Left In Their Wake: Peter

Well, it may be only temporary, whatever that may mean, but with Wake taking JB's place in the roster, Jenn, it's continuing to look good for the Fenmen. His work today was only a tiny bit shy of the Diceman's yesterday. Like Dice, Wake went eight and gave up no runs of any kind, earned, unearned, nada! In fact had it not been for Ramirez in the 9th, the Sox would have had a shutout. Back to Wake, his stuff is so unlike what the Phils heavy hitters are used to seeing, they had no idea how to deal with it. I mean, when you're used to timing fastballs in the low to mid-90's and suddenly you're facing one that tops out at 78 (not a misprint), you have no idea how to time your swing. To make matters worse for a hitter, if said pitcher also throws a good knuckler, you're really left kind of twisting in the wind, a wind that most definitely is NOT produced by the ball as it flutters past you.

I think, Jenn, a good comparison in a parallel existence is that a hitter may have trouble dealing with one good pitch, but when there are two that he has trouble with, and he doesn't know which is coming, he's is worse trouble. Kind of like Papelbon: will it be his four seamer or his cutter? Oh, Boy!

Rounding out the discussion, Jake got his first hit since returning from the DL and an RBI, and YOOOUUUKK got a trip and homer. Looking good--2 in a row and 5 of 6.