Pitching Before Mommy

Not even my bountiful breasts can save us now

After last night's pitching shitfest (along with the previous 1.5 months of said shitfest), I have to wonder how things got this way. Wasn't it just June when Sox relievers had the best ERA in baseball? What the hell happened!?

Aside from Bobby Jenks and Matt Thornton (who is on pace to pitch 18283 innings this year), we don't seem to have anyone who can get us from "low stamina starter" to "monstrously fat guy with pink goatee." Here's a few candidates from this year, ranked by usefulness:

Scott Linebrink: Unbelievably good until he went down with an injury. Since returning, he just hasn't been the same pitcher (and Guillen has been careful not to use him too often). Here's hoping some offseason stamina training and the like can get him back on track for 09.

Octavio Dotel: The anti-clutch was working a Luis Viscaino role until it became apparent that EVERY BALL PUT IN PLAY would be leaving the park. I haven't seen Ozzie put in Dotel in a while (probably because he's so UN-clutch), but maybe Coop can get him to take a bit off his pitches to get better location. Maybe.

DJ Carrasco: Played over his head for a month or so, but seems to be coming back to earth. Has essentially filled Dotel's role as a 7th inning guy, but is ultimately not as good as he's been pitching. I expect a Cotts/Politte-esque dropoff (it's already begun).

Mark MacDougal: Seriously, are we already on MacDougal? Is it that bad? Mad Mike has actually pitched well since being called up, and may be returning to the form that made him useful in KC...all those years ago. Still, if you have to rely on MacDougal, there's a serious problem here.

Horacio Ramirez: His ERA was insanely low in KC in relation to his balls-in-play, and something had to give. His season ERA still looks good in the mid 3.00's, but when you take into account how much of that is from KC (and how much lower his ERA was there), you start to get an idea. He DID have a scoreless inning in garbage time last night though. Wowee.

Boone Logan: How can milking one good Spring Training performance get you a career? Just ask Boone. When the bullpen was hot at the beginning of the year, so was Boone. Since then, Logan has gotten into a nice groove of 1 HR per 1 inning pitched. Not joking. For every three outs, there's a long ball (sometimes two). If there's a candidate to go hang out with Dewon Day in the minors, I think it's Booner.

If our starters can go deeper into the games, it might be more manageable. Let Gavin Floyd pitch into the 7th, and let's have another try at those Twins, shall we?