September 18, 2008
Eh. Not
quite the result I was looking for, Timmeh.
Moving on.
About this Schilling thing?
Just. Shut.
Up. Already.
Seriously,
what is the point at this point? Manny is kicking ass and taking names in Los Angeles. Curt is
designing video games in Maynard. This is all old news. Whatever happened to live and let live?
Also, what he said:
As
a fan, I could care less if a guy is impossible in the clubhouse, on the plane,
in the hotel, at team meetings, whatever. If he delivers between the lines, I
want him to be in the lineup. Similarly, I could care less if another guy is
really nice. If he can't hit, pitch, field, run better than another guy he
should be glued to the bench, traded or cut. Mr. Nice Guy is getting paid a LOT
of money to watch more productive players play. He should be happy with that
instead of whining to the manager. I'd rather watch the Sox win with a few
jerks on the team than lose with 100% nice guys. The goal is to win
championships not field the all-Nice Guy team. Let's not lose the reason why
you get to cash those checks. It's not because you pick up after yourself in
the locker room.
And the manager is getting paid to win games, not to win the Miss Congeniality
Award. If he jeopardizes team success because he consistently rationalizes
playing his favorites over better players, he should be fired so he can pursue
his true calling; being Activity Director on a cruise ship.
September 17, 2008
Uh, yeah. Perhaps
I should not have been so hubristic.
A dose of
humility may be just what the doctor ordered. So, Wake,
could you please float like butterfly tonight? A
win would be much-appreciated.
Thanks in
advance!
In the mean
time, I’m gonna try to erase the memory of that tragic waste
of a dynamite Beckett outing by thinking back on my honeymoon, where I was
surprised to discover that Red Sox nation extends south easterly to the British
overseas territory of Bermuda.
One of our cab
driver’s cars was bedecked in Olde
Towne Team paraphernalia (he didn’t miss Manny either). One friendly cashier
filled us in on the details of the previous
night’s game. (You can get NESN down there — and the NBC affiliate at the
hotel, weirdly, was WHDH.) And at The
Swizzle Inn, the island’s oldest pub, the flag out front proudly trumpets its
allegiances.
Ten things about one-run games.
Recipe for Rum Swizzle. (Not to be abused after one-run losses.)
September 16, 2008
Great, great news.
"We are all on the same page with regard to our vision for the organization,"
Henry wrote in an e-mail this afternoon. "The negotiations were pleasant
and were all about rewarding Theo for the great, great job he has done in
bringing two world championships to the Red Sox. We look forward to the
difficult task of trying to win a third."
Well-deserved. And especially gratifying considering how different things were around these parts just three years ago.
Guess he'll have to figure out another Halloween costume this year.
September 16, 2008
If we only
win one at the Trop all year, I suppose that’s
a good way to do it.
But, of
course, we’re not gonna win just one.
We’re
gonna win tonight.
And
then tomorrow night.
And then
we’re gonna stay on top and finish this thing up.
Those devilish
Rays had a nice little run at it this summer, and I’m sure it’s done wonders
for their self-esteem. But now it’s about time for the big boys to take over.
The air is
cooling. Fall starts in a few days. And, my esteemed
colleague’s trepidation notwithstanding, I’m inclined to predict we’ll soon
have — at the very, very least — a white division banner to hang outside our
beloved Fenway Park.
Just win.
September 15, 2008
In Bill James's Gold Mine 2008, he talks at length about Nolan Ryan. In short, he finds Ryan to be a fascinatingly unique pitcher - unique in his approach, and in the results he got by going about his work that way. Ryan, as he tells it, simply refused to get a batter out any way but by striking him out. And to a degree, it worked - he is the all-time leader in strikeouts. He also didn't give up a lot of hits - see his record seven no-hitters - because he'd hardly ever throw something a batter could make solid contact on. But he also walked a lot of guys, too, which would lead to probably just as many base runners as it would have had he occasionally pitched to contact, sacrificing some of those strikeouts for more efficient ground- or flyouts. Without consulting a pile of retrosheet data, I'm also going to assume that this meant he threw a lot of pitches in his career.
James - a Red Sox employee, I remind you all - implies that usually the Nolan Ryan model is not one that leads to a lot of success as a Major-League pitcher. Yet, obviously, it worked for Ryan - although he also was the losing pitcher in nearly as many games as he won (not that a starter's W-L record is much of an indicator of anything). And others have followed in his footsteps. James created a fictional award for pitchers who follow Ryan's lead and find success in doing so. It's based on the convergence of wins, losses, strikeouts, and walks. Last year's winner was Carlos Zambrano - who, incidentally, pitched his first no-hitter last night. This year, Big Z has cut down on the walks, so he's likely safe in 2008. But two of his possible successors for the award match up tonight in Tampa with first place in the AL East at stake, just as they did last week in Fenway - Scott Kazmir and Daisuke Matsuzaka.
