Get me a knuckleballer! Stat!

I just finished a reading a novel in which the protagonist would sort through potential girlfriends by quizzing them on their knowledge of losing vice-presidential candidates. This made some sense to me. Of course, the protagonist was also an insane serial killer, so that's about right, too. It's all about impulse control, really.

The quiz that I would more likely use would be this: What does the name Charlie Zink mean to you? Googling his name is totally cheating. This is a test not only of your status as a Red Sox fan, but also a test of your personal internet integrity. Choose wisely.

Time's up. Charlie is a Red Sox pitching prospect, currently (I just noticed), the #1 pitcher in the Pawtucket rotation. He was drafted as a hard-throwing righty out of, yes, the Savannah College of Art and Design. They actually have a good baseball program there- I think Luis Tiant coached for them. I'm not making that up. The kicker? He wasn't making it with his 90-92 mph fastball, so the Sox switched him to the knuckleball. He's been making his way through the Sox minors as a knuckleball prospect.

We're now two years past the time when Charlie (I can't seem to call him Zink) was profiled, along with Tim Wakefield, in an excellent New Yorker article. He now finds himself, at age 26, I believe, on the doorstep of the majors. If I had my druthers, he would be starting this Saturday at Fenway against the Blue Jays. The situation that has created this possibility just gets worse and worse.

The Sox lost yesterday afternoon to the A's by a score of 7-2, getting swept in their second consecutive series. They stumble home after a 2-7 road trip and are about 35 games out of both the division and the wild card. Curt Schilling did get his 3,000th strikeout, but that was pretty much the only good thing that happened yesterday.

The pitching lineups for this weekend go like this: tonight, Roy Halliday vs. David Wells....except wait, he's probably going to get traded to the Padres. In anticipation of this, Lenny DiNardo was pulled from his start at Pawtucket yesterday. He'll probably start tonight. Tomorrow is Kyle Snyder vs. Ted Lilly (the current Red Sox killer and perhaps future Red Sox pitcher). Saturday is Gustavo Chacin vs....TBA. TBA? Is that what the Red Sox season has come to? Yes it has. And it gets worse. The pitcher that would have pitched in that spot is Jon Lester. Mr. Lester, who was initially scratched because of a bad back, is now undergoing tests in Boston for, among other things, cancer. Apparently he was diagnosed with enlarged lymph nodes, and they're checking all the possibilities. I know that this season's long depressing slide began before all of this medical mess, but, geez. This is crazy. I hope everything turns out ok, medically, but this is just crazy.

So all of this means the Charlie Zink may get a little taste of the big leagues this September. I hope that he does. Not only because I love knuckleballers, but it would be nice to see if he can hack it. Do I think he can? Well, honestly, I'm not sure. He has a decent 9-4 record this year, with an ERA of about 4.10. Looking a bit deeper, though, he's given up 65 walks in only 109 innings this year. He's struck out 61 and has a WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched- the lower the better) of 1.55. That's not totally awful, but it's not the greatest thing in the world.

How will his minor league stats translate to the majors? Sometimes it's hard to project pitchers, even those who dominate the minors. With a knuckleballer, it's gotta be different. Aside from a bit more plate discipline, I think if a knuckler will get out minor leaguers, it will get out major leaguers. For comparison, Tim Wakefield's career WHIP is about 1.40. He gives up about 3.5 walks per 9 innings, and strikes out about 6.3. Thus far Charlie Zink has walked 5.04 batters per nine innings and struck out 5.44. That's not Wakefield yet. But if he can harness the butterfly just a bit, turning one of those walks per nine into a strikeout, we may have someone for Timmy to hand his #49 jersey to in a year or so. Not that I'm keen to see Wakefield disappear- hell, knuckleballers can pitch into their late 40's- but it would be nice to see that tradition kept alive in Boston.