FORT MYERS – The trio of young, gifted and intriguing outfielders – Josh Reddick, Ryan Kalish and Che-Hsuan Lin – continued to make a strong impression on the Red Sox in yesterday’s game.
In the 7-6 victory against the Cardinals, Reddick tied the game in the ninth with an RBI double, then came in on Lin’s RBI single that fell in front of a charging St. Louis center fielder Shane Robinson.
Kalish continued to play a hard-nosed all-around game.
“Some of these guys are not here to make the club, they know that,” said manager Terry Francona. “They’re going to get ready for a long season, wherever they end up playing, but this is their first impression in front of the staff, Theo (Epstein, the GM) and those guys. Whenever they get in to a situation where they can do something good, it gives us something to smile about.”
Reddick, who came up to the big league club as a 22-year-old for 27 games last year, is trying hard to refine his approach at the plate and get into deeper counts.
“I felt like they already know I can hit, it’s just a matter of if I can work the counts where I can,” said Reddick. “The double today showed a lot because I’ve been known to get a little too anxious in those big situations and swing at bad pitches. Today I took a little off it. (Sunday) I had that problem in a big situation where we were down by (a run), and I chased two pitches and watched the third one go to the outside corner. Today I took deep breaths, got it in there and got the barrel on it.”
Good through 6
With Josh Beckett starting out with three perfect innings, followed by one hitless inning apiece from Jonathan Papelbon, Hideki Okajima and Ramon Ramirez, the Red Sox entered the seventh inning with a 2-0 lead and no-hit bid in hand.
That changed quickly. Manny Delcarmen allowed the first hit and run in the seventh. The Cardinals scored two more runs in the eighth, then three in the ninth and a total of eight hits in the final third of the game.
“The game slowed down a touch,” Francona said. . . .
Third base umpire Toby Bosner could not get out of the way of a ground ball in the Cardinals’ eighth. The play was automatically ruled a hit.
“He felt bad, but I think he paid for it – he’s got a (bruise the) size of a baseball on his shin,” said Francona.
No rush on ‘Tek
Jason Varitek, dealing with a personal family matter, might be returning to camp any day now.
“There’s a chance,” said Francona of a return last night. “I told him I don’t want him back until he’s completely comfortable.” . . .
Third baseman Mike Lowell and the club are shooting for him to return to game action perhaps as early as this weekend, which could mean Saturday at home against the Pirates or Sunday across town against the Twins.
“I want to see him be OK,” said Francona. “I don’t want to run him out there before he’s ready. Everybody’s anxious, I understand that, we just want to keep our eyes on him this week and see how he’s doing.”
Lowell was out of camp to see a hip specialist Saturday and had thumb surgery during the winter. He took live batting practice again yesterday.
Painful day
Left-hander Dustin Richardson got the blown save when he allowed two runs on three hits to start the eighth, then to compound matters, he suffered what is being termed a “fatigued quad.” There is no strain as his quadriceps muscle tested out fine. The team is not labeling it an injury. . . .
Daisuke Matsuzaka will hold off a day on his next bullpen session and throw tomorrow. Pitching coach John Farrell wants to be there when Matsuzaka throws, but Farrell will be in Jupiter, Fla., this morning for the club’s game against the Marlins. . . .
Tim Wakefield will start against the Marlins and the only other regular making the trip is Jacoby Ellsbury. . . .
Outfielder Zack Daeges (sore lat) was sent back to minor league camp. . . .
The Red Sox came to 2010 contract terms for the 13 players remaining on their 40-man roster: Ellsbury, Jed Lowrie, Daniel Bard, Michael Bowden, Clay Buchholz, Felix Doubront, Ramon A. Ramirez, Richardson, Dusty Brown, Mark Wagner, Aaron Bates, Tug Hulett and Reddick.
SARASOTA, Fla. – Clay Buchholz got his work in yesterday, and let’s leave it at that. Anything else that happened really would not be worth talking about.
In his first outing of the spring, Buchholz did not exactly advance his case for winning the fifth starter’s spot. Yet he didn’t hurt himself either despite giving up three runs and five hits in two innings of the Red Sox’ 5-4 loss to Baltimore.
Such is the nature of early outings that not even Buchholz was all that concerned about the way he pitched.
By the end of those two innings, Buchholz had thrown 37 pitches, 24 for strikes, with too many balls hit just hard enough to elude that airtight defense you keep reading about.
A Nick Markakis home run came on a pitch that got out over the plate as they sometimes do, and when that happens it’s predictable what will follow. What is not, and won’t be for some time, is where young Buchholz will fall in the rotation.