Dice is second in the AL in walks and he missed a few starts with injury. Kazmir is just outside of the top ten. He, too, has missed time with injuries. Kazmir has about 15 more strikeouts to his name, but they're both in the top twenty in the AL. On the anecdotal tip, most Red Sox fans I talk to say things like "I
can't stand watching him pitch" when discussing Matsuzaka, yet he keeps
on winning. Somehow, the two have only been on the losing end eight games, though, perhaps a testament to the Red Sox and Rays offense on days when the two pitch, or perhaps it's that the two are adept at keeping batted balls from becoming hits - Dice's BABIP is .272 and Kazmir's is .276, in other words, both on the lucky side, but not glaringly flukish. But they both throw a lot of pitches, so tonight's game might resemble last week's, when both starters had thrown over 100 pitches and exited the game by the sixth inning.
Also, there's a more likely candidate for James's "Nolan Ryan Award" this year - A. J. Burnett, who's 18-10, leads the AL in strikeouts, and is third in walks. Burnett can become a free agent after this year, and rumors have had the Red Sox interested in making a run at acquiring him. One imagines James advising against it.
September 09, 2008
More like "Scott Kaz-yourworstnightmir," am I right Sox fans?
Okay, fine: Kazmir has given up seven runs in nine innings (two starts) against the Red Sox this year. And yeah, he has problems pitching late into ballgames (which looms as a potential bugaboo for the Rays come playoff time.) But we still fear him when he pitches against the Sox. We can't help it.
Lest we sound too negative, we should point out that even if they do lose today, we're sure they are still going to pass the Rays soon enough. Just maybe not tonight.
We'll check back in during the game, perhaps do a little live-blogging if things are going well.
UPDATE #1: Vintage Daisuke tonight; sort of sums up his season - 5 innings, 102 pitches, 5 strikeouts, 4 walks. This may merit a blog post soon. But this thing isn't over yet.
UPDATE #2: Wow, that sucked. Let's not read too much into this, though.
September 05, 2008
We are the jockeys; the jockeys are we.
So a lot of people have been talking up the idea of Dustin Pedroia winning the MVP award lately: the Fenway crowd chanted it at him, Ozzie Guillen famously called him a "jockey," David Pinto used his success in the cleanup role as an excuse to post the video of Andy Kaufman performing the Mighty Mouse theme on Saturday Night Live, and even Rick Sutcliffe floated the possibility during the broadcast of Wednesday's Rays-Yankees game. On Sons of Sam Horn, they're comparing him to the likes of George Brett, Derek Jeter, Pete Rose, and vintage Nomar. He is hitting (ready for this?) .667/.667/1.222 when batting fourth in the lineup (sample size, etc.) He's leading all second basemen in Nerdy McNerderson stats like VORP and Wins Probability Added. He is awesome.
The question, of course, is not whether or not he deserves the MVP award. He deserves to be considered as a serious candidate, for sure, along with Carlos Quentin, Justin Morneau, Josh Hamilton, Joe Mauer, Alex Rodriguez, Jermaine Dye, Grady Sizemore, and . . . well, Kevin Youkilis, but he's probably a different blog post altogether. The real question, though, is whether or not he can win the award when you factor in the mercurial nature of the voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Just looking at how they've voted in the past, they tend to look at a couple of things. First, with some exceptions, they tend to believe the MVP should come from a winning team, one that either makes the playoffs or comes close to doing so (closer than expected anyway.) They like guys who reach the classic plateaus in the Triple Crown stat categories - batting .300, hitting 20 home runs, and driving in 100 runs, though that last one has been negotiable for leadoff types. And sometimes, being a vocal-leader type, "clutch," or just generally a guy the media likes and would make a good story help out.
Pedroia fits all of those criteria - the Red Sox are likely to make the playoffs and 20 homers and a .300 average are within reach for him. He's perceived as "clutch" and he never shuts up. He gets a lot of "heart and soul of the Red Sox" ink. Would he make a great story? Of course he would! The media loves stuff like this! Pedroia's got more talent than most guys of his stature. But at the same time, when a lot of the people who write about baseball for a living see the guy, all they see is his height. And they love it! Couldn't this be a case of the media's ignorance playing into Pedroia's favor? Pedroia and Eckstein aren't similar players - Pedroia is, to put it succinctly, better at baseball - but the media frequently mentions them in the same breath, because they're both short guys. And they love Eckstein so much. They would have voted Eckstein for MVP five times over had his numbers been even remotely good enough to justify it. So they see Pedroia, who is a media-approved candidate, who is kind of short and plays up the middle like Eckstein . . . I mean, would you be surprised if they made the connection? They'd be voting for a good candidate, but for a bad reason. And I suspect Pedroia and the Red Sox would be okay with that.
