Un-Reality Check.

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Well that was a giant pile of suck. I'm choosing to blame Dustin Pedroia's sudden desire to return to wearing the knee socks rather than Daisuke Matsuzaka's continued struggles and a seemingly sudden inability to hit during the past two games. I had been hoping Derek Lowe would do well but now? Not so much--somebody needs to go find the team hotel and get him really, really drunk. And so we have a video of a kitten with a weird meow because a) it's distracting and b) with Josh Beckett pitching tomorrow, it's better than show tunes. Josh, kitten, please don't suck tomorrow because Sunday is going to be even more difficult.

Me a-a-and Chipper. Chipper Jones, Chipper Jones.

In a game that is likely to find it's way onto Japanese television, Kenshin Kawakami pitches for the Braves tonight against Matsuzaka. Kawakami throws a low-nineties fastball with good control, a slow curve ball, and an excellent cutter. Walks can sometimes be an issue (in seven of his twelve starts he's given up three or more walks) but the strike out numbers are pretty good. Interestingly, Kawakami (unlike most Japanese pitchers) seems to have a pretty straight forward windup.

Derek Lowe returns to the Fens on Saturday. Before his less than perfect start against Baltimore (8 hits, 7 runs, 80 pitches, in 2.1 innings), Lowe was putting together a nice season for himself. The sinker still sinks (294 ground balls to 125 fly balls). He's given up only 3 home runs this year. He gets a decent number of strike outs and the walks aren't too bad.

Jair Jurrjens is the pitcher for Sunday's game. Jurrjens throws two fastballs--a low-nineties four seam and a slightly faster sinker. He throws both with excellent command. He also throws a slurve and a change up with good command. He works at a good tempo. You'd think he'd get more strike outs than he does.

While their pitching staff may not give up many runs, their offense just doesn't seem to score that many runs. They've played fifteen games where their pitching has given up three runs (they only had to come up with four to win) and they've lost eight of them. They've scored four runs or less in forty-two of their sixty-five games. They've been shut out seven times. Their offense is essentially their catcher for the day (either McCann or Ross) and Chipper Jones. The McLouth trade is a definite upgrade, though. They don't strike out that much and they don't walk that much but they don't seem to come up with many hits. They're about average defensively and they don't run very much at all.