Posts Tagged ‘Red Sox’
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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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Bad luck or just plain bad?July 5th, 2008
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It’s July, and Cliff Lee is second in the AL in ERA and Wins. CC Sabathia is first in the league in strikeouts. Grady Sizemore is first in home runs. The Cleveland Indians: 12.5 games out of first place in the AL Central, and the second worst record in the American League. Wait, what?
If you read my last post, which I seemingly wrote forever ago, you might remember that I wrote, “If ever there was a chance for the Indians to make up some ground in the race, the next two weeks are it.” Well, what happened? Not only did they lose ground in the race (four games to be exact), but they essentially threw in the towel for the rest of the season. Case in point: when the Royals have a better record than your team, it’s time to look toward next season.
But before the Indians trade CC (trade rumors involve the Brewers, Cubs, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Rays), I’d like to discuss what will probably be a hot topic in Cleveland come the offseason: were the Indians bad, or did they merely suffer from bad luck?
The case for bad is pretty easy: the Indians stink. Currently last in the AL Central, the Indians can’t hit (.247 avg is worst in the AL) and the relievers can’t hold leads (worst save:blown save ratio in the AL). And, the pitching staff as a whole, despite leading the league in shutouts with 9, has given up the most home runs in the league (94) and has the 4th-highest batting average-against (.270).
Sure, Cliff Lee has been spectacular, and CC Sabathia finally came around after his horrific start, but in the month of June, the Indians were last in the AL in ERA (5.27). You could easily blame injuries for the poor offensive output the Indians have given, but in June, they hit .273, which while still ranking in the bottom-half of the league, is the best they’ve hit all season. In other words: when they pitch well, they don’t hit. When they hit, they don’t pitch well. Maybe it’s a sign of bad luck, but more likely: it’s the sign of a bad team.
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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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Blind Faith?June 25th, 2008
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I promised myself. Even in the face of everything I know about Phillies’ baseball, I promised myself. Upon starting this column, I promised myself. Even against my own intuition, I promised myself that this would be the one year I would believe, without reservations or criticism, in my beleaguered ball club. Don’t let me fool you though. It’s the same promise I and millions of Philadelphians make every year. Even now, as I watch Pedro Feliz feebly ground out to short to end the game- I want to believe, but this team sure finds ways to make it tough.
The last two weeks have been, in a word, brutal. With tonight’s 5-2 loss in Oakland, the Phillies have now lost six straight games. They’ve lost four straight series’. Since sweeping the Braves in Atlanta two weeks ago, the Phillies have won only two of their last 13 games. Despite their abysmal performance, they’ve managed to hold onto first-place in the NL East. However, their recent slide has allowed the Marlins to climb back within one game and opened windows of opportunity for both the Mets and Braves to rejoin the race. 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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(The Sound of Fingers Drumming on a Table)May 30th, 2008
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I’m bored. I hate off days. And if you add an off day to an afternoon game the day before, that means two nights without a game to watch. Sure, there are other teams on the television, but it’s not the same. It’s not our team.
For six months, baseball on the radio or on TV provides the steady background noise of our lives. The announcers are our friends, or at very worst, our annoying won’t-shut-up relatives (Big “hi” to Josh Lewin!) who finally kind of grow on us. You reflexively reach for the radio, trying to remember what time the game starts, or bounce back and forth trying to find which channel is televising the game before you remember: Off day.
The players need a break. We understand that. No one would ask them to play 162 games in a row without a day off. Heck, Seattle could use a couple of weeks off, sleep in late, try and find somewhere to get a nice cup of coffee and put their season back together. The Padres deserve some comp time for all of the 18- and 22-inning games they’ve been playing lately. And to be honest, the “Lost” finale was going to eat up two hours tonight anyway. But come Monday, June 9th, I’m going to miss the Rangers, even if they deserve the day off….
A Few Other Notes: Read more
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Sox Head West, Offense Goes SouthMay 30th, 2008
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Superman has his Kryptonite. Spider-Man has his forever-conflicting sense of responsibility. And the oh-so-close-to-being-immortal Achilles had that pesky heel thing.
But the fatal weakness for the Red Sox thus far this season has been quite simple—with no intergalactic travel required. Because just outside the friendly nooks and crannies of Fenway Park, the mighty Boston lineup tends to morph from a run-producing powerhouse into the motley crew that made up the anemic offense of the painfully awful ‘62 Mets.
OK, a bit of an exaggeration, for sure. After all, the Sox, despite a recent run-scoring outage, still maintain the second best road OPS in the American League. But with Boston dropping 10 of their last 12 away from the Fens—and averaging only 3.5 runs in the process—the team needs to take the nearest exit ramp off this road to perdition.
After the first six contests of a ten game trip—a West Coast swing through Oakland and Seattle before heading back east to square off against Baltimore this weekend—the Sox find themselves with only a single etch in the win column. Read more
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Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe … It Is For LesterMay 21st, 2008
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Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a down-on-your-luck screenwriter languishing away in the bottomless depths of the unjust Hollywood caste system. You’re miserable, depressed, and desperately trying to regain the talent and sanity you once had—if you ever truly had it at all.
But then, an epiphany hits you in the dead of the night like a surge of untapped creative energy. You can’t sleep. You have to write. Because the idea stuck in your brain that has launched into ceaseless jumping jacks won’t let you do anything else.
And then, in the midst of this artistic euphoria, let’s say you draft up this amazing baseball narrative about a top-notch pitching prospect that debuts at age 22 only to find out mere months later that he has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
With his career derailed in the immediate future, a long, hard road back to good health, let alone the big leagues, now awaits the young athlete—the perfect inspirational plot-line.
So, if you were writing this script, you’d then wonder how to end it. Sure, he’d battle back from cancer and certainly win his first start back in the majors, but how would you cap off the script, ensuring that no eyes were dry when the credits started to roll.
Would you have him winning the World Series clincher just ten months after completing radiation treatment?
Or would you have him tossing a no-hitter for the film’s final climax?
Well, against better judgment, you decide to have the protagonist accomplish both feats. But hey, you’re excited, and you can’t wait to pitch your yarn to the motion picture bigwigs … plus, you really want to quit working as a used-car salesman in Santa Monica.
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