6/30/06: End of the Streak?

[Fishercat]

Good news: The Sox are scorching, winning 12 straight and sweeping four series against NL East teams.

Bad News: Dontrelle Willis v. Jason Johnson. Uh-oh.

[Fishercat]

You know who sucks? Jason Johnson.

I knew nobody liked his pitching for a reason

[Kingdom]

Tampa would love him.

[Rufio181]

Why is this guy starting anyway?

[Nolan_Ryan]

The only reason why he is even on the Red Sox roster is because they have a lack of starters due to injuries. I hope David Wells gets back soon and saves us! He was doing good before his knee got hit by the ball.

I think Jason Johnson is worse than Matt Clement.

[Fishercat]

What N_R said.

Yeah, Jason Johnson could be taken off the roster anytime now. Kyle Snyder wasn't nearly that bad and hopefully Wells or Clement will be back soon. Neither are anything special (and Clement is crazy), but Johnson was just...bad tonight. Ick.

[Nolan_Ryan]

Yea I didn't mind watching Kyle Snyder, but with Johnson I couldn't watch any more than an inning. At least Kyle Snyder has the same first name as me, lol. My real name in Kyle.

Any sinkerball pitcher with some skill should be able to at least put at decent numbers with not-so-good defence, and Jason Johnson couldn't do that with the Indians. I don't know what they were thinking when they decided to pick up a scrub like Johnson...

[Fishercat]

With this defense, an effective sinkerballer (like Derek Lowe was for a while) would be on easy street. But man, how disappointing. 4 IP and 5 ER. He got better near the end, but even Jason Johnson should be able to put a 5 IP/3 ER performance out there.

However, a nice streak still survived.

Boston played error-free defense for the 17th consecutive game, setting a new major league record, one better than the St. Louis Cardinals' 16-game run in 1992. But the Marlins scored three times in the first and twice more in the second to spoil Jason Johnson's Red Sox debut, and that proved to be plenty.

Considering how pitiful the Sox defense has been for as long as I remember, this is crazy.

[Fishercat]

Also, the bullpen was very good tonight for three guys who have been shaky this season

[Nolan_Ryan]

Yea, any time the number of runs given up by a pitcher is higher than the numebr of innings he pitched, you know it was a bad outing. Didn't the Red Sox have an off day within the past 5 days or whatever? If so, shouldn't they have been able to skip Johnson? I'm not 100% sure about that though because I haven't paid any attention to the schedule lately.

I agree, the bullpen did good. I couldn't believe the Marlins only ended up with 5 runs.

I've only been a Red Sox fan since '03-'04 so they have had lame defence for as long as I've known them. I love the defence this year and I hope it stays just as good during the second half. I haven't read about it yet, but I think the reason why David Ortiz didn't start at first base today was because they didn't want him making any errors over at first base.

[Fishercat]

They have not had an offday lately. Currently, they are in the middle of about 17 consecutive games until the ASB. They had one before, but the Philly game got rained out, so the idle day got moved.

As for Ortiz, my guess is just an off day, nothing more. Plus, Ortiz doesn't hit lefties that well.

[Nolan_Ryan]

Oh ok. Wouldn't they just be about to count that rainout as an off day and skip Johnson in the rotation? I figured if that was the case then they would have done that but I guess not...

For Ortiz, the whole error-less streak thing has to at-least be part of the reason why he didn't start the game. Sure, he doesn't hit lefties well and could use an off day after hitting his 200th homer, but his glove... I'm sure none of those guys wanted to make an error.