Would Jonathan Papelbon rebound from the worst season of his career? Will Bobby Jenks make a seamless transition to a setup role after years as a closer. Did the team make the right decision in keeping Matt Albers and Dennys Reyes after a fierce bullpen battle in Fort Myers? How does Terry Francona utilize Tim Wakefield? Will it all be enough to fix the unit that cost the club so many games in 2010?
It would have taken a rather worrisome individual to express any concern over Daniel Bard, the one rock in the operation last year.
However, it was Bard who was the first to falter, and he did so in a major way in Boston's 9-5 loss to the Texas Rangers on Friday. The right-hander, who entered a tie game to start the bottom of the eighth inning, moments after David Ortiz tied the affair with a solo homer, gave up four runs on four hits and a walk while getting just two outs.
It was the difference in a see-saw affair and it may leave Bard unusable for the rest of the series — he threw 32 pitches, tied for his highest total since he threw 38 in his major league debut on May 13, 2009.
To the man who left Bard in until he had allowed four runs for just the second time in his career, it was a matter of leaving a few too many up in the zone.
"David hits the ball out of the ballpark and we get to Bard, and even though we’re on the road we're thinking, OK, good, we got a chance here now," manager Terry Francona said. "He just got the first guy out and I thought he got under a few pitches [after that].
"His velocity was good, but when he's throwing the ball downhill, that's when he becomes untouchable and he helped them elevate because the ball was flat."
A one-out walk to Mike Napoli on a 3-2 slider set the tone for Bard. Yorvit Torrealba followed with a sharp single to right and pinch hitter David Murphy doubled both men in with a bloop shot that landed on the chalk down the left-field line.
A strikeout, the only one recorded by six Boston pitchers, gave Bard a second out, but he then served up back-to-back RBI doubles before finally getting lifted.
While Bard wasted a ton of bullets, some of the new additions to the bullpen did their job. Matt Albers threw a scoreless inning, stranding a pair of inherited runners in the sixth, and Dan Wheeler got the only two men he faced.
However, the sight of Bard getting knocked lingered long after the final out.
"We're not used to seeing that," Francona said.
