Sidney Ponson, RH Tim Wakefield, RH
(5-3, 5.66) (4-4, 4.48)
CF D Newhan CF J Damon
3B M Mora SS E Renteria
SS M Tejada DH D Ortiz
RF S Sosa LF M Ramirez
1B R Palmeiro RF T Nixon
LF B Surhoff C J Varitek
DH J Gibbons 1B K Millar
2B C Gomez 3B B Mueller
C G Gil 2B M Bellhorn
Game time is 7:05 on CSN and NESN.
It's the first day of June. The Orioles went 15-13 in May after a 16-7 April. With the injuries, it could certainly be worse. In fact, it's downright damned commendable. Congratulations to us. Let's have a party.
Interesting things about Tim Wakefield's run with the Red Sox:
With his four wins this season, he has jumped to 118 career wins with Boston. This puts him a win ahead of Pedro Martinez for fifth all-time on the Red Sox leaderboard. He has also jumped to third all-time (behind Clemens and Pedro, of course) in strikeouts, ahead of Cy Young. That's two Hall of Famers that Wakefield has jumped ahead of this season.
Wakefield currently ranks third behind Clemens and Young in games started for Boston. He's at 260, 37 behind Young. He will more than likely pass Young, but at 39 years old he's unlikely to overtake Clemens at 382.
He's also first all-time with 249 home runs allowed, 55 ahead of Clemens. There is a chance that Tim Wakefield will end up allowing the most home runs in Red Sox history for a long, long time.
His 103 losses put him just behind Young and Clemens.
The point of all this? Nothing, really! What else do I say about Tim Wakefield? He throws a knuckleball, and I'm sick of talking about how Ponson sucks, so there's a bunch of random stuff that basically all boils down to one thing: Roger Clemens, Cy Young and Tim Wakefield have logged the most innings in franchise history, which is somewhat odd, and it's also kind of easy to forget that Tim Wakefield has been with Boston for 11 seasons now, and many of the seasons weren't even good, making it amazing that he's stuck with the same franchise for so long. His value as a swingman to the Red Sox since 1995 is debatable, but Wakefield has certainly been valuable, sometimes as a reliever, sometimes as a starter.
His career path that went from starter (1992-98) to reliever/spot starter (1999-2002) and back to pretty much a full-time starter (2003-current) is also pretty interesting. Tim Wakefield may well be the last worthwhile knuckler we see for a while. I guess we should enjoy him while he lasts, because he's not getting any younger, and the knuckler isn't getting any more fashionable.