Closer Jonathan Papelbon Ready to Erase Nightmarish End to 2009 MLB Season
Jonathan Papelbon showed up at Spring Training camp in Fort Myers earlier than required this week. He hopes that a lot of hard work will help erase the horror of his 9th inning collapse in Game 3 of the ALDS against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at Fenway Park. It was the 1st time in 18 post-season appearances in which Papelbon had allowed a run to score against him and it helped ice the Angels sweep of the Red Sox out of the 2009 post-season.
Papelbon claims that he “re-watched” his painful performance “100 times” this off-season. While this might seem like an exaggeration, knowing Papelbon, he probably watched it 1,000 times. Papelbon said that the experience helped him grow as a player and person: “It didn’t make my winter tougher at all. I’m able to turn the page pretty quick. I totally used the way last season ended for motivation. I’ve got it on tape and I watched it 200 times in my weight room. I used it as motivation whenever I was feeling tired and weak in the weight room. I’d pop it on and say, ‘There’s still work to be done.’”
Papelbon and the Red Sox staff have acknowledged that he needs to work on throwing his split finger fastball more often to keep hitters off-balance. Papelbon threw all fastballs in that fateful 9th inning against the Angels and he feels that his reliance on that one pitch – albeit a dominant one – caused his doom. “I think when you’re successful at one certain aspect of your game, and mine was being able to locate my fastball toward the end of the season, you tend to really kind of rely on that a lot. Until I got hurt with it, which was a big part of the season, I went with it. Hindsight’s 20/20 now, but obviously I’m going to take that into consideration, try to be a little more selective with my pitches.”
Sounds like Papelbon is focused and ready to rush forward with an awesome 2010 for the Red Sox. He is as clutch as they come with closers – he’s only blown 17 saves while saving 151 regular season games since 2006. In 298 innings pitched with the Red Sox since 2005, Papelbon has an amazing 1.84 career ERA with a career WHIP Under 1.00 at 0.98. He has 346 strikeouts against just 77 walks. Papelbon is a huge reason the Red Sox have been as successful as they have been the last few years and they will continue to depend upon the big righty for a big 2010 MLB schedule…
