Q & A With Derek Lowe
Q."I'm pitching like [expletive], I'll be the first one to admit it. I've had one of the worst first halves in baseball. I'll be the first one to tell you that. Why can't it just be that I pitched like [expletive]? Why is it always the approach of the mental side?"
A. Well, Derek, the view from out here in Red Sox Nation is that it's because whenever you "pitch like [bleep]" it usually seems to be because of the [bleep] between your ears.
Of course we know you're pitching terribly. But it can't "just be that" because we want to figure out why. Because we think--however delusionally--that if the why is figured out, the how might fall into place.
To ask us to be satisfied with "it is what it is" is to ask us not to be Red Sox fans. Come on, Derek. You should know this.
And hey. We don't know what it's like to be you. We don't know what it's like to be any major league pitcher or player, for that matter. But after 86 years of living and mostly dying with this infuriating team, we know better than most of the fans in the league what pitchers look like from outside, and what that look means.
What the more knowledgeable among us see from you is, perhaps, over-rotation of the hips, or your left side "flying open" during your delivery. Problems yes, but they do not a five-run-inning meltdown make.
Give us a little credit, willya? Don't ask us to defy our instinct as we watch you fidget and grimace and tug and slump and sigh and glare and mutter to yourself once the slightest thing goes wrong when you're on the mound and think it's just a physical problem.
Is the root physical? Probably. Is the disaster still mental? Absolutely.
See, Derek, we're not talking about a run here and there, okay? I remember a game a few weeks ago where you gave up two home runs and still pitched a decent game and got a W.
And you know what? You'd still get questioned a lot since you still wouldn't be the Derek Lowe of 2002, but we'd be as satisfied as we can be around here with such a performance from you this year.
Doesn't matter to me why you give up runs in the first place. Every pitcher has an ERA over 0.00. What matters to me is the way you give them away after that. Every single time you turn to watch a home run sail out of the park and / or a ball fall for a base hit in the outfield, it seems like you turn right back around and hang a meatball in front of the next batter.
I hate it, Derek. I hate it a lot. I hate biting my fingernails waiting for you to perform the following routine:
1. Give up run on error, mistake pitch, or honest-to-goodness hit.
2. Take off hat. Blow out air through your pursed lips. Stumble around the mound. Swipe at your forehead with one forearm. Whenever you do this, Derek, and I don't know if even you have noticed this, step 3 inexorably follows.
3. Blow game completely before the inning is over.
I hate it, Derek. I hate it a lot.
You used the excuse earlier this season that it was "just one tough inning" that was sinking you every time. No shit, Sherlock. Did it ever occur to you, however, that it was that "just one inning" crap that made us think your problem was mental, not physical?
I mean, why else would you pitch a gem in innings one through five, let's say, and then become a launching pad in the sixth? If it was a physical problem, wouldn't you be getting shelled the whole time?
Everyone has a tough inning here and there. Some have a tough inning every game. Thing is, a Pedro Martinez or a Curt Schilling will get through that inning. It's called "pitching out of a jam." And it never seems to happen to you.
That's the difference between you and them. So when you say things like this:
Q. "When Pedro [Martinez] or Curt [Schilling] or anybody pitches a bad game, they pitch bad," Lowe said. "I pitch bad and I'm a Mental Gidget. Obviously, it's gotten to the point where I can't take it anymore."
...frankly, it makes me want to reach through the television and slap you.
First of all, spare us the audacity of putting yourself in a category with Pedro and Schilling. Please.
Secondly, as mentioned above, if Pedro or Curt pitch a bad game, they pitch a bad game, from inning one. If you pitch a bad game, you pitch a bad inning, a bad inning that often wastes the efforts of your teammates and even yourself elsewhere in the game.
Can you not understand why we find this frustrating? Maybe we "couldn't take it anymore" a long time ago. Ever think of that?
You flip out at your infielders if they make an error, then proceed to blame them when your flipping out makes you blow the game. Then you say things like the above to those who wonder why you perform this way.
And you wonder why we think you're a head case?
What indication have you given us otherwise?
Here's my question for you, Derek. Here's what I want to know. What happened to the Derek Lowe I watched deliver relentless, knee-buckling filth to finish off Oakland last year? What happened to the Derek I watched grab his crotch in derision towards the team he just defeated? What happened to that cocky, arrogant, lights-out, bitch-I-fucked-yo-momma-last-night Derek?
He's what you need to find. Not any more flaws in your delivery.
And You!!!!! (A right talking-to for Kevin Millar)
Kevin Millar. Oh, Kevin Millar. What the hell am I supposed to think now?
Right now you're like a guy who cheated on me, or maybe just said some things you shouldn't have in an argument, now coming back after a month or so with a diamond ring.
I remember what we used to have, Kevin. I remember "Cowboy Up!" last year--don't think I don't give you every last ounce of credit for that, and the lion's share of the credit for the team's grinning, fighting spirit last year. You were the heart and soul and face of a team last year that gave us all a reason to believe, which is all we can ask.
Roger Angell gives credit where credit is due, and as usual more eloquently than I ever could:
For me, Kevin Millar, a free agent acquired for cash from the Marlins last winter, was the genius pick. On April 1st, the second day of the season, he contributed a sixteenth-inning game-winning home run in Tampa, and in June pinch-hit a grand slam that helped pull off a seven-run turnabout against the Brewers. With his blackened cheekbones and raunchy grin, he became the model for the Sox' newfound grunginess—dirt-stained uniforms and pine-smudged helmets, and an early-October outburst of shaved heads that transformed sluggers and pitchers and old coaches into plebes or pledges. His "Let's cowboy up!" rallying cry from the dugout and the on-deck circle caught on with d.j.s and schoolkids and Green Line subway riders, inundating Greater Boston in "Cowboy Up!" caps and T-shirts and fan towels and diapers and souvenir glassware. Somebody found a clip of eighteen-year-old Kevin mouthing the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen’s "Born in the U.S.A." in a Beaumont, Texas, karaoke solo, which became a staple on the Fenway message board. The unimaginable had happened: the Sox were loose.
Maybe I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe I should simply be happy you're "back" and hitting and fielding like you should--perhaps even better than you should (no less than three double plays last night. Three!).
But it maddens me. I don't understand. I don't understand how you could fail to make even the simplest basket catch, the simplest pick at first, the simplest little base hit with the bases juiced and two outs. And then all of a sudden you're getting the key hit in not one but two back-to-back games, and looking like a Gold-Glover at first base to boot.
What happened, Kevin? Did aliens descend and anal probe you? Were you bitten (as SurvivingGrady.com said of Johnny Damon) by a radioactive spider? Did the stars align? Did you and Manny have intensive hitting instruction? If so, who taught you at the same time about fielding?
It doesn't make any sense in my admittedly black-and-white world. If you were always this good, why were you so bad? And if you were so bad, how can you be so good now? What causes these streaks and inconsistencies? And what can I do to eradicate them from my life?
I know, I know.
Kevin, I guess you've struck a nerve. I guess you've stood up there in your hiked-up red stockings and weird bopping batting stance and been the very face of absurdity and arbitrariness so far this season.
And if that bothers me, I suppose it's not your fault.