August 28, 2008
Yeah, that isn't good. While there is some precedent for a pitcher to visit Andrews in Birmingham and come back without scheduling a date with a scalpel for the dreaded tendon transfer surgery (a/k/a "Tommy John surgery," after the gentleman pictured above, the first to undergo such a procedure.) But more often than not, it's the case. The negative side is obvious, of course - Beckett would likely be out for most of next season. On the one hand, the Red Sox could easily still make the playoffs in 2008. On the other hand, without Beckett at their disposal, their chances for repeating are much slimmer than they were this morning.
August 21, 2008
The scene at Hadlock Field this morning
So Clay Buchholz has been sent down to Portland, presumably so he can work with his old pitching coach.
People have been debating Buchholz and considering his struggles all year; perhaps it's luck, maybe it's his mechanics, maybe the issue is mental, or maybe he just wasn't ready. Regardless of the reason, things had simply reached the point where the Red Sox could no longer afford to let him work out his issues at the Major League level. Perhaps if the standings today were more similar to how they were on August 21 of last year, then they'd be more inclined to keep him around. But with the White Sox and Twins breathing down their neck in the Wild Card race and the Rays still very much within reach, it just made too much sense to let him figure things out elsewhere.
What's really important to remember, though, is that this is hardly unprecedented. Young pitchers do struggle sometimes when they try to adjust to Major League hitters. To suggest that Buchholz is now doomed to be a #4-type or that his future belongs with some other organization is reactionary lunacy.
Consider the case of Roy Halladay, who put up a 10.64 ERA in 2000. The following year, the Blue Jays sent him all the way back to A-ball as a 24-year-old - same age as Buchholz - to get himself figured out. Just two years later, he won a Cy Young, and may win another this year. Or even last year, the Indians sent Cliff Lee down to Triple-A, two years after his outstanding 2005 season. A few months later he was starting the All-Star game.
Obviously just because these guys got themselves straightened out doesn't automatically mean Buchholz will follow the same path. These are three very different pitchers. Ultimately it's all on Uncle Buch to put in the work. But it's absolute folly to write him off completely. And to you connoisseurs of schadenfreude out there, I would say the same thing about Phil Hughes.
As for the rotation in the meantime, why not rescue Justin Masterson from low-leverage pen exile?
August 18, 2008
Is it getting Dusty in here?
No, I'm not talking about pitchers.
Since 2003, the Red Sox have felt the need to assign their backup catcher to near-exclusive duty as Tim Wakefield's personal knuckleball valet. With the exception of Doug Mirabelli's crazy-good 2004, that has meant that the Red Sox (like most teams, to be totally fair) have found themselves carrying an offensively-deficient glove man.
Currently, that man is Kevin Cash, he of the career line of .179/.237/.279. But with Wakefield currently on the disabled list and Charlie Zink not looking like he'll make another start any time soon, Cash's main purpose on the roster - specifically the ability to successfully catch a knuckleball - is rendered moot. While the Sox likely would not want to lose Cash's services should Wake recover in time for a playoff start - assuming there are playoffs in the Sox' future, they could perhaps find some space on the roster (Cash could go down with a phantom injury perhaps?) to call up either George Kottaras or Dusty Brown from Pawtucket to give them an extended audition and see what they can produce at the Major League level.
One of the more interesting situations with the Red Sox these days is the future of the catching situation - Jason Varitek has not had a good year (on or off the field) and, at his age, the next few years don't look too bright either. Around the league, he's revered for his ability to handle a pitching staff, and so because of that, it's probably for the best if the Red Sox try to find a way to keep Varitek - an impending free agent - around next season. But surely not at the rate of his current contract, and, ideally, he wouldn't be starting four out of five games in 2009. An ideal situation would involve Varitek handling a reduced workload while also mentoring a young backstop - grooming his own replacement, essentially. Many assume that replacement would come from outside the organization, someone like Texas's Jarrod Saltalamacchia or the St. Louis' Bryan Anderson. But with Brown and Kottaras both hitting acceptably well in Pawtucket, why not see what they can provide first?
August 13, 2008
"You messed up, dood."
The hotdogs
were cheaper.
It seemed
so logical at the time.
