It’s hard to say this, but I’m not sure how much longer my digestive tract can take Tim Wakefield.
Tim Wakefield may be old as father time, but his knuckleball sure does flutter, don’t it?
It really is almost painful for me to admit it, too. The guy has been the absolute, consummate Red Sox’ team player. He’s done everything; long relief, closing, spot starting, spot relieving … in the playoffs. And through it all, he’s been an innings-eater, making life much easier for all the pitchers around him.
At his best, Wakefield dazzles everyone, including his personal catcher/jock scratcher Doug Mirabelli. But at his worst, he’s like throwing a 34 year-old office assistant whose had 14 too many hot dogs in the last week out there during a seventh inning stretch of his corporate softball game. It just gets ugly. Fast.
That’s why this afternoon’s game is so eerie for Sox fans. Just two years ago, in Chicago, against these White Sox, Wakefield put out one of his classic performances, for all the wrong reasons. It ended up being heroic, Wakefield trudging along on the mound with nothing going for him, taking one for the team even though that meant giving up a horrific 14 or 15 runs. It was devastating to watch, but mesmerizing at the same time.
Then, a matter of games later, he tossed a gem. It’s always that way, isn’t it?
Even in batting practice Mirabelli loafs around as much as he swings.
In fact, that’s just part of the problem. The other part, quite frankly, is Mirabelli himself. The man hits a rawhide much less than he does a buffet, but because no one else is even willing to try to catch the damn knuckleball, Mirabelli is like a leech you can’t lose. Without Dougie “Who needs to go deep when you’re a backup” Mirabelli, you got no successful Wakefield.
So what’s a fan to do? That’s easy. Sox fans root for Wakefield. They hope he wins, and, just as importantly, eats a ton of innings. And then they go to the bathroom, take out the family size bottle of TUMS, put them in a blender with sorbet and skim milk and make a nice antacid smoothie. That’s the best you can hope for.
He’s coming off a victory in the All-Star Game and the best half a season of his career. Can Josh Beckett keep trucking along like he’s in a 16-wheeler full or trucker bombs? Or will he finally hit a pothole in the road.
Face it: Beckett looks good in any setting this year.
Let’s face it, this afternoon’s game (Toronto Blue Jays at Red Sox, Fenway Park, 2 p.m.) is exactly the type of game where Beckett, and Sox aces past, would trip up. It’s exactly the type of game where the team would slowly start slipping into the toilet, eventually being sucked into a vortex so strong they end up in Australia, all while the Yankees sail to another division crown.
But all indications are that this year is different. Unlike the relative harmony in Beantown for all players not named Julio Lugo - hell, even J.D. Drew is getting a pass in the midst of another potential and questionably injury - there’s budding dischord in the Bronx. While ESPN glorifies the lack of unity and harmony of the 1977 Yankees (a note of warning: Oliver Platt is still very fat, even in a non-Showtime TV series), the current crop seems to be one five-game losing streak away from declaring anarchy and watching a steroid-crazed Jason Giambi charge George Steinbrenner in the owner’s box.
Wonder how crazy Sox fans are about Beckett this year? Check out the cheers from the pre-game intros. ‘Nuff said.
Just think about it: A-Rod is on the precipice of becoming the first $30 million man in professional sports, and is just making things worse by refusing to negotiate in season, all while Brian Cashman attempts to turn his third baseman’s impending opt-out into a nuclear PR war of epic proportions. Each day that ESPN plants a camera in Yankee Stadium (read: every day), it’s hard not to expect players and coaches to start showing up as famous military figures. Can’t you just see Cashman pulling out a triangular hat and going Napoleon on Joe Torre’sGeneral Patten?
So, in the midst of all that, it’s hard to look at this as another normal season. And that makes it hard to expect another collapse, both from Beckett and the Sox. And while all Sox fans are used to looking at Toronto as a bugaboo, this is Beckett vs. Josh Towers, a pitcher who has been pulverized by past Sox teams worse than a Wolfgang Puck (gratuitous editor’s note: doesn’t the name Wolfgang Puck make you want to grab a fork? It just seems to scream macaroni and cheese and spare ribs, doesn’t it? I though so, too) slab of beef.
Is one of those for me, or are you just a poorly hydrated trucker on a 16-hour mission? It’s a question we could be asking Josh and the Sox any day now.
And Beckett has been cruising. So maybe he’s got a couple trucker bombs sitting in the seat next to him, with a load of empties along the floorboards. Maybe this afternoon he’ll give the Jays another 10-4 and send them on their way.
