Dan Shaughnessy Sucks –
Dan Shaughnessy has established
the fact that he already believes we are in a battle for second place in the AL
East. So, as always, I must reiterate – Dan Shaughnessy is a douche.
Today, he addresses the pitching
staff. Mainly the kid with the crooked hat. Fix your hat, ya darn hoodlum!
(Shaughnessy’s ramblings in bold,
my bumbling in plain.)
Masterson On Solid Footing
Little-known fact, Justin is an
accomplished tight-rope walker.
LOL!
Barring injury, the Red Sox are
pretty sure that Josh Beckett, John Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Tim
Wakefield are the front four in the 2009 pitching rotation.
Penny & Buchholz’ll push Wake
into the bullpen by May.
That leaves one spot up for
grabs, and there's a raft of talent competing for the job.
Damn, that woulda been a great
spot for a Cuban joke, if we had a Cuban on the roster. (
John Smoltz, a future Hall of
Famer, is part of the mix, but probably not until May or June.
Lazy old people..
There's also veteran Brad
Penny, who started the 2006 All-Star Game for the National League.
You mean our # 4 starter who you
completely discounted in the previous paragraph?
Let's not forget Clay Buchholz,
who already has thrown a no-hitter in the bigs,
Our # 5 starter.
and righty prospect Michael
Bowden, who came up from the minors to beat the White Sox in his major league
debut last August.
That guy’s gonna be the shiznite,
if we bring him up in September.
Alright, enough with the analysis!
Finally there's Justin
Masterson, the big (6 feet 6 inches), bald, 23-year-old who went 4-3 in nine
starts with the Sox last summer before morphing into a middle-relief
specialist.
Transclosers: Relievers in
disguise..
Making his first spring start
Monday, Masterson blanked the woebegone Orioles for two innings
Two-inning
shutooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooout!
in a 5-3 loss at ancient
But Bob Ryan thinks it’s just
fine! The people of Lee County are besieged, goddammit! BESIEGED!
He gave up a scratch single,
throwing 27 pitches, 17 strikes.
Masterson's spot on the team is
secure. He has the stuff, the poise, and an NBA shot-blocking wingspan.
So if Jose Reyes ever drives the
lane, he’s fucked.
When he drops down against
righthanded batters, he's lethal. A second-round pick in the 2006 draft,
Masterson is one of the organization's rising stars.
How much do the Sox like him?
A lot!
He pitched in nine of 11
postseason games in October, and got credit for the win in the epic ALCS Game 5
comeback against the Rays. That made him the youngest Sox pitcher to win a
postseason game since 21-year-old Babe Ruth beat the
Asked about Masterson's crucial
role at such a tender age,
A supple age..
manager Terry Francona said,
"There was just no reason not to give him the ball with the game on the
line. He was gonna throw the ball over the plate.
That’s where I would throw
it.
He could get you the ground
ball, he could get a strikeout. He really seemed to rise to occasions."
Masterson pitched in 36
regular-season games, going 6-5 with a 3.16 ERA. He fanned 68 and walked 40 in
88 1/3 innings.
"If you draw something up
in spring training, that pretty much followed the plan the way we had
hoped," said Francona. "If there was a hope of how he could progress
last year, he did it perfectly. He got enough innings, he got a taste in the
big leagues as a starter, got acclimated in the bullpen, and then helped us win
games. For his development and our winning, it worked out just about
perfect."
Except for the whole
losing-to-Tampa-Bay thing..
Pitching coach John Farrell has
three goals for Masterson this spring: 1. Stretch him out so that he'll be able
to return to the starting rotation if the need arises; 2. Get him back to using
his full windup, something Masterson abandoned when he went to the bullpen;
Fuck a full windup!
3. Get him to use his changeup
more. Masterson was primarily a fastball/breaking ball pitcher in 2008.
Young men with the ability to
pitch in the majors almost always come to professional baseball as starters.
Unless they come to professional
baseball as closers. Or middle relievers. Or spot-starters..
You don't see a lot of high
school aces used as middle-relief specialists. Switching to bullpen duty is a
mind-bender for a lot of young professionals.
I CANNOT HANDLE PARTICIPATING IN A
GAME ALREADY-IN-PROGRESS! I WATCH DVD’S FROM DISC ONE! I CANNOT MISS THE
PREVIEWS!!
Not Masterson.
"He's very unique in the
sense that he doesn't panic over his role," said Farrell. "He views
himself as a pitcher with the ability and the versatility to pitch in a variety
of spots.
The mound being one of those
spots.
I think if you look at the
character of the person, beyond the performer, you look for people that are
good decision-makers with priorities clearly in check.
Justin Masterson’s Priorities
1.
Pitching.
"Baseball is a top
priority for him, as is his family.
Oh, and his health & stuff..
And when you have that
combination of attributes, it makes for a very desirable pitcher, one we're
fortunate to have here."
Masterson was born in
But it does not prohibit him from
jommin’, mon.
where his dad was dean of
students at a theological seminary.
And the head coach of a wacky
Olympic bobsled team.
The family moved to the states
when Masterson was a pre-schooler and he went to high school in
Ha.
His manners are as good as his
fastball.
Which actually isn’t that good..
"He's obviously a real
solid young man," said Francona, who has a son the same age. "If you
talk to him for a minute, you know that.
For two minutes, you forget it.
Three minutes, you know it again.
Before we got to the big
leagues we always heard the stories about how he helped the kids from Latin
America when they were sort of lost here. That's just a bonus. He's just a
nice, nice kid."
Masterson is not fluent in
Spanish, but he's working on it.
He’s got Jamaican down pat,
though.
"I love the language and I
love talking to those guys," he said. "When they go to speak English,
they know it, but they don't speak because they get embarrassed. I'm a goofball
- a big bald white guy trying to speak broken Spanish and they can't help but
laugh. I try and be as much help as I can."
He’s like a white Sambo.
Bojanglin’ for the Hispanics.
Does he look at this as a
competition for the fifth spot, or is he just waiting for the Sox to tell him
his role?
"Kind of neither," he
said, smiling.
Sorta both.
"It's more just kind of
getting ready to pitch. I want to go out and do the best I can in whatever
innings I'm in. Whenever the word comes about exactly what is going to take
place, I'll be ready to pitch.
"It's kind of nice to be
in that discussion because they think I can do either one, and I feel the same
way. It's not unsettling.
It’s onsettling.
No matter what, I have to be
ready for whatever comes my way."
Look out, Justin! Bear attack!!
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe
columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. 
~~~
Oh, but I
kid the tall, bald Jamaican. I think Masterson’ll be doing a lot of
spot-starting/middle relieving this year.
And
Shaughnessy? Lotsa slurpin’.