“Basically we have six guys,” manager Terry Francona said. “All six are healthy. All six are productive. The idea is we want Buchholz to be in our rotation for years. That’s what we expect to happen.
“That’s why you don’t trade pitching. Here’s a kid his age (25) starting to get it. Strength, poise, confidence. It’s not necessary on the first day of spring training to tell him where he’ll pitch. We want him to take it and go with it.”
Yesterday he didn’t, but so what? After some early struggles the past two years, Buchholz came on after the All-Star break last season. In August and September, he rang up nine quality starts in his final 10 outings (the Sox went 8-2) with a 2.37 ERA.
That left Buchholz as the team’s third starter in the AL Division Series. Yet despite pitching well in his one shot at the Los Angeles Angels, the addition of John Lackey during the offseason left him somewhere between fourth and sixth starter with Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield.
In the short run that may be of some importance, but in the long run where Buchholz stands in April really won’t be any more important than what he did yesterday. As he sat at his locker following yesterday’s brief stint he seemed utterly composed about it all and not terribly concerned about anything but those two pesky walks he allowed after the home run.
“The things I’ve been working on on the side are slowly coming together,” Buchholz said assuredly. “I just got to put it all together. I got a couple of more outings before we have to think it’s anything bad. I felt good with most of my location.”
Obviously, not so with the pitch he got up to Markakis, who golfed it out of the park as if he was playing T-ball. Buchholz, however, acknowledged that’s what happens when you miss on a ball you intend to throw down. Next time, he figures, things will be different because that is what these outings are all about – getting to where you want to go.
“I was more frustrated with the two walks after (the home run),” Buchholz said. “Those two walks, I didn’t care too much for that. I’ve always set the bar high. I want to do good every time out. I want to go out and try to do the things I’ve been working on.”
What he’s won’t do is concern himself all that much with which of the Sox’ six starters will be the odd man out. He willingly conceded that “this would be awkward for anybody” but then dismissed the issue, figuring that if he does what he’s capable of the rest will take care of itself.
“. . . I can’t do anything about it, so I might as well not think about it,” Buchholz said. “I’ll just be as relaxed as I can be considering the situation. I’d rather win a spot than have it given to me.”
Yesterday’s slow start aside, if Buchholz pitches this spring the way he did last summer the end result will be what both he and Francona most want – his name in the Sox rotation for years.
FORT MYERS – In his first appearance facing live fire, John Lackey reminded the denizens of Red Sox Nation why he was handed $82.5 million to flee the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for the Boston Red Sox of New England.
He gets people out in a hurry.
In the grand scheme of things it means nothing what a guy does in his first spring training start, but for Lackey everything this spring has heightened meaning because for the last two years he didn’t get out of Arizona without a visit to the disabled list.
Now in balmy Florida, he’s working as carefully as a cat on a hot tin roof as he prepares for what he hopes will be his first injury-free spring training stint since 2007.
If yesterday’s two-inning, no-hit start in a 9-3 victory is any indication, well, so far so good.
“I felt pretty good,” Lackey said after mowing down six straight Minnesota Twins with three ground outs, a strike out and two easy fly balls. “It’s a good place to start from. It’s always different when you have to sit down, get back up for that second inning. It was a little bit harder to get loose that second inning as opposed to the first, but overall, I felt pretty good. We’ll keep moving forward.”
It’s the latter point that matters most. Lackey’s recent early spring injury history is a concern, even though he came back strong last June, posting a 3.23 ERA after the month of May and averaging just under seven innings per start after spring struggles with an elbow strain.
“I don’t feel 100 percent of anything yet,” Lackey said. “It’s still early. It (his injury history) is something I’ve taken into account. I’m a little more careful in my throwing program. I did get hurt the last two spring trainings so I’m taking it a day at a time.”
As days go, yesterday was a good one. Although he threw only fastballs and curves, the 20 pitches he served up were mostly strikes (12) and all led to easy outs, the kind the Sox paid him a small fortune (wait a minute, a large fortune) to deliver.
Yet, there remain reasons to be wary, as Lackey admitted, but not certainly when he’s feeling the way he did against Minnesota.
“I’ve seen him over the last years,” said DeMarlo Hale, the Sox bench coach who served as manager for a day while Terry Francona traveled to Port Charlotte for a split-squad game against the Tampa Bay Rays. “I know what he’s going to bring. That’s exciting. He’s very competitive.
I can remember being there on third base where you saw him in the moment. The moment wasn’t too big for him. No doubt, he’s had some success and made some big pitches in those big moments. That’s what I remember. I’m glad Lackey is on our side this year, for sure.”
