Sunday, May 30, 2010

Game 52 - Red Sox v. Royals (@Fenway)

I've been touting individual stats quite a bit over the course of the first 51 games, with lots of comparisons and splits analysis (especially over time) to indicate how hot/cold individual pitchers and hitters have been. But after yet another good start from Jon Lester and yet another (over the past few weeks) day at the plate from David Ortiz I felt that going back to that well of 'Ortiz is the third best hitter in May' stuff would be overdoing it so I'll take a look at team stats over the month of May. Of course the fact that today was their last game in May gave me some good inspiration too :)

Offensively, the Red Sox finished May with the following standings across all of MLB (note that since some teams will be playing on Memorial Day, the positions could very well change, although probably not dramatically):

Runs scored: 1st (tied with 158)
Home runs: 3rd (with 40)
OPB: 5th (at .349)
SLG: 3rd (at .460)
OPS: 2nd (at .810)

So the offense is clicking right along, with numbers heavily influenced by great months from David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis and Adrian Beltre). But since they were ranked in the top 5 in offense in April, this isn't eye opening, just a good sign that the offense we saw early isn't a fluke.

Pitching-wise, we saw the beginning of the turnaround for the staff as a whole:

Wins: 4th (tied with 17...worth noting that they tied Toronto and Tampa Bay)
ERA: 20th (at 4.40)
BAA: 6th (at .239)
WHIP: 15th (at 1.34)

On the surface, only the Wins total looks especially good (which after all is the only number that really matters). The biggest change month-over-month was in the BAA, which went from .262 (18th best) in April to .239 (6th best) in May. The biggest contributors to the improvement? Some expected, and one big surprise:

Jon Lester: .161 BAA (3rd best, and best in the AL)
Daisuke Matsuzaka: .218 BAA (28th best, and 13th best in the AL)
Clay Buchholz: .257 BAA (68th best, and 29th best in the AL)

And in the bullpen, the setup men and closer had very good months:

Manny Delcarmen: .152 BAA (ERA of 1.98)
Daniel Bard: .184 BAA (ERA of 0.79)
Jonathan Papelbon: .189 BAA (ERA of 3.60)

Almost as important as the names that are on the list, are the names that aren't on the list, most notably Josh Beckett and John Lackey. If those two come back to be anything close to what we were expecting at the start of the season, and the rest of the staff continues to deliver at anywhere near what we saw in May, this is going to be a very, very tough team as the weather heats up.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Game 51 - Red Sox v. Royals (@Fenway)

How good has Clay Buchholz been lately? He's 4-0 in his last 4 starts (including tonight's game), with the following totals:

IP: 27.1 H: 18 ER: 4 BB: 11 K: 22

Which gives him an ERA of 1.32 and a WHIP of 1.06. And its not like he put those numbers up against bad