Boston Red Sox
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Ramirez, Sox End Volatile Relationship: Latest “Manny Being Manny” Antics Swelled Into Selfish Discontent, Forcing Boston To Make A MoveAugust 4th, 2008
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And just like that, he’s gone.
After 1,083 regular season games played, 274 home runs launched into the ether, and 868 runs driven in, Manny Ramirez will no longer stand before the Monster in left field wearing home whites with red embroidery. No longer will he bat behind David Ortiz, forming one of the most prolific offensive combos in the history of the game. And no longer will he stir that fickle cauldron mixed with absolute indignation and pure jubilation.
Just like that. Like so many of the baseballs that effortlessly smacked off the barrel of his bat. Gone. Long gone, in fact.
With just minutes, if not seconds, to go before the clock struck four on Thursday afternoon, the Red Sox sent the disgruntled Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers via the Pittsburgh Pirates in a three-way deal that landed All-Star outfielder Jason Bay—quite fittingly—in the Bay State.
In a move similar to the Nomar Garciaparra trade of 2004—and for largely the same reasons and under eerily equal circumstances—the player, teammates, manager, and front office all agreed: a point of no return had been reached, and Ramirez had to go; and what better place than Frank McCourt’s SoCal Red Sox Retirement Home. Read more
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Red Sox Roadkill: Inefficient Offense Away From The Friendly Confines of Fenway (Part 2 of 3)July 27th, 2008
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Just as life tastes better with KFC—well, according to the the ad jingle, at least—the Red Sox offense undoubtedly performs better at Fenway Park.
Hitting .297 with a .376 on-base and .475 slugging percentage at Fenway as a team, the Boston lineup scores an average of 5.8 runs per home game.
But, then, take that same crew away from Fenway: the team average drops; the accumulative OBP dips; and a power sap follows suit. As a result, the offense—prior to the club’s three-game series against the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field—has produced 4.3 runs per road game, ranking them towards the middle of the pack in the AL in terms of road run production.
Now, it’s no strange occurrence that an offense produces more at home than they do on the road. Various reasons, ranging from ballpark factors to simple creature comforts, play a role in the splits. Yet, despite the seemingly stark contrast between Boston’s home and road offensive splits, the Sox—with a .762 OPS away from Fenway—lead the AL in road average (.266), road on-base (.336), and road slugging (.425) through July 20.
This begs the question: based on the above, just how many runs should the Sox be averaging on the road?
It’s such a pity that there isn’t a way to calculate such things. Oh, wait. There is! Read more
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Red Sox Roadkill: Boston Flattened Away From Fenway … Again and Again (Part 1 of 3)July 23rd, 2008
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Inherent in the game of baseball are streaks of both good and bad luck. The everyday aspect of the sport often blinds us from these small sample size flukes that ebb and flow throughout the course of a long, marathon season.
And even though, at the zenith or nadir of these streaks, it doesn’t seem like anything will ever change, a trend in baseball can take a sharp turn in the opposite direction after just one at-bat, one start, or one game.
As such, also inherent in the game, due to these streaks of fortune, is irrationality.
A week or two of poor plate appearances from an overmatched rookie will leave us speculating on whether he’s ready for the major leagues. A series of grotesque pitching lines from a past-his-prime starter will cause us to look for greener pastures down on the farm. That is, until, said young, stud hitter or wily, veteran pitcher finds a groove, leaving our week-ago doubts long forgotten in the dust of today’s success.
You know, sort of like Alan Greenspan’s forewarning of irrational exuberance, only on a baseball scale instead of an economical one.
The same, of course, applies to teams. There are those seemingly unstoppable winning streaks where everything goes right. And then, conversely, there are those dreaded spate of L’s bunched closely together across the schedule—games in which everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong.
But, as the saying goes, things are never as good or bad as they seem. And in baseball, a team’s record—despite all the highest of highs and lowest of lows—more often than not ends up where it should based on the talent level of an organization and the year-end total performance of that talent. Or, in simpler phrasing, how many runs a team scores and allows over the course of a season.
There are, as always, exceptions. After all, games are played in ballparks, not in computer simulations. Sometimes the end results simply don’t match all the components. And sometimes that goes well beyond good and bad luck. Often, in these cases, it may just come down to poor roster construction—or, rather, a team with very strong strengths offset by very weak weaknesses.
With this in mind, meet the 2008 Boston Red Sox—a very talented club that plays nearly unbeatable baseball at home, yet a bipolar bunch on the road that usually finds a way to lose despite component numbers suggesting better outcomes.
