The right-hander is fine after being hit by a line drive during Tuesday’s spring training game against Minnesota.
By The Associated Press

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Derek Lowe’s shoulder wasn’t the only thing wrapped in ice Tuesday after the Boston right-hander got a painful reminder of how dangerous life as a sinkerball pitcher can be.

Lowe, 21-8 last year with a 2.58 ERA and third in the American League Cy Young Award voting, was nailed in the rear-end by a Matthew LeCroy line drive in the first inning of a 7-6 Red Sox loss to the Minnesota Twins.

After the play, he crumpled to the ground.

“If it was boxing I got to a seven,” Lowe joked afterward.

He resumed pitching after a few warm-up tosses, but was hit hard, allowing nine hits and four runs in four innings.

Four of Lowe’s five spring training starts have come against Minnesota, and the Twins appeared to have figured out how to handle Lowe’s nasty sinkerball.

“That whole bench, the whole game, is yelling, ‘up the middle up the middle,”‘ Lowe said. “That’s what you do with a sinkerball pitchers, you wait for the ball as long as you can and try to hit up the middle.

“They did a pretty good job. They hit three balls that went right past me.”

The only solace: most of the hits were singles.

“Believe it or not, today, stuff-wise, is the best that I’ve thrown all spring,” he said. “The results still stink.”

Lowe said the bruised backside had nothing to do with the poor performance.

“I wish I could say it did, (but) I’d be lying,” he said.

Boston was still in the game when Lowe left, and it was reliever Matt White who took the loss. The Red Sox had a chance to move ahead in the eighth but Chris Coste hit into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded.

Lowe, who seemed to get all the bounces last year in a magical 2002 season that included a hitter, said he’s not too far away from where he wanbe.

“Spring training for me, it’s come down to probably one pitch – one pitch per inning to get out of it,” said Lowe, who has now given up 14 runs in 10 innings. “Instead of getting a double play, you leave it a little over the plate and maybe they get a single.”

Manager Grady Little wasn’t worried.

“I thought I saw a lot of progress out there today,” Little said. “He threw the ball well, much better than he has.”

LeCroy, who hit the ball that whacked Lowe, said seeing so much of Lowe this spring has helped. Mostly, he was grateful to get the bat on the ball.

“The whole time, you’re thinking, ‘please don’t shatter my bat,”‘ he said. “He’s got such a nasty sinker. I was trying to get the barrel on it.”

Lowe got LeCroy out in his next two at-bats, and LeCroy finished 1-for-5.

Lowe said he has little choice but to keep plugging away at his trademark sinkerball, and hope he won’t be hit as hard when he faces teams that haven’t seen it as regularly as the Twins have this spring.

“This is how I pitch,” he said. “I throw sinkers, try to mix it up. This is all I’ve got. For me to go back and try to change my game isn’t going to be too good.”

AP-ES-03-18-03 1751ES