Yesterday, Hale had reason to be because Lackey was hardy and hardly touched. If this persists, Francona may face a difficult but welcomed problem to name an Opening Day starter. Whatever Francona decides will be no problem for Lackey, regardless of who gets the ball on April 4 at Fenway Park.
“If the roles were reversed and I would have stayed in Anaheim and those guys (Josh Beckett and Jon Lester) had come over there, I would expect to still be going first,” Lackey said. “I think those guys have earned the right to go in front of me. They’ve won a lot of games for Tito. I’m all right with that.
“Expectations for everybody here are high. The organization expects to win. The players expect to win. I’m looking forward to helping with that. It’s been fun competing against them. It will be more fun competing with them. Whatever they want me to do, I’m ready to roll.”
In the end that matters a lot more than one fast afternoon in the sun against the Minnesota Twins.
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CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP)
If first impressions are important to baseball fans in Philadelphia, new Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay aced his entry exam.
Halladay’s spring debut with the Phillies did nothing to kill the buzz that engulfed Philadelphia when the team dealt for the former Cy Young Award winner three months ago.
Fantasy Baseball 2010
Halladay got the Grapefruit League schedule under way with two near-perfect innings in the Phillies’ 3-2 win over the New York Yankees on Thursday.
The 32-year-old Halladay threw a pair of hitless innings while striking out three. Halladay was at the crux of a blockbuster four-team set of trades in December between the Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics.
“I was excited for it,” said Halladay, who spent his first 12 seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays. “You anticipate it, but once you get into the game, the game is always the same. Your approach is the same. I looked forward to it, especially early on. It’s as much fun for me as it is for everyone else.”
Halladay allowed just one base runner in his first outing with the Phillies. New York’s Jamie Hoffmann, playing first base after Nick Johnson was scratched before the game with a back ailment, reached on an error by Philadelphia third baseman Placido Polanco with one out in the first.
Halladay struck out the next batter, Jorge Posada, before getting Robinson Cano out on a fly ball to end the inning. Halladay struck out Nick Swisher and Randy Winn to begin a 1-2-3 inning.
“He’s filthy,” said New York ace CC Sabathia.
Sabathia wasn’t too bad himself in his first game since the World Series. He allowed two walks and two hits but kept zeros on the scoreboard through two innings.
But even the jovial, giant Sabathia couldn’t overshadow Halladay’s debut.
“He’s a strike-throwing machine who knows how to locate, with movement,” said New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi, who saw plenty of Halladay last season in the American League East.
“He’s a master of the strike zone,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “He’s got good stuff, an assortment of pitches and he can throw them all for strikes. And he’s got confidence in all of his pitches.”
Kyle Kendrick took over for Halladay in the third inning. After his two-inning outing was over, Halladay threw an additional 10-12 pitches in the bullpen beyond the left field fence.
When he was through throwing, he went through a rigorous, 90-minute workout.
“They all say practice makes perfect. Well, he practices the right way, he prepares the right way,” Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee said. “You can say it’s only the first game, but that’s how he prepares to pitch every game.”
Halladay, the subject of rampant trade rumors last July, has appeared to make a relatively seamless transition from Toronto to Philadelphia. It might help that the two teams’ spring training facilities are located five miles apart.
But Halladay also believes the makeup of the Phillies clubhouse — a majority of veterans who have played in the postseason in the last three seasons — has made the adjustment easier than he expected.
“It surprises me how easy it has been every day to come in and feel normal,” Halladay said. “There are going to be different things, like facing teams you’re not used to. But it surprises me how comfortable it’s been. It’s a little bit of everything: the guys here, the staff – everyone has been really good.”
Halladay is slated to start again Tuesday night when the Phillies travel to Lake Buena Vista to take on the Atlanta Braves.
After Halladay exited Thursday, three more right-handers, Kendrick, Jose Contreras and Andrew Carpenter, also threw two shutout innings. The Yankees ruined the shutout bid with two runs in the top of the ninth for a 2-1 lead, but Wilson Valdez and Paul Hoover each collected RBI hits off Wilkins Arias in the bottom half to give the Phils a walk-off win.
NOTES: Philadelphia left-hander Sergio Escalona, who allowed two runs on four hits in the ninth, was awarded with the win. … Cole Hamels is scheduled to make his Grapefruit League debut Friday afternoon in Dunedin when the Phils take on the Toronto Blue Jays. Jamie Moyer, who underwent three different offseason surgeries, is on tap to start in the “B” game in Clearwater Friday morning. …
Polanco, who won a Gold Glove at second base last year while with Detroit, misjudged a pop foul ball later in the game after his error in the first inning.
