MVN - Most Valuable Network

in which the knuckleball baffles and dismays the Tigers

Wow. So, um. I know that the knuckleball is a tricksy pitch, and I know that most guys on most teams don’t see it all that often and don’t have a good consistent method of approach to it when it’s really knuckling, but, uh… the Tigers never learned how to hit it at all? Never saw it before? That’s what I’m almost inclined to believe after tonight’s game.

The thing is, I KNOW they’ve faced Wakefield before. I know it for a FACT. So what on EARTH happened in this game?

Wake’s knuckleball was on. This is true, I was there and I saw it do its crazy knuckling thing. He had fairly good control with it and it had fairly good unpredictable knuckling break almost every time he threw it. He was even successfully mixing in his 70-some-odd mph fastball more often than he usually does. Basically, that was Tim Wakefield at his finest. It would be foolish to discount or downplay that (and I can’t pretend that the Red Sox fan side of my brain didn’t enjoy seeing it).

HOWEVER.

The Tigers had 4 baserunners THE ENTIRE GAME. One of those was an error on Pedroia, two were singles, and one was a double that came in Wake’s last inning of work. Nobody ever advanced beyond their initial base. Nobody walked. Ever.

That’s not just a dominant knuckleballer. That’s a dominant knuckleballer meeting an entire lineup of bats with some kind of serious chronic wasting disorder.

I can’t blame this one on the Tiger pitching. Can’t do it. I know Nate gave up 4 runs in, what was it, 6.1 innings? But he overcame his struggles to keep the Tigers in it… to keep the game in a place where the Tigers SHOULD HAVE BEEN in it, anyways. So he gave up a homerun to David Ortiz right before he got pulled; whatever, Papi’s liable to do that to any pitcher, anywhere, anywhen.

And poor Dolsi, whose first big league pitch gets parked into the straightaway centerfield greenery by Manny Ramirez. What did they seriously think was going to happen? The kid is barely older than ME, he last pitched, I believe, in ERIE, and he takes the mound with a struggling Tigers team behind him and only one out to face a guy who is both his countryman and, y’know, MANNY FREAKIN’ RAMIREZ.

Back-to-back homeruns are never fun for those on the pitching end of things, but those were really almost predictable back-to-back homeruns. I guess maybe the coaching staff hoped that because the Sox wouldn’t have seen Dolsi at all they’d be able to sneak him in there without any damage being done? It’s a nice thought. Not so hot with the actual execution, though.

The team still obviously doesn’t have the right hamsters.

I showed up early for this one to catch BP (since I never really get to see the Red Sox take BP, because I usually see them at Fenway) and took something around a squillion photos. They’re mostly Sox, but there are some cute ones of Miguel Cabrera all buddy-buddy with various Sox, and Polanco getting hugs, and Sean Casey being a lovely human being to fans and FSN personnel alike. I’ll get them online…. um, eventually. Hopefully I’ll get a bunch up here even if I don’t upload the whole game set to Flickr yet. I’m still backed up on U of M baseball photos, which might drive my photo-OCD into a worrying state.

I guess it would’ve been nice to see a Tigers win on my last night in MI, but at least it was a beautiful evening for a ballgame and I got to see some beautifully played baseball. It just wasn’t the Tigers who provided the latter.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Freddy Dolsi, Tigers/Red Sox brain 'splodey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.