Following yet another road sweep—their sixth on the season in totality—at the hands of baseball’s best in the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Red Sox own the worst road record among American League playoff hopefuls at 21-32—a winning percentage of .396 away from Fenway, an inexplicable mark placing the team closer to the Seattle Mariners’ level of (in)competence on the road.
Of course, it’s been a strange baseball year overall. Runs are down, the AL is out-pitching the pitcher-friendly NL, and the Tampa Bay Rays are still in first place as the baseball season inches its way towards August.
The oddity that is the ’08 season continues when looking at home and road records across the board. No team in the AL, outside of the Angels, is excelling on the road—in fact, the Halos possess the only above-.500 road record in the AL as of July 21.
But, in Red Sox land, that’s not an excuse nor should it be. After finishing as the AL’s best team on the road a season ago, the Sox, given their talent level, shouldn’t be mirroring the Mariners’ road winning percentage.
The question, then, is why? Although a simple query, the answer appears to be far more complex and multifarious.
However, the CliffsNotes version breaks it down into three distinct problem areas: a difficult road schedule, inefficiency on offense, and a bullpen bursting with arsonists.
O’Fer Southern California, Canada, and Florida
As mentioned, if the majority of the AL is struggling on the road, it goes without saying that most of the contenders are playing exceptional baseball at home. In turn, the Sox have played most of those contenders on the road.
If we separate the Sox road opposition thus far into two groups—above and below .500 teams—here’s how things shape up:
Against above .500 teams away from the friendly confines of Fenway Park, the Sox sit at 9-20—a lackluster standing that includes two winless trips through Tampa Bay and the aforementioned Mickey Mouse weekend in SoCal to kick off the second-half of the season.
Versus below or at .500 teams on the road, Boston fares a bit better with a 12-12 record—a tally worsened, and somewhat deceiving, due to an early April sweep by the Toronto Blue Jays, which came on the heels of the opening-season jaunt through Japan.
Now, this isn’t groundbreaking news. A good team will outplay the bad ones more often than the equally talented clubs. Then again, even Boston’s end results against the lesser road teams haven’t been all that inspiring, either.
Nonetheless, a possible silver lining may exist in the form of weaker road opponents the rest of the way. With 28 away games left—equating to nine series in all—the Sox will face off against only three teams with records significantly above .500 (Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, and the Rays).
What then remains on the away schedule includes a single tilt against the Texas Rangers and a pile of sub-.500 teams in the Kansas City Royals, Baltimore Orioles, Blue Jays, and the heavily picked upon Mariners.
As a result of, literally, an easier road ahead, ground can be made up away from home. But getting to 40 road wins will require a 19-9 run, which, at this point, seems like an unattainable goal for the Sox unless two specific road trends—offense efficiency and late-inning lead protection—take that sharp turn in the opposite direction.
In part two of this three-part breakdown of Boston’s wayward ways on the road, a deeper look at an otherwise productive offense reveals its warts when hitting away from Fenway.
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Halfway Point Revisited: Making The GradeJuly 20th, 2008
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The mid-season report card, better known as the beat writer’s great crutch, remains one of the more pointless routines in baseball journalism. After all, a baboon could regurgiate what a player has already done and fling arbitrary grades around.
So, since we all know that assigning high and low marks to individual players is nothing but a sham, I decided to take a stab at it as well, though with, hopefully, some predictive acumen in certain cases. Read more
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BoSox Need To Catch Some RaysJuly 9th, 2008
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Maybe the American League East won’t be much of a race, after all.
Doing their best Boston Celtics impersonation, the Tampa Bay Rays, in just a calendar year, have gone from worst to first. And while Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett don’t quite equate to the big ticket acquisition of Kevin Garnett from Minnesota, the two cogs have chipped in and helped change the dynamic of the once hapless Rays—a club that previously seemed destined forever to finish well-below .500 every season, continuing a long-standing tradition of being the butt end of countless jokes and jabs.
With a 55-32 record and .632 winning percentage heading into Monday’s afternoon contest against the Kansas City Royals, the Rays have upgraded from basement dweller status to baseball’s penthouse suite. And with a recent sweep of the second place Boston Red Sox, the red-hot Rays, winners of seven in a row and 11 of their last 12 games, sit atop the AL East with a didn’t-see-that-coming seven game lead in the loss column. Read more
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Halfway Point: BoSox Sit Atop The East … BarelyJune 30th, 2008
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Eighty-one games down, eighty-one more to go. Only the Red Sox can say they have played half their regular season schedule as of June 26—just one of the several perks of starting a season a week earlier than the rest of major league baseball.
