March 09, 2009
Catching the Floater
Art Martone donated $50 or more to the Baseball Musings Pledge Drive and dedicates this post to the Projo Sox Blog.
George Kottaras gets a chance to catch Tim Wakefield this week:
After all, Kottaras, 25, might have a shot to become the knuckleballer's personal batterymate.
The early odds-on favorite for that position is Josh Bard, but anything can happen during spring training. Bard has caught Wakefield in all three of his outings during camp, but Kottaras will get his opportunity to work with the veteran in a game on Thursday.
During their conversation on Sunday, Wakefield told Kottaras to take charge out there and have fun with it. Red Sox manager Terry Francona has said he wants to see how Kottaras can handle the job.
"We need to do that," Francona said.
Bard did a poor job with Wakefield in his last stint with Boston, so the Red Sox need a backup plan.
Posted by David Pinto at
06:47 PM
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I think I blacked out out in '04 when the Yankees had the winning runner on third base in extra innings with Varitek trying to catch Wakefield's floater. To this day, watching replays of that inning brings back a sense of dread that is almost overwhelming even though I know that it turns out all right in the end.
Surely someone has looked statistically at this personal catcher habit that most knuckleballers and some regular pitchers have. I suspect that it is a good call for the knucklers if the regular option is a hopeless case behind the plate, but when a normal pitcher uses one, it is hard to see how it helps them, as it is usually the B offense. I guess this is probably moot as catcher should probably get regular days off, but still. You get paid millions a year. Learn to catch the knuckler. Suck it up Tek. I would rather see two knucklers in the red sox rotation than one Varitek behind the plate. I hope Zink gets another chance...
