It is officially time to worry about Keith Foulke. After last night’s debacle, Foulke has a 6.03 ERA and the numbers to back it up – he’s allowed 8 homers and 14 walks in 37.1 innings, compared to 8 and 15 in 83 innings last year. His K/9 are down to less than 7 from close to 9. This is now past the point of “bad start” to “bad year,” and maybe then some. I have to wonder if he’s physically 100%.
6 thoughts on “Not His Year”
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His fastball was down to the mid-80’s yesterday.
Keith Foulke again
…since I told the world that he’d gotten fixed, he’s gotten broken again.
Or has he?
He’s unscored on in 15 of his last 19 appearances, including last night, a period covering almost 7 weeks, and over 20 innings. That melt-down last night …
Foulke for Looper? It is hard to convince one’s self that a guy like Foulke who was nails in the clutch last year may simply not have it anymore/right now. I thought he had turned it around after a bad start with several decent performances but he has been shaky as of late and Cleveland has just killed him (he gave up a HR and another run in 1.3 innings to them last week as well). The thing is where do they go? They already need someone to replace Embree who has an ERA of 8+. Timlin is not a closer. Wakefield? Where do you go to get a closer for a team that figures to go deep into the playoffs. Don’t try to sell me on the Urbinas of the world. As much as I think Foulke has some serious issues (physical or mental) I think we are still in the position of toughing it out with him as the guy. Scary thought but unless someone is willing to make a bad trade I don’t know that there is a better alternative.
Here’s another take on Foulke – since Timlin has a save under his belt this year, give Foulke a couple of days off…to spend with Dennis Eckersley, working on whatever it takes to get Foulke back on track.
I don’t know if the Eck is the guy who can or would be willing to help Foulke out. Foulke does throw, in general, more innings than the average closer but unlike most closers he does not rely on heat to get people out to the extra work should not be the problem. If you go to the Boston Sports Media Watch you can read about 1 million articles, opinions, etc. on Foulke and what can be, should be, might be done with him and the whole situation.
I think the Sox are going to stick with him for now. What top line closer are they going to get at this point in the season? There have been discussions of Arroyo taking the job when Schilling gets back but that is wild speculation at best. There is no guarantee that Arroyo can do the job. If Foulke had not performed the way he did when it mattered last year I would be more convinced that moving him out of there was the best thing to do.
If you look at the Indians game, yeah it was a bad 1.3 innings but there was a play that should have been made (had Olerud been in the game) that led to a run, a badly blown strike three in the 9th that led to a hit and Hafner’s GS HR came on a nasty 3-2 pitch that he yanked about 305 feet straight down the line that went out over a 3 foot high fence. Sometimes you just get hit/unlucky. While his numbers are clearly not good for the year I don’t think this one game necessarily encapsulates his whole season.
Bottom line: Keep him going.
It gets harder to stick with the above comments everytime he goes out there. He literally has nothing on his pitches.