By the time
Sox Blogette met me at the Lower Depths last
night, Charlie
Zink had already retired the side in the top of the first. I had half a
beer left. Rather than book it on over to Yawkey Way and pay four bucks for a
Fenway Frank, we figured we’d just stay put, order another quick round, watch
the bottom of the inning on TV, and avail ourselves of the Depths’ dollar hotdog
deal.
In
retrospect, that was a mistake.
A walk, a
single, a home run. 3-0.
A single, an
error, a steal, a double. 5-0.
A walk, a
single. 6-0.
A single.
7-0.
Another
homer. 10-0.
“Man, I’d
hate to have tickets and be late to this game,” said the guy next to me.
I couldn’t
help but agree with him.
So we head
to the park, anticipating more fireworks. Instead, then it all started falling
apart.
We got a
couple runs in the bottom of the third, and they got eight in the fifth. We got a couple more in the bottom of the
inning, and they got five more in the top of the next one.
If the
first inning was exhilarating, by the seventh, the game was getting excruciating.
The
bullpens couldn’t get anyone out. The at-bats were long. Things were dragging.
(One of the
few bright spots was the discovery that Jed Lowrie uses the Undertones classic
“Teenage Kicks” as his at-bat music. Derry punk
power pop forever! John Peel, RIP!)
It was past
10:30 now. Sox Blogette had to get up early the next day. And, truth be told, despite
getting a run in the seventh, I was not especially confident that we could pull
this one out. So we did something I’ve never
done before in my long baseball watching career: we left early.
My reward?
By the time we got home and scrolled back the TiVo a bit, Don Orsillo was
losing his shit: “You kidding me?!?!”
Nope.
And yes. Yes,
Pedroia had notched his fifth hit of the night, an RBI double. Yes, Youk, who’d
struck out twice in the first inning, had blasted his second homer of the night,
a three-run shot. Yes, the Sox were back on top. And yes, with a little
difficulty, Papelbon finally closed it out.
Yes, I had
tickets to the wildest win of the year and missed pretty much all the good stuff.
Oh well. On
TV or in person, it sure was one for the books.
The Sox gave
up 17 runs and still won. They scored 19 runs and still got out-hit. You don’t
see games like that come around very often. More, from the official post-game
notes:
* Boston
and Texas
combined to score 36 runs, tying the single-game A.L. record set on June 29,
1950 when the Red Sox beat the Athletics, 22-14
* The Sox set a season
high with 19 runs, the club’s most since scoring 25 on June 27, 2003 vs. Florida. (And Boston’s 10 runs in the
1st inning tonight are the club’s most in a single frame since scoring 14 in
the 1st inning of that game.)
* Boston
blew a 10-0 1st-inning advantage, matching the largest lead lost in club
history, done June 4, 1989 vs. Toronto
* It was the Red Sox’
30th inning of 10 or more runs, a major league record.
* David Ortiz became the
4th player in Red Sox history with 2 home runs in an inning …he’s the first
Sox player to accomplish that since Nomar in 2002.
* Ortiz’s is the 3rd Sox
player with 6 RBI in a single frame, the 1st since Carlos Quintana in the 3rd
on July 30, 1991.
* Ortiz now has 224 home
runs in his Red Sox career, passing Jimmie Foxx (222) and Bobby Doerr (223) for
sole possession of 7th place on the club’s all-time list.
* David Aardsma and
Charlie Zink became the 1st pair of A-to-Z Red Sox teammates to appear in the
same game since Harry Agganis and Norm Zauchin on June 2, 1955 at Chicago.
August 12, 2008
RED SOX ACQUIRE RIGHTHANDED PITCHER
PAUL BYRD
FROM CLEVELAND INDIANS FOR A PLAYER TO BE NAMED
LATER
OR CASH
CONSIDERATIONS
The announcement was made by Executive Vice
President/General Manager Theo Epstein.
Byrd, 37, has been added to Boston’s 40-man roster. The
Red Sox will make a corresponding move on the active roster once Byrd reports to
the club.
Byrd is 7-10 with a 4.53 earned run average
in 22 starts with the Indians in 2008. The righthander ranks second on the
Indians staff in wins, starts, and innings (131.0) and has issued just 1.6 walks
per nine innings, the eighth best ratio in the American League.
He has won all four of his starts since the
All-Star break with a 1.24 ERA (4 ER/29.0 IP) to lower his season ERA from 5.47
to 4.53. Byrd is tied for the major league lead in wins since the break and has
the second lowest ERA among pitchers with at least 20.0 innings behind
Arizona’s
Randy Johnson (0.66). He has worked at least 7.0 innings in each of his last
three starts, allowing six hits in going the route to win at Toronto, 4-2 in his last
appearance on August 9. Byrd has not allowed a home run in his last five starts
with a 1.80 ERA (7 ER/25.0 IP) in that span.
