Matt Thornton is in Boston, and Thornton Luck made the trip, too.
In his Red Sox debut on Sunday, Thornton suffered a familiar fate, giving up a flared single to Oakland's Josh Donaldson with two outs in the ninth inning to bring home the game-winning run.
As the saying goes, though, Thornton made his own Thornton Luck by walking two of the four batters prior to Donaldson (and both were right-handed). That widened his splits even further:
Split | PA | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
vs RHB as LHP | 63 | 17 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 8 | .327 | .435 | .423 | .859 |
vs LHB as LHP | 58 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 13 | .173 | .232 | .385 | .617 |
And it also widened his win-loss record. He's now 6-19 over the last three years, and that's probably because it's gotta be hard for a team to decide where Thornton Luck ends and genuine decline begins, and so the high-leverage situations keep coming.
In his weekly installment of "The 30" at Grantland, Jonah Keri praised Rick Hahn for getting what he could for a situational lefty who was being paid like a closer:
If you're the White Sox, you're happy to pocket nearly $2 million (Thornton is making $5.5 million this year, and Chicago threw in $750,000 to cover part of his remaining 2013 salary). And you're happier to take a look at Brandon Jacobs. [...]
Still, with Thornton gone and several solid veterans (Jake Peavy, Alex Rios) reportedly available, new GM Rick Hahn has shown that he's willing to aggressively trade for prospects. Jacobs's natural talent, combined with his lack of results, make him a boom-or-bust candidate who's far more likely to bust. But when your tools have been declared superior to those of a rare untouchable prospect in a very deep system and your own organization is dying for talent, you make that deal every time.
I'm never sure if I like the imbalanced schedule, but I do like how familiar guys like Thornton become to certain divisional hitters, and vice versa. Baseball's a team sport built around one-on-one matchups, and that's never more apparent when a guy come into the bullpen for the express purpose of facing one or two hitters by name.
Here are Thornton's most frequent foes, and his success (or lack thereof) against him (and here's the full list, if you're interested):
PA | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Joe Mauer | 31 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | .300 | .323 | .333 |
Justin Morneau | 29 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | .138 | .138 | .138 |
Travis Hafner | 26 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 6 | .208 | .269 | .417 |
Shin-Soo Choo | 25 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 12 | .280 | .280 | .440 |
David DeJesus | 23 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | .182 | .217 | .273 |
Jhonny Peralta | 23 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 7 | .238 | .261 | .476 |
Grady Sizemore | 22 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 6 | .313 | .455 | .500 |
Victor Martinez | 21 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | .333 | .429 | .500 |
Curtis Granderson | 20 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | .111 | .158 | .111 |
Ichiro Suzuki | 19 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .263 | .263 | .421 |