Projo Sox Blog

BY DANIEL BARBARISI
Journal Sports Writer

BOSTON -- Game Two loser Mike Timlin has pitched in front of hundreds of umpires over his big league career. So he knows that sometimes, he isn't going to get the calls -- as happened Saturday night when he came on in the 11th inning.

Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell was so steamed at home plate umpire Sam Holbrook's strike zone that he stormed onto the field and got himself ejected in Timlin's defense.

Timlin, on the other hand, took a longer view.

"I threw some close pitches, Sam saw them the other way. That's the relationship between pitcher and umpire, it's been that way for 100 years, it's not going to change. There's a human element in this game, that's what makes it such a pure game and so much fun," Timlin said.

Timlin, 42, barely squeaked onto the championship series roster, and was likely to see only mop-up work or emergency duty in this series. When called into Saturday night's 11-inning dogfight, Timlin quickly walked Dioner Navarro and Ben Zobrist and, close pitches or not, knew that the loss was on him.

"It came down to the point where you try to make as [few] mistakes as is possible, and unfortunately I made two mistakes and walked two guys. That was a costly error. I cost us that, I'm not afraid to say it. That's why it's a seven game series . . . you've got two good teams here, and they're both going well," he said.

Timlin's long view is particularly useful when you need to get over a tough loss. The veteran has seen enough real deficits to know that a 1-1 series is just getting started.

"It's two teams that have fought each other in the same division all year long, went into the division series and came back to fight each other again. It's going to be a good series," he said.

 Tags  Dan Barbarisi Mike Timlin Sam Holbrook

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