the PawSox last night and looked good, so he may be back sooner than we might wish.

SK:Last night’s win was just about as ugly as they get. I’ll take .500 on the road, especially on the West Coast, but we had a chance to come back 4-2, and in much better shape. I’m reading Moneyball now, and it’s really a jaw-dropping book. Lewis asserts, with no reservations whatever, that Art Howe is no more than the ventriloquist’s dummy on Billy Beane’s knee. Which leads me to wonder if that is now true in Boston—i.e., if Terry Francona is the dummy on Theo Epstein’s knee. And, if Epstein is following the Beane paradigm, then our team is in middling good shape assuming Theo is planning trades before the deadline. Beane feels good if he can go into the second half of the season six or less back. Still, I don’t buy into everything the book suggests, either from the standpoint of strategy, and certainly not from the standpoint of business morality.

SO:My main argument with Moneyball is that the modest success of the A’s is based on Mulder, Hudson and Zito, and it’s pretty much a matter of luck that they came up at the same time and fulfilled the scouts’ expectations. So many prospects don’t, but these three did. Otherwise, the no-running, no-fielding, big OBP club has trouble scoring when it doesn’t hit three-run home runs—hey, just like us! Billy Beane’s always crowing about his genius, but look at the Twins, who’ve put together a better, steadier club with even less money. They’ve lost core guys like Eric Milton and A. J. Pierzynski, yet they keep on keepin’ on. And for a solid club that knows how to play the game, I’ll take the smallball Angels any day, even with their terrible starters.

SK:I disagree. They were a certain type of ballplayer, picked for talent and affordability. And in the case of Zito, the scouts hated him. He was Beane’s pick.

All that aside, this year’s Red Sox team is a sick entity right now, and I hate it. I keep going back in my mind to one of those games versus the Angels. We’re down by at least three runs, and maybe five. There are two out, and the Angels pitcher is struck wild. There are two on for us and Pokey at the plate. He puts on a heroic at-bat, finally drawing a walk to load them for Johnny Damon, who swings at the first pitch he sees— the first motherfucking pitch he sees! —and lines out to center. The fielder didn’t even have to take a step. That’s just deer-in-the-head-lights baseball. Something going on around here, what it is ain’t precisely clear…but I’m not lovin’ it.

SO:It’s the twenty-first, meaning Theo’s got ten days to close his deals. I think we’ve got to land a quality arm, probably a starter who lets Arroyo be the middle-relief ace (a huge advantage, since no one out there has a Mendoza-type guy, and Nelson and Anderson are fire-starters). But I’m not holding my breath.

First-pitch hitting is a killer, but Johnny obviously thought the guy was going to groove one to try to get ahead (like Foulke last night—any of those guys swings at that 88 mph double-A-quality fastball and it’s “See ya!”).

SK:I thought of that, but it’s still a bonehead move. One of the things Lewis points out in Moneyball —courtesy of Bill James and the saber-metrics guys—is that batting average goes up seventy-five points if a batter takes the first pitch and that pitch is a ball. He also reminds the reader of Boggs, who always took the first pitch, and Hatteberg, who mostly does.

SO:What hurts is watching all these opportunities go by, and that’s also a product of the OBP thing. Speaking of guys who always took one: Roberto Clemente. The Anti-Nomar. [Nomar is a notorious first-pitch hitter, regardless of the game situation, just as the Great One never swung at a first pitch.]