I hate Brian Gorman!!!
By Travis
The has never been a worse match-making moment than the nibbling Daisuke Matsuzaka and the picky Brian Gorman. The pitcher makes you want to pull your hair out with his high pitch counts and refusal to pump the strike zone. It only makes matters worse when Gorman has one of the smallest strike zones of any Major League umpire.
And it makes for an impossible situation when Gorman’s strike zone is as inconsistent as Britney Spears’ panty-wearing. Pitches two inches off the plate were called balls Monday night in Game 3 of the ALCS. Pitches six inches off the plate were called strikes!?!?!?!?!
It was equally as horrid for Cleveland pitcher Jake Westbrook, but for a pitcher who is almost always wild a couple inches off the plate there was never any hope for Dice-K.
- For the record, I’d go with Beckett in Game 4 because it is a must-win and, more importantly, because I’d rather see Beckett again in a Game 7 instead of Dice-K (I’m not sure I can bare another Dice-K postseason start at this point). But if the Boston Red Sox lose the ALCS it’s not going to be because manager Terry Francona elected to stick with knuckleballer Tim Wakefield in Game 4. The Sox need Wakefield to win whetehr it is Game 4 or 5, and they need BEckett and Schilling to win their next two starts. If they lose it will be because they couldn’t capitalize off Jake Westbrook and Joe Borowski, and because Dice-K can’t get the team into the fifth inning.
- Borowski has had just 19 1-2-3 innings all season among his 69 appearances, yet the Red Sox couldn’t muster a baserunner off the game’s worst closer. As a comparison, Jonathan Papelbon has had 19 1-2-3 innings since the end of May and had 23 in just 58 appearances. The Indians and Sox are very closely matched, but if there’s a major advantage for either team it is the bullpen, and more specifically the closer position. If the Red Sox win this series it will be because they get to Borowski, Rafael Betancourt, Jensen Lewis and Rafael Perez — because those are the only relievers Eric Wedge is going to use in close situations — but because of Eric Gagne the superior Sox bullpen has been outpitched.