Pedro Martinez to work with Felix Doubront
When the announcement of Pedro Martinez as a special assistant to the General Manager of the Boston Red Sox occurred my faith in both the management and team was restored. Now that he is being assigned to work with individual players my lost faith in the pitching rotation is being restored. Felix Doubront came to spring training with a sore arm and overweight. Doubront is a crucial member of the Red Sox pitching rotation being their fourth starter. Pedro was always the number one starter with the Sox and his infectious personality should start to rub off on Doubront. While Pedro is smiles and laughs almost all of the time he is also buisness all the time. I remember seeing Pedro throw warmups in the bullpen in June as if it was Game 1 of the World Series but after the game be in the clubhouse laughing with teammates and smiling as large as he possibly could.
The Red Sox expect Doubront to be a 15 game winner this season and throw in the range of 190-210 innings. Last season, his first full season with the team he started 29 games and threw 161 innings. He won 11 games while losing 10. He had 167 strikeouts and an ERA of 4.86. While talking about Doubront, Martinez said “Nowadays these pitchers come up so young, so talented that they don’t realize how much they’re going to be counted on. I think Doubront is a good example. I think he needs to know that he’s really important to this team, to the organization, to the community, to Boston, and that they’re counting on him to be one of the big men. At the same time, he’s still a young kid trying to develop and he’s already in the big leagues trying to perform." With Pedro supporting Doubront I feel that he will be able to perform much better than last year, that he will quickly be back in shape and the soreness in his arm will quickly be gone. I can expect Pedro to work well with Doubront and mold him into the pitcher that management expects him to develop into.
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