Yokuarimasen

Short post today, as I don’t have much time to spare. I got home around the fourth inning, just in time to not see a whole lot. I missed the hijinks with the squirrel, by the way, as well as the Jason Bay home run. At any rate, the Red Sox got Porcello’s pitch count up rapidly, just as they do with a lot of pitchers. Ryan Perry came in and could not throw strikes. Brandon Lyon (other than hitting Kevin Youkilis, which looked almost intentional) and Nate Robertson weren’t bad, though. But as I feared, the offense was rather sleepy against Dice-K. They also didn’t help themselves with some bad baserunning (I got home just in time to see Josh Anderson fly out to right as Granderson, who had been at first, was inexplicably standing on third). Then the Boston bullpen just set them down quickly and quietly until the bottom of the ninth, when the Tigers made a lot of noise by loading the bases with nobody out and had absolutely nothing come of it, as the next three all struck out (Josh Anderson after an 11-pitch at-bat, making it particularly painful and anticlimactic).

Unfortunately, last night’s game probably presented the Tigers with their best opportunity to win a game in this series. At any rate, Armando Galarraga takes his shot tonight. He definitely was a lot better in his last start, even though he took the loss. However, even in the best of times, the Red Sox are probably not the best team for him to face. For one, he gave up five runs to them in his only start against them last year. For another thing, his success lies in getting hitters to swing at stuff that’s out of the strike zone, and the Red Sox just don’t do much of that (By the way, that’s not necessarily the mark of a bad pitcher. Kenny Rogers had a lot of success employing that same strategy. But Kenny Rogers also struggled against teams like the Red Sox, Yankees, and occasionally the Indians). Assuming that he gets his mechanics back on track (which is probably not a good thing to assume), if he’s going to beat them, he’s going to have to outsmart them, which he has the ability to do. He just can’t let the Red Sox get into his head. He’s got enough to worry about without letting that happen. At any rate, at this point, this isn’t the “start of his life” just yet, as Jim Leyland has said he WILL be starting the first game in the doubleheader against Chicago (a challenge in and of itself, but let’s wait until that game comes around before discussing it further). The other problem is that the Tiger hitters will be facing Josh Beckett, who is definitely no picnic. His ERA is rather high, but that is seemingly the result of some bad starts early in the season. Recently, he’s been lights out, and the Tigers have only seen him twice in the last three years (once in ’06 and once in ’08). I was originally only supposed to work until 8:00, but my schedule got changed yesterday and now I won’t get home until 9:00, so it’ll be the late innings for me. Your Mood Music for tonight: I’ve warned that I’m on the verge of having to delve into “sappy song” territory regarding Galarraga, and I think I’m on the brink with this selection, courtesy of The Pretenders. By the way, I would’ve used the music video (which I don’t particularly care for), but it is not on YouTube, which apparently becomes a copyright nazi where “I’ll Stand By You” is concerned. Also, I’m not sure why there is a random shot of KT Tunstall at the beginning of the video.