When I look back on the 2004 ALCS, the most visceral moments — and by “visceral” I’m talking about the moments I felt in my bones, the ones that changed my body chemistry as I was watching — had nothing to do with David Ortiz. They had nothing to do with Curt Schilling, either, or Johnny Damon, or even Dave Roberts. No. Those moments belonged to Tim Wakefield and Curtis Leskanic (cue Johnny Pesky voice: “Leskanic, you son of a bitch!”).
Leskanic’s moment came in Game 4, which he entered with 2 outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 11th. Leskanic had a 5.89 ERA in 2004. He walked 6.2 batters-per-nine. He was not remotely close to the best reliever on that team, but he was, unfortunately, the best option in that moment. Somehow, he got Bernie Williams to fly out to end the threat in the 11th. Then he returned to the mound in the 12th and worked around a leadoff single to keep the series alive. I still don’t understand how he did it.
Wakefield’s moment came in Game 5 (with a hat tip to his staff-saving bullpen work in Game 3). He entered the game in the 12th inning and, without Doug Mirabelli to pitch to, proceeded to throw the 43 most stressful pitches in the history of baseball. There were 3 passed balls in the 13th inning alone, including one that allowed Gary Sheffield to take first base after he’d struck out to lead off the inning. Jason Varitek looked about as comfortable behind the plate as someone waiting for the results of an STD test.
Wakefield did survive the 13th, of course, and went on to throw a relatively uneventful 14th. But the emotional scars that inning left on me are real. I’ve never felt like that watching a baseball game and I never will again.
October baseball is amazing. And October baseball is also terrible. And it tends to be at it’s most amazing/terrible when a shaky reliever is on the mound, desperately trying to keep his team in the game. So for that reason, I need to make something clear to Craig Breslow and Chad Tracy (assuming they kept reading past the STD joke): I want absolutely no part of Erik Miller in the playoffs. You can’t do it. Let him do anything — LITERALLY ANYTHING, UP TO AND INCLUDING PINCH HITTING — before you let him pitch in the late innings of a close game.
Erik Miller has struggled with control his entire career. Earlier this season, when he was still with the Giants, he walked 3 batters while recording just a single out. He walked 6 batters over a stretch of 2 cumulative innings back in May. Hell, in the very first appearance he made in his career, he walked 2 and allowed 3 earned runs without recording an out.
For a while there, he looked like he’d figured something out. He only walked 3 hitters in his first 11 games with the Sox. With Miller looking elite, it was easy to dream on a 7-8-9 combo of Miller, Garrett Whitlock, and Aroldis Chapman effectively shrinking every game in the playoffs to 6 innings.
But it’s pretty rare for a pitcher who struggles with control the way Miller does to suddenly figure things out in the middle of a season, no matter how much you believe in the pitcher-whispering powers of Andrew Bailey. And, suffice it to say, the wildness is back. He’s issued 9 walks over his last 7 innings and was a key culprit of both last night’s loss and the loss to the Rangers last Wednesday.
So I’m out. I can’t do it. I can’t watch Erik Miller in the postseason. Give him the next 5 days to try to fix whatever is going on with him. If he can’t, then turn to Tyron Guerrero instead. Or Tanner Houck. Or even Garrett Crochet, regardless of whether he can get his velocity back. They’ll all be better options than Miller. I barely survived Wakefield in 2004 and my heart health has only degraded since then. Tread carefully, Chad.
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