The Lenny DiNardo Blog

Oof II

I'll take the blame for the loss yesterday. I foolishly wore my Red Sox cap to my law school commencement ceremony, just inviting the Baseball gods to make DiNardo's life miserable.

Here's his line from yesterday:

Boston	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
DiNardo (L, 1-2)	2.0	7	4	4	2	2	0	7.11

And just to make matters worse -- his one at-bat...he stuck out swinging. At least he was taking his swings.

The Globe indicates that Lenny's time as the #5 starter may be over, with Wells making a decentView this photo start in AAA and DiNardo getting hit hard:

Understudy to David Wells? The role calls for a lefthanded Bluto or Blutarski, a Chris Farley, or a Jack Black.

But for the better part of seven weeks, that job has fallen to Lenny DiNardo -- slender, polite, urbane, full head of hair -- a checklist of attributes that falls well short of summoning images of the pitcher whose place in the Red Sox rotation he has held since the start of the season.

DiNardo's days of keeping the

La-Z-Boy

warm for Wells appear to be rapidly coming to an end, however. DiNardo, who had gone two weeks between appearances, failed to get out of the third inning in yesterday afternoon's 10-5 loss to the Phillies, who broke a five-game losing streak behind five RBIs from Bobby Abreu, who hit a two-run triple off DiNardo and a three-run home run off rookie Abe Alvarez.

Photos: Boston.com

Also, here's the DirtDog's blunt take on the situation:

Lenny DiNardo is No Poor Man's Bronson Arroyo
Lefty Can't Get Out of the Third Inning This Time

Try Fried Chicken

MLB.com had a story today about Lenny's early-game struggles:

ST. PETERSBURG -- Frustrated over his lack of control early on in games, Lenny DiNardo suggested maybe he needed to shake up his pregame routine a bit.

The left-hander gave up four runs to the Devil Rays in the first three innings on Saturday before settling to face just one batter over the minimum in his final two innings. In his previous start, Toronto got to DiNardo for seven runs off 10 hits in the first three innings.

"Early in the game, it seems like [there's] a tendency for me [to struggle]," DiNardo said. "It's a battle early on."

DiNardo said he's able to perform better after he's logged a few innings, and because of that, he is considering allowing more time and activity before the game begins.

"I need to get out there and maybe throw three innings in the bullpen [first], maybe run a little bit," he said. "It seems like I'm throwing better when I'm sweating."

Boston manager Terry Francona preferred to look on the bright side, noting that after a rocky three innings on Saturday, DiNardo was able to pull himself together and give two more innings.

"He needed to [settle down]," said Francona. "Not only were we losing the game, but getting into a dangerous part of the game where we were going through our bullpen, which is not what we wanted to do."

Oof.

We'll have a full wrap up later on tonight or tomorrow. But by now you know about the Rout at Rogers Centre...

The Pitching Lines from today:

Boston	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
DiNardo (L, 0-1)	3.0	10	7	7	1	1	1	7.42
Van Buren	3.0	2	1	1	1	1	0	3.00
Seanez	1.0	0	0	0	0	1	0	7.71
Tavarez	1.0	1	0	0	0	0	0	5.40

I don't think we're going to get a lot of "at least he kept us in it" quotes this week. Ouch.

DirtDogs: DiNardokay

So, I've been busy and bad on the blogging front. I'm trying to get this kid out of jail (he got totally hosed), I'm studying for finals, and I've had some poker to play.  That said...this post is jampacked with some wicked awesome DiNardo news -- below you'll find info on:

(1) DiNardo's last outing
(2) David Riske's Trip to the DL
(3) David Wells's Trip to the DL
(4) Lenny's Start on Monday (plus, liveblogging!)
(5) Silvio Berlusconi's Loss (plus, fascism!)

-----------------------------------------------------------

1.) Last Outing: April 12, 2006
Wells got shelled (as expected) and Lenny got a chance to work some innings. This seems to be Lenny's role on the team: A starter lets up half a dozen runs or so, Lenny is brought in to eat up innings until we can get to the next game.  Hey, it's a role...

Unfortunately, DiNardo let another inherited runner score (what the hell, Wells deserved the extra ER).  Beyond that, he pitched alright.  He allowed one run of his own over the 3 innings of relief to lower his ERA by .048 to 3.38. Here are the pitching lines for Wednesday's game.

