Two things about Tim Wakefield (the first one you probably won’t care much about, the second you might).
1. For about the last 12 years or so, every time I go to a Sox game Wakefield is pitching. I can’t escape him. I’ve seen him in New York, Seattle, Baltimore, San Francisco, Toronto. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I saw him pitch for the Pittsburgh Crawfords in a 1936 Negro League game vs. the Homestead Grays.
2. Sometime between August 2010 and May 2011 Wakefield is going to pass Cy Young and Roger Clemens to become the winningest pitcher in the 108-year history of the Red Sox.
No, really, it’s gonna happen. Knucksie is at 166 wins after his seven-inning, one-run beaut vs. the Twins on Wednesday. 27 W’s away from taking over the top spot on the list. Raise your hand if you think that (a) Wakefield won’t stay healthy over the next two years or (b) if he’s a couple wins short after 2011 he won’t be back in 2012.
Tim Wakefield signed with the Red Sox in 1995 (a strong No. 4 to the Lowe/Varitek and Pedro trades and Manny signing on the “Best of Duke” chart) after being released by the Pirates, his career seemingly over. His best season was his first, of course, as he won 14 of his first 15 decisions, finishing 16-8 with a 2.95 ERA to finish third in Cy Young voting (the only Cy Young votes he has ever received). Since then it’s been a little up and down, to be honest.
The Bad:
5.14 ERA (1996)
5.08 ERA (1999)
5.48 ERA (2000)
4.87 ERA (2004)
The Good:
17 wins in 1998 and 2007
2.81 ERA in 2002
Third in the AL in WHIP, 16 wins in 2005.
And a lot of C+-type seasons mixed in (baseball-reference has an average Wakefield season as 13-11 with a 4.31 ERA. It’s actually hard to believe that he hasn’t had a 13-win season. He’s got one 10-win, two 11’s, two 12’s and a 14).
I don’t know, am I the only one that finds it a little strange that a pitcher that at no time in his career has ever been regarded as one of the 20 best in baseball is going to hold one of the five or six biggest records in Boston sports? Look at the other leaders:
Red Sox Home Runs: Ted Williams (521)
Red Sox Hits: Yaz (3,419)
Celtics Points: John Havlicek (26,395)
Bruins Goals: Johnny Bucyk (545)
Bruins Points: Ray Bourque (1,506)
Good casting, right? First-ballot Hall of Famers all. And obviously Cy Young and Clemens are immortals (I’ll ignore the world of misremembering for now). We all know about Clemens, but I sometimes wonder if people even realize Cy Young was an actual pitcher. Well, here’s Cy Young’s first three seasons with the Red Sox:
1901: 33 wins, 1.62 ERA, 38 complete games
1902: 32 wins, 2.15 ERA, 41 complete games
1903: 28 wins, 2.08 ERA, 34 complete games
Young started 327 games in eight seasons with the Red Sox (Wakefield has 370, Clemens started 382). He completed 275 of them. Unreal. And we are now in a world where a Rick Sutcliffe will talk about the “courage” of a pitcher that throws 106 pitches in seven innings and hands the ball over. And that award named after Young? Clemens won seven of ‘em (Three with the Sox, really should have been four—he was robbed in 1990).
So what is Wakefield doing here?
Listen, he’s not Roger Clemens or Cy Young, we know that. Probably he’s not even one of the 10 best pitchers in Red Sox history (Is that true? Let’s list them. Young, Clemens, Smokey Joe Wood, Pedro, Luis Tiant, Lefty Grove (pitched late in his career for the Sox but was great for them. Plus I think he’s the best pitcher in history, so that’s a tiebreaker for sure) Dutch Leonard. You know what? I think that’s it for locks. A case can be made for a handful of guys. Babe Ruth, Carl Mays, Jim Lonborg, Bob Stanley, Derek Lowe, Schilling, Dick Radatz, Doug Bird (maybe not). But there is no huge edge there either way. So Wakefield is
RSS Center