So faux halfway points be damned. There’s no need to wait until July 15 when the Midsummer Classic bids adieu to the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium. The Sox have reached the epicenter of the Marathon, and the battle for American League East supremacy hangs in the balance, with a familiar rival Empire stealthily drawing nearer from the flank, while a new and unforeseen usurper continues to flex their muscle as they seek to dethrone last year’s victor.
Overdramatic much? Hell, yeah! But it’s our natural right, as both writers and baseball enthusiasts, to allegorize and sensationalize this glorified little game of stickball.
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Pedroia The Destroia Vs. The Sophomore SlumpJune 25th, 2008
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He stands about five-foot-nothing, armed with the biceps of a 12-year-old, looking more like one of the bat boys than a major leaguer. But that’s OK. Dustin Pedroia isn’t modeling in the latest billboard ad for Calvin Klein Underwear.
For what the diminutive second baseman lacks in the physique department, he makes up in his exceptional hand-eye coordination. And while short in stature, the pocket-sized Pedroia remains long on confidence, bordering on cocky—just ask his teammates.
“He’ll make an out against a guy throwing 98 (mph), and when he comes to the dugout, we’ll ask, ‘What’s he got?’” said outfielder Brandon Moss back in 2005 while playing with Pedroia at Double-A Portland. “Dustin will tell us, ‘He ain’t got &*@*!’”
Inculcated with a big ol’ case of the Short Man Syndrome after years of hearing the doubters and skeptics say that he couldn’t, Boston’s very own Napoleon has done nothing but hit since his collegiate days at Arizona State University to throughout his rising pro-career with the Sox following his second round selection in the 2004 amateur draft. Read more
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Just Like They Drew It Up: J.D. Silencing CriticsJune 19th, 2008
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The cost of crude oil by the barrel isn’t the lone commodity on the rise. Right fielder J.D. Drew—often ridiculed and much besieged by fans and local sports media during most of last season—is scaling new heights for the Red Sox.
Only, of late, Drew is making his hefty price tag seem fairer by the plate appearance.
While year one of his $70 million, five-year contract in Boston left even the most ardent of Drew defenders unfulfilled, the former first round pick—two times over—did end his debut season in a Sox uniform on a high note, finishing with a strong September that carried into the playoffs, which included a momentous grand slam in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.
But a closer examination of his first go-around in the American League would reveal a season much in line with his career output. That is, if you disregard his near two-month adjustment period to a league switch, different pitching—both personnel- and approach-wise—a new hitting venue, and the highly chaotic and fishbowl environment that makes up the Boston sports scene.
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Wrist & Relaxation: Big Papi Out At Least A MonthJune 7th, 2008
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He let loose his typical mighty swing—the type of violent hack meant to launch a baseball into an orbital rotation around the sun, or perhaps even beyond. A tick late on the incoming heater, he instead thundered a seemingly harmless foul ball off to the third base side.
But before the soon-to-be souvenir even found its way into the crowd, David Ortiz heard it: a disconcerting pop in his left hand followed by excruciating pain upon each subsequent movement of his wrist, which sounded off with a noticeable click.
An X-ray after the Monday night game against the Orioles in Baltimore revealed no damage, but an MRI the next day back in Boston would prove to be far more revealing. The extensor carpi ulnaris tendon in Ortiz’ left wrist had slipped from its sheath, which had suffered a partial tear, causing the connective tissue to grind and snap over the bone, hence the pesky clicking sound emanating from the area.
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May Farm Report: Promotions & Emotions - Part 2June 3rd, 2008
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Before diving into part two of my May farm report, I’d be remiss not to mention the upcoming amateur entry draft held this Thursday through Friday.
The Red Sox, as the defending World Champions, own the final pick, 30th overall, in the first round, but the club also has a supplemental first round pick, 45th overall, in their arsenal. That’s because pitcher Eric Gagne, although a major bust during his brief tenure with the Sox, signed with the Milwaukee Brewers as a Type B free agent—a status that earns the player’s former team a sandwich pick prior to the beginning of the second round. So, at least Gag-me was good for something.
If available, look for the Sox to nab junior shortstop Reese Havens out of the University of South Carolina with their first round selection Thursday afternoon.
The six-foot, one-inch left-handed hitter finished the collegiate season with a .359 batting for the Gamecocks, slugging 18 home runs in all while toting an impressive .486 on-base percentage. Havens also excelled in the Cape Cod Baseball League this past summer, adjusting well to wood bats as he batted .314 with five home runs.