Byrd has a career major league record of
104-91 in 330 games/242 starts with the New York Mets (1995-96), Atlanta (1997-98; 2004), Philadelphia (1998-2001), Kansas
City (2001-02), Los Angeles Angels (2005), and Cleveland (2006-08). He has
won 10 or more games five times, including four of the previous five seasons
(2002-07). Byrd has issued just 2.12 walks per nine innings in his career, the
sixth lowest figure among active major league pitchers with at least 1,500
innings. He was a member of the 1999 N.L. All-Star Team with the
Phillies.
Byrd established career bests for wins
(17), starts (33), innings (228.1), and strikeouts (129) with Kansas City in 2002. Last
season, he was 15-8 with a 4.59 ERA in 31 starts for the A.L. Central Division
champion Indians and led the A.L. with a ratio of 1.31 walks per nine innings.
Byrd was 2-0, 3.60 in his two post-season starts, including a 7-3 victory over
the Red Sox in Game 4 of the ALCS on October 16 in Cleveland. He also won the
fourth and deciding game of the ALDS on October 8 at New
York.
PAUL BYRD—2008 AND MAJOR
LEAGUE CAREER
W-L ERA G GS CG SHO SV IP H
R ER BB SO
2008—CLE 7-10 4.53 22
22 1 0 0 131.1 146 70 66
24 56
ML Career 104-91 4.37 330
242 17 6 0 1614.0 1752 881 783
235 886
July 31, 2008
As my fiancée and I were filling out paperwork to get a marriage license today, just around 3:58 in the afternoon, the front offices in Boston, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh were doing something similar -- shuffling sheets filled with stats and dollar figures and sending them off in flurries of transcontinental faxing.
The Red Sox were ending a marriage. It lasted seven and a half seasons. It sure did have its moments. And looking back on it now, in the immediate aftermath of the divorce, it's almost headspinning how fast it all unravelled.
Sure we'd had a lot of rough patches. They usually came around this time of year. But it wasn't that long ago at all that everything seemed totally hunky dory. This spring, Manny Ramirez was feeling groovy and talkative. Zen-like. He smiled a lot. He seemed mellow and more mature. He hit his 500th homer and we all went nuts. He said he loved us. He said he wanted to stay with us forever. Why not 600?! "I'm going to finish my career here," he said. And the hits kept coming.
But, almost before anyone realized what was happening, it all started to spin out of control. A couple ugly incidents of domestic violence. Angry and inflammatory words. One event after another, following in ever-quickening sucession.
And then, just like that, it was over.
He was awe-inspiring. He was endlessly entertaining. He was damn infuriating. And he will be missed.
But this is how baseball works.
It's still really, really weird to see him Photoshopped into that Dodger-blue uniform.
Joe Torre managing Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Lowe, and Manny Ramirez. Baseball really is a funny game.
July 31, 2008
A big deal for "the man with snakeskin boots"
We'd tell you more, except the entire internet is down right now.
UPDATE Sports Illustrated says Jason Bay goes to Boston. Pittsburgh gets minor leaguers. We sincerely hope one of them is named Andy LaRoche. While we're in speculative mode, we wonder if LA also gets Jack Wilson somehow?
UPDATE 2 It is indeed LaRoche, finally freed from his Colletti-and-Torre-imposed purgatory. Red Sox also send Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss to the Pirates, with one more prospect (presumably from the Dodgers) headed Pittsburgh's way. That's all it took to pry Bay out of there in all this?
This is a good deal for the Red Sox - they get a guy who is closer to Manny offensively than we realize (they're five points of OPS+ apart; remember: it isn't 2005 anymore) and whose defense makes him even better. It would have been nice to get some bullpen help, but one could fairly argue that removing Hansen from the equation is addition by subtraction. Moss is a nice possible fourth outfielder, but it's hard to get too upset about that. Bullpen help is an overvalued commodity at the deadline, particularly when a lot of that help is still available off waivers in August.
This is a great deal for the Dodgers, surprisingly, who didn't give up anyone who fit into their plans - LaRoche is probably the best 3B on their roster but whatever - to get a two month rental of Manny, who replaces the slumping Andruw Jones in their lineup, and will help out in a close division. And Manny, Nomar, and Derek Lowe are reunited at last!
What seems odd is that the Pirates didn't get more than just those guys.
July 31, 2008
2:30 p.m. I'm having a hard time buying this myself, but if it's in the Globe it must be true: when approached for comment about the Manny situation, Curt Schilling had an opinion.