| projo.com | The Providence Journal |

	April 23, 2001

Let's peer into the crystal ball for a second.

Tuesday night. Red Sox lead the Twins, 3-2. Rich Garces has pitched two scoreless innings and is ready to turn the game over to the closer. The Sox go out in the bottom of the eighth and take the field for the top of the ninth. The bullpen door swings open, and out charges . . . who?

If it's my call, the answer is simple:

Derek Lowe.

This guy needs to back on the horse, and he needs to get back on the horse right now. What bothered me most about yesterday was not that the Yankees hit two home runs in the bottom of the 10th to win the game (it happens), or that they hit them off Lowe (that, too, happens). It's that Lowe appeared suicidal afterwards. His eyes were red, as if he'd been crying, and he was saying things like "I stink" and "I'm the 11th pitcher on the team." He can't be allowed to wallow in that pool of self-pity. He has to get out there again -- sooner rather than later -- and get some success back under his belt.

Because the thing about yesterday is, he didn't pitch that badly. This is going to sound like sour grapes, but that doesn't make it any less true: In 29 ballparks in the major leagues, both those home runs are routine fly balls. I was at the game and we were down in the lower deck, right near the plate about 25 rows back. When O'Neill hit the ball, I swear I thought it was a popup. (He did, too, judging by his reaction.) It was off the fists and made a hollow sound on contact. But it got up in the wind and drifted, what, four feet over the fence. I say this not to begrudge O'Neill and the Yankees anything -- it wasn't like the wind kicked up or the fence was moved there just for O'Neill's at-bat; both teams had 10 breezy innings' worth of shots at it -- but to note that Lowe didn't exactly serve up a meatball.

Same with Justice. His ball sounded better coming off the bat, and in fact I thought it was going to land a lot farther than it did. But he didn't get all of it, either, and on a less warm and windy day -- like last May 28 at the Stadium, when Bernie Williams's bid for a game-winning home run died on the track -- it could very well have landed six feet short of where it did. If that happens, it lands in Darren Lewis's glove.

Nor should we forget that directly before each homer, Lowe had retired the Yankees' two best all-around hitters -- Williams and Derek Jeter -- on routine groundballs.

Lowe, I realize, said he didn't make the pitches he wanted to make, and I have no doubt that's true. The point is, it wasn't as bad as he' s making it out to be, and he can't be allowed to let this perceived failure paralyze him.

I know this is a results-oriented business, and the results for Lowe were ghastly yesterday. But this is also a 162-game season, and burying Lowe now would be the ultimate short-term mistake. It's not that the Sox don't have other options at closer, because Rod Beck certainly looks as if he could step in and do the job effortlessly. (Roland Arrojo, on the hand, has never closed in his life and shouldn't be given the job in mid-stream.) But Beck isn't going to be here next year. Lowe will, and hopefully will be here for many years after that. To demote him after a couple of bad outings . . . sorry, but I think that's really short-sighted.

Especially since a) it's April, b) there are 144 games to play, and c) if they're playing anywhere other than Yankee Stadium yesterday, Lowe would have recorded the save with an effortless one-two-three inning.

If this is September and the season's on the line, that's different. Then you don't have the time and the luxury to allow him to work out his problems. But it's not (September, that is), and it isn't (on the line). The long-term benefits of straightening out Derek Lowe -- who is probably one of the five most important players on the team -- should be first and foremost at the time of year, not the winning and losing of some stinking ballgame in April.

Get back on the horse, Derek. We need you.

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