Last night’s game was not just another loss for the Boston Red Sox. Not only did they get swept by the Baltimore Orioles; they lost their cool, if they had any left. At least, Red Sox starting pitcher Wade Miley did.
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The cameras quickly moved away from the action on the field to the tirade that Miley was having in the Red Sox dugout, once pulled from the game after completing four innings of work. A fan recorded the encounter with Boston’s manager John Farrell:
Clearly, the exchange from Miley’s end was red-hot. Christopher Smith of The Boston Herald reported that Farrell said, “He’s a competitor … You work four days for your start and he doesn’t want to come out of the ballgame, and I fully respect that. I thought he had good stuff overall. But where we were on the scoreboard, it felt like we needed a change of contrast, a change of style. Made a move at that point after four innings.”
When asked about the blowup, Miley said, “That’s between me and John. It just is what it is. … It’s fine, it’s over … Everything that happened is over.” He further elaborated that he felt good on the mound, but that he was just one strike away each time he got burned for a hit or a run.
The six-foot, 220-pound lefty was pumped for nine hits and five earned runs, last night. It was the identical result in his loss against Texas, two starts before. Both times, Miley was done after pitching four innings. In his last appearance, recently, against the Oakland Athletics, he pitched 7.1 innings and gave up only six hits and two earned runs.
That’s been pretty much what Red Sox Nation has come to expect from Miley: inconsistency. In his last 12 starts, Miley posted a 5-6 record, with a 5.07 ERA. Some games are blowouts and some games are displays of his potential domination. Another important statistic is his runs-to-strikeouts total, which stands at 37 earned runs to 42 strikeouts, in that same span. He bleeds runs as he strikes out batters. FanGraphs.com has him only earning 46.8% of the balls hit off of him being grounders. A whopping 36.2% are flyballs, and 8.9% of those are home runs. Considering that he was touted as a ground-ball pitcher, Miley seems to be trying to strike out a ton of guys and he’s having mixed results.
So, what do we make of his fiery fit in his manager’s face?
Farrell did the right thing by not throwing his starter under the bus, saying that it’s fine that Miley was angry. He also made it clear that five runs in less than five innings requires relief pitching to take over the game. Did anyone else really want to see how many more runs Miley could have allowed? Sometimes, you want to see your starter fight through early struggles; sometimes, you want a relief pitcher to stop the bleeding until the bats can get the team back in contention, which almost happened last night.
Did Miley do the right thing? The quick response would be no, since a grown man threw a temper tantrum in front of his teammates, directed at his immediate authority figure.
However, maybe Miley’s anger needed to boil over. Maybe Miley’s display is a sign that he recognizes the message that Farrell was trying to relate, yesterday. Performances like last night will not be tolerated. Those times on the mound where Miley isn’t getting important outs or is giving up too many high balls hit over the fences will require him to be relieved. Now that Miley knows that it’s coming, maybe he will settle down and keep the ball lower.
It may also be a good thing for Miley to show emotion. It shows the fans, his teammates, his bosses, and himself that he cares about his performances. He doesn’t want to let down the team and he wants them to trust him for more than a few innings. There are so many other players who act selfish and throw fits, and there are players who never show any emotion and look like they couldn’t care less. Miley may have reacted too harshly, but at least we know that he cares.
Now, which direction does Miley go after this?
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