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Baseball Today: Thursday, May 22 »

Sox reaction to Colon's work

The first impressions Bartolo Colon made on his pitching coach and his catcher were positive last night. Here is what John Farrell, the Red Sox pitching coach, and catcher Jason Varitek had to say about Colon’s effort in the 6-3 Red Sox win.

Farrell:
``We came in tonight thinking he was going to go about 75 pitches. It was apparent that in the fifth inning it looked like he was starting to tire a little bit.’’ Colon threw 74 pitches, 46 for strikes.

``What was most impressive is that we used his fastball very well tonight. The two-seamer got a lot of ground balls with some early contact. I think it was a very good step in the right direction for Bartolo. We’re looking at him for 85 or 90 pitches the next time out.’’

Of the 74 pitches, only about 10 were off-speed, Farrell said.

``When you can throw the two and four-seam on both sides of the plate to some effect it gives you four different pitches. Tonight his approach was very similar to what he’s been accustomed to his entire career. He’s going to mix in some change-ups and sliders on occasion but he’s primarily a fastball pitcher.’’

``One thing he’s never had an issue with is throwing strikes. You look at his entire career path and it’s been one that he’s commanded the strike zone Even when he came into spring training he showed right away that his delivery was repeatable. When you look at a compact body like that there are not body parts that are going to get out of whack too often. Because of that regardless of the amount of time off he’s going to be pretty efficient with his strike throwing ability.’’

Even with Boston’s pitching riches, Farrell made it clear he expects Colon to be part of the rotation.

``He’s a very accomplished pitcher. We’re fortunate to have him in the rotation,’’ Farrell said.

Varitek:

``He did good. He did really good,’’ Varitek said.

``We saw some 94s (on the radar gun) up there. You’ve got to remember it’s his first outing. We’re still building strength. We can make this a good starting point for building strength. . . He’s going to help us.’’

Varitek felt Colon’s numbers could have been even better.

``They had a soft liner for the first run hit in the right place for the first run and he broke a bat on the other one.’’

Posted by Paul Kenyon  at 11:15 PM to Projo Sox Crawl | Permalink