Boston	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Wells (L, 0-1)	4.0	10	7	7	1	1	3	15.75
DiNardo	3.0	6	1	1	1	2	0	3.38
Seanez	2.0	0	0	0	1	2	0	9.00

Also, the DirtDog's updated nickname for Lenny is a little better than last time: What a Relief: Lenny DiNardokay, Seanez Says Hello

2.) Riske on the DL
So, you may have been wondering -- how is it that DiNardo came in to relieve Wells? Wasn't he supposed to be sent down to AAA to make room for the Big Boomer? Yes, he was supposed to. But terrible pitcher, David Riske, experienced a bad case of back pain from sucking so much. The Sox placed him on the 15-day DL, leaving the spot for Lenny.

3.) Wells on the DL
After his painful outing last Wednesday, April 12th, David Wells was placed BACK on the 15-day DL as well, retroactive to Thursday, April 13th -- which, after careful sabermetricizing, comes out to about NINE HOURS of service on the team so far this season.

4.) Lenny's Start
The good news about Wells's and Riske's trips to the DL is that Lenny not only stays on the big league club, but he gets the START on Monday. Hey, I might try to Live-Blog this sucker. That would be a first for The Lenny DiNardo Blog -- and one that I bet would have about 3 people reading it live -- thanks, mom, Graham from Brookline, and Chris from Westboro.

No promises yet - but check back on Monday at 11:05am - the best In-Game action you're gonna find. Screw ESPN's gamecast.

By this point, this has been widely reported...but special thanks to Graham from Brookline for the tip early today when only Jeff Horrigan from the Boston Herald had the story.

5.) Berlusconi's Loss

This is the random piece of news from today: Insane Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi devised a system a few years back that allowed "Italians Abroad" (or those citizens of other countries who have Italian bloodlines) to vote in the National Italian Political Elections.

The "Italians abroad" voting scheme was designed by Mirko Tremaglia, the 80-year-old Minister of Italians in the World. An unapologetic defender of the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, Mr. Tremaglia is said to have modelled the scheme after a Fascist scheme that defined Italians as a race.

Under Mr. Tremaglia's new electoral law, eligible voters are defined as anyone with a continuous line of male descendants going back to a man born in Italy. The voter needs only to register with an Italian consulate, and does not have to speak Italian, have visited Italy or even have parents who were born in Italy. Link.

Turns out that the proud Italians in other countries actually voted against Berlusconi's government. Those foreign votes were actually the deciding votes in parliament -- which appears to have shifted to the center-left Prodi government. How crazy is that? And we thought that the World Baseball Classic definitions of an Italian were stretching a little. We had no idea that they were Fascist!!

...I wonder how the DiNardo clan voted?

Sox-O's (Sat. 4/8/2006)

Last night, I went to the Sox-O's game in Camden Yards. It was a cold, cold game...but overall, very promising. Wily Mo Pena looked bad. He swung (and missed) at 6 of the 7 pitches that he saw.  We were all cheering for him when he finally took a pitch (for a ball).  He seems really anxious.

Other stuff: Papelbon was lights out again. He was great to watch. Also, Schilling was very strong in 7 innings. You've got to be excited about the 2 quality starts that he's been able to put together.  Lenny didn't play last night (Timlin was the middle reliever).

In terms of Lenny-related news, I'm sure you all saw that Wells got shelacked in Pawtucket - 7 runs on 6 hits. Ouch. Maybe April 12th is a little early for the Wells-DiNardo swap between AAA & MLB. UPDATE: The Globe is speculating that Wells's crappy outing aside, the planned Wells-DiNardo swap is still a go.

DirtDogs: "DiNardo Not DiAnswer"

So, Lenny's first outing of the 2006 season (yesterday, versus the Rangers) could have been a little better. As soon as he took over for a struggling Wakefield, he allowed an inherited runner to score, giving up a RBI single to the hard hitting Hank Blalock.  Later, he gave up a solo homerun to Brad Wilkerson. On the positive side...he only was charged with the one run in 2.1 innings which gives him a 3.86 ERA...could be worse on what was a very bad night for Sox pitching. (Again, note how Riske BLOWS).

Here's the line for the Sox pitchers last night:

Boston                IP      H   R   ER  BB  SO   HR   PC-ST  ERA
Tim Wakefield    3.2     7   7    7    3    3     1     89-55  17.18
Lenny DiNardo     2.1    3    1   1    0     2     1    38-24  3.86
David Riske         1.0    2    2   2    0     0     1    14-81  8.00
Rudy Seanez        1.0    1    0   0    2     1     0    23-12  0.00

Here's that DirtDogs link. (Thanks to Chris from Westboro for the heads up).