Our text for today:
Willium: Well sir, it's like this, you see... ten men jump out and wallop me on my head. I turn round to see who it was, and "wallop, wallop" on my head again. I stood up, you see, have a quick vada, no one there, and "wallop, wallop, wallop" all on my head. As I took out me notebook, all official like, "wallop, wallop, wallop" on my head, all wallop all over my head. And then I...
Ned: Yes, yes, yes. But did you notice anything about these men?
Willium: Yes...I noticed they kept walloping me on the head.
It struck me, all of a sudden - why is it that I persist in believing that Josh Towers is still a useful major league starter? Here's one reason.
I missed all of his 2006 starts.
Very strange. It was just one of those things, of course. For some reason, six of his first nine starts last season were on the road. And I just wasn't in the house for the other ones. I didn't even see him working after his return from Syracuse.
Which means that, until yesterday, the last time I had actually seen him pitch was when he was putting the finishing touches on his very fine 2005 campaign.(When for some reason, I saw him work at least ten times.) No wonder I still persist, and no wonder those of you who saw him up close last season (surely a traumatizing experience) think I'm in the grip of some massive delusion. It all makes sense to me now.
But I was in the house yesterday, and so was the Towers I remembered from 2005. Although I wasn't sure about that at first. His first fastball was 85 mph, which was disturbing; even more ominous, he wasn't hitting his spots. He wasn't even hitting the strike zone - just 13 of his first 28 pitches were strikes. These problems seemed to have most of Towers' attention, too, as he made a serious defensive lapse in each of the first two innings. With Granderson and Sheffield on base in the first, he made a pickoff throw to second base, and his Evil Luck kicked in. The throw hit Granderson - that was the error. It bounced off him into shallow left field, which was the evil luck. With the shortstop Clayton coming over to take the throw, it meant there was no one within 80 feet of where the baseball went rolling, and the runners merrily took not one but two bases.
In the next inning, Rodriguez led off with a single. He was caught stealing, but Towers walked Sean Casey to bring Craig Monroe to the plate. He hit a crisp comebacker to the mound. Towers fielded it, made a leisurely, deliberate toss over to the first, and turned to jog towards the dugout. Oops. It's not often a pitcher loses track of how many outs there are.
So naturally he didn't give up another hit until the seventh inning. Towers is most effective when he's got some kind of chip on his shoulder, and I think by this point he was pretty fed up with himself and his own bone-headed plays in the field. At any rate, for the rest of the day, he was throwing his fastball 88-89 and his slider 83-84 and working ahead of everybody. Like the guy I remember.
Nice to have you back. Do stick around.
He got some fine defense - Vernon Wells made three nice plays in centre field: cutting off Ordonez' first inning fly ball in the right-centre gap, an excellent play to come charging in to pick off Guillen's little looper at his shoetops in the fourth, and going back to haul in Ordonez' seventh inning drive to the warning track leading off the seventh. Rios made a fine running catch along the track in right-centre on Granderson's drive leading off the sixth. Towers was using the whole ball park, as they say. And two batters later, after the Tigers finally got someone on base again, when Towers drilled Polanco, Johnny Mac started a nifty 543 twin killing to end the inning, and all three infielders distinguished themselves. Polanco had a terrific jump off first, but McDonald unloaded the ball in a hurry, Hill made a tremendous pivot with Polanco sliding in on him, and Overbay picked the relay out of the dirt.
And then there was the go ahead run. Royce Clayton lined a double to left to lead off the seventh. Lind flied out to shallow centre, but John McDonald lined a base hit to right in front of Sheffield. Clayton came rolling around third to see Brian Butterfield, who's been burned a couple of times already this season, holding up his arms. Clayton didn't exactly charge through the stop sign - he hesitated, making a kind of stutter step, and then resumed his dash. I thought maybe he had deked the cutoff man, that Casey had taken a peek, saw the coach holding up his hands and the runner breaking stride, and cut off the throw. But Clayton said he saw all the way that the ball was going to fall in, and Casey said the throw was off-line and they had no play at home. Why he then froze up and allowed McDonald to make it to second is another story.
With Jason Frasor having thrown some 30 pitches on Saturday, Shaun Marcum was called on to work the ninth. I was happy about that, because I badly wanted to see both Towers and Marcum in the same game. I just thought it would be cool, because they're practically the same guy. They live off the fastball-slider combination - Marcum may throw a tiny bit harder - and by throwing strikes. They both have other pitches, that they mostly haul out for show. Marcum started Polanco off with a curveball, but stuck to fastballs and sliders the rest of the way. Towers occasionally throws a changeup early in the count to left-handed hitters, and once or twice he essayed a curve ball himself. But mainly it's fastballs, sliders, and work ahead of the hitter.
Elsewhere: no less than five games were rained out yesterday (in Boston, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh).... not a great weekend for the Yankees, who put Mike Mussina and Carl Pavano on the DL yesterday, where Chien-Ming Wang already resides. Who knows who'll be starting for them on Tuesday. And then their Jackie Robinson Day ended when the greatest closer ever, and the last player who makes Jackie Robinson's number his own, couldn't nail down a two run lead with two out and the bases empty. Marco Scutaro? Yup.... the Braves broke off their little two-game losing skid, and Tim Hudson is looking a lot like the pitcher we remember from his days in Oakland. They really haven't seen much of that guy in Atlanta, and it's not good news for the rest of the NL East.... Ted Lilly struck out 10 and held the Reds to just two singles, but the second one came with Brandon Phillips on second after a leadoff walk and a stolen base. That was the game's only run, and Ted the Tease was the Tough Luck Loser... Albert Pujols, hitting a lusty .158 out of the gate, shows signs of waking from his slumber, as he clubbed a pair of homers yesterday.
Coming up: the Jays finish off the homestand with three games against the Red Sox, and then they're off to Baltimore. Boston has a morning game at Fenway today against the Angels; after Toronto, they go back home and await with interest the arrival of the Yankees. The Bombers have three games at home against Cleveland before they head up to Boston, auditioning starting pitchers every step of the way.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20070414153735694