Inside Fenway on Thursday
Oct 12th, 2007 by Bill Burt
It was the calm before the storm here on Thursday, especially on the Red Sox end, as they ran through a typical pregame batting and fielding drills.
The only “baseball” story was Dice-K’s simulated game. I stayed for three innings and, to be honest, he was less than stellar.
Eric Hinske had two hard hits off him. David Ortiz, who was holding court with media from three different countries, saw what was going on and he ran into the clubhouse to get his bat and batting gloves. His first at bat against Dice-K was a hard hit line drive to center, which probably would have been an out. On his second at bat, he ripped a single to right center.
Anyway, Dice-K was the story and manager Terry Francona, general manager Theo Epstein and pitching coach John Farrell all were watching intently.
As has been the case lately, Dice-K threw a lot of pitches, averaging about 20 per inning over the three that I saw.
While his fastball had pop, he was a tad wild.
Here are some other notes and nuggets from the day:
John Farrell on Indians catcher Victor Martinez: “He’s got that rare combination of bat control and power. He really is a great hitter.”
Terry Francona’s dad, Tito, is expected to make the trip to Cleveland from his home in New Brighton, Pa. Tito played 15 years in the majors with nine different teams, but his best years were with the Indians. Of his 125 career homers, 85 were with the Indians over six seasons.
Several people asked Francona about his 73-year-old dad, apparently a favorite among players in the 1960s. “He’s doing really good. He looks great. He should be there in Cleveland.”
Sox reliever Mike Timlin, whose 11-year-old son has been with the team over the last week, was videotaping different episodes from yesterday’s workout.
2 reader comments to “Inside Fenway on Thursday”
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1Oil Can Boyd said:
any update on the status of those reader questions you were going to get? you remember, from the post over a week ago titled “questions for sox players? i will get answers”?
along with the rest of red sox nation, i’ve been eagerly awaiting the answers, as promised. in case you need to reference the questiosn again and get back to us, here’s a link to your original solicitation:
http://blogs.eagletribune.com/sports/2007/10/04/questions-for-sox-players-i-will-get-answers/
thanks! down with the tribe!
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2GaryFromChapelHill said:
In your experience, does it appear that Dice-K’s struggles could turn around at any moment? I guess I’m saying that things could “lock in” for him at any time and then he could be fine? Or does he appear to be such a mess (mechanically or confidence-wise) that it will be difficult to turn it around in the short term?
