Hideki’s Not Ok…

Posted by Mike Giardi June 29, 2008 at 6:50 pm

Safe to say that after another poor performance from Hideki Okajima, that confidence in the Sox’s primo setup guy from a year ago is at an all-time low. Friend of “Sports Late Night” Lou Merloni made a great point in the postgame today, remarking that Okie isn’t threatening any righthanded hitters on the inner-half of the plate. Then they just sit there on the soft stuff and - for about a month now - have just been feasting on it. Righties were hiting .298 against the 32-year old coming into the day. It just wasn’t that way during his 2007 run.

You want to know how dominant he was against RH? Do you? Wait for it…wait for it…(I’m throwing in a drum roll for the heck of it):

.182.

That’s right. A piddly .182.  

Hard to say if the southpaw can get it back. We just don’t have enough history with Okie to begin with, and considering no one thought he’d be that much, you wonder if he just caught lightning in a bottle in 2007 and now has been exposed.

Me personally, I’ll take the glass is half-full approach. I still believe that Okie can bounce back. Now maybe not to the extent he dominated last year, but with a chance to be a valued and contributing member of the pen once again. And if he can’t…Craig Hansen or David Aardsma better become a heck of a lot more consistent than they’ve been.