Posts Tagged ‘Tampa Bay Rays’
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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: 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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Buyers and SellersJuly 20th, 2008
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Well, it is officially that time of year. With the trade deadline just around the corner, teams are either going to start their pushes for the playoffs or prep for next season. While some teams are always in the same selling mode, there are always a few surprising teams out to buy.
This year’s the surprise buying team is the Tampa Bay Rays. They have seem to come out of nowhere and are contending. They started the second half the season one half game out of first place (behind the Boston Red Sox).
The Oakland Athletics however, look to be in a sellers market. This is a different feeling for the A’s fan. For the past few years the A’s have contended each year.
With all the injuries last year, the A’s were not contenders but they didn’t sell out their player’s mid-season either. But that changed during the off-season.
During the previous off-season, the A’s became sellers. The team was involved in four trades that affected the team this year right away. Read more
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All Star Break: Back and ForthJuly 20th, 2008
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While Back-and-Forth would certainly be an accurate description of the Rangers to this point, a team written off for dead before April was over (at least twice…check our columns…) that has clawed its way back to the fringe of the playoff picture without sweeping an opponent yet. But this column is Back and Forth as Cary and I take turns looking at Texas topics for the second half. Cary’s answers will be in bold. Mine will be intelligent.
KEN: So, I’ll start this by tossing you a softball. (Just don’t hit it back at me….we both know I can’t field it…) Who is the Rangers’ MVP so far? The two-time player of the month, or are you going to avoid the obvious answer? 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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Bringing Back the Time-out ChairJune 7th, 2008
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For the past six or so years, my mom has babysat kids in the age range of eight months, to about five years. She normally has about three to five kids at a time, on the average. It’s hectic. And all of them, sans one or two over the time span, have been boys. You can imagine how crazy it is at our house. Luckily for me, I’m usually either at school or work during the times they are taking over the house, but I’ve observed some important things about life on days that I am there.
Everyone can reach back deep into their childhoods and recall the dreaded “time-out.” Typically, parents-slash-guardians-slash-babysitters put a misbehaving child in either a corner or an isolated chair for any given number of minutes in order for the child to “reflect” on their bad behavior without distractions or reward. It’s the classic childhood punishment. We’ve all been in “time-out” in some form or another, whether in this classical situation as children, or in the form of a friend, family member, or loved one giving the “cold shoulder.” As communal beings, we LOATHE being ignored. That’s why this kind of punishment is so effective.
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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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Luck? No, It’s Physics.June 5th, 2008
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I bet none of those guys - Newton, Einstein, etc - knew they were talkin’ ’bout baseball when they came up with all their theories. But oh! Look how nicely it all fits:
First Law of Motion: Once something is in motion, it usually stays that way until something really messes up its course.
Baseball is a game of patterns, and streaks. Seattle knows all about streaks, since it basically is the streakiest team in baseball. But it’s true, in essence, of every team. It’s also a game of contagion. Errors or mistakes (that may not be counted officially as errors, though you KNOW your players could’ve done better on that ground ball…) often come in pairs or series. The Angels are definitely a team of contagion, where most of their runs come in packages of two or three, and if one strikes out, the next two outs tend to follow shortly.
As far as streaks go, the Angels just finally ended a 13-game streak in which they only earned four or less runs per game. It took beating a division rival team stuck 13.5 games back to snap the streak. Luckily for the Angels, they were also 9-4 in that period, so it very little affected them, thanks to the great pitching as of late. They also had a streak of about a week where nearly every game ended in a walk-off. First, it was Anderson’s walk-off walk. Talk about the most exciting ending to a baseball game… zZzZz… and then it was Rivera’s walk-off single, Junior’s walk-off single, and my personal favorite, Kendrick’s getting beaned and Maicer’s subsequent walk-off single. Really, that’s all Kendrick is good for – getting beaned. Sure, it makes for very exciting baseball – to win by a run, or to win in the bottom of the ninth with two out and the bases loaded. But after a week of the same thing every game, it starts getting to my stress levels. STOP IT ALREADY!
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May-jor League Thoughts.May 30th, 2008
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The Indians are um, not good right now. So, instead of saying things like, “they need to make a trade (or four),” I have no confidence in any player unless they have an ‘SP’ in front of their name (besides Paul Byrd),” and “five of the worst fifteen (qualifying) batting averages in the American League belong to Indians hitters,” I decided to provide some miscellaneous thoughts from around the league from May. Also, a seriously-too-long rant in the middle that really gets me worked up:
There’s no way this and that aren’t related. In case you are too lazy to click, the first is a story about the government trying to subpoena 104 MLB players that tested positive for steroids in 2003. The second is a fantasy analysis on the state of relief pitchers in baseball, namely closers and their inability to, um, not suck. Hey, here’s a question: why are a lot fewer relievers throwing 95-100 mph? Everybody seems to be in the 88-95 mph range these days. Plus, they aren’t as effective as they once were, like 5 years ago. Also, on a completely different topic, over 100 players tested positive for steroids in 2003. That’s over 3 players per team. And that doesn’t even account for HGH. Must be a coincidence. Read more
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