« Postgame notes: Youkilis update
Main
Late Red Sox Notes »
June 23, 2008
By STEVEN KRASNER
Journal Sports Writer
BOSTON -- David Aardsma was pitching on fumes.
But the right-hander ignored his fatigue, took the ball and blazed his way out of trouble in the ninth inning, racking up a couple more dominant strikeouts with his blazing fastball.
Aardsma worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam by whiffing Justin Upton and Eric Byrnes. His last pitch, a 97 mph heater that was up, simply blew away Byrnes, keeping it a 2-1 deficit.
It was yet another in a string of eye-popping performances by Aardsma.
He was working for the third time in four days, and he had been up and throwing lightly in the bullpen in the 13th inning of Sunday's game, though he didn't get into that one.
Aardsma worked a spotless inning on Friday night against St. Louis, whiffing all three batters he faced. He did the same the next day against the Cardinals. And last night made it an amazing eight punchouts in his last three innings, running his season total to 38 strikeouts in 35 2/3 innings.
He has been impressive of late, working a total of 7 1/3 scoreless innings in his last seven outings. Aardsma has 12 strikeouts over that stretch, which has lowered his earned-run average from 3.18 to 2.52.
"I thought what we asked from Aardsma tonight was pushing it a little bit but obviously he wasn't backing off on his velocity," said Boston manager Terry Francona.
As he sat in a chair in front of his locker, ice packs on several parts of his body, Aardsma admitted he was tired.
"I'm absolutely wiped out," said Aardsma. "You just want to go out there and give everything you have. I don't feel fresh, obviously. I've thrown a decent amount lately. But if they were going to get a hit, it was going to be off my best stuff."
Aardsma had a simple explanation for his rash of Ks recently.
"Getting ahead of the hitters helps out a lot," said Aardsma. "A lot of the strikeouts were on pitches that were out of the strike zone when I was ahead in the count."
Posted by Steven Krasner 
at 11:21 PM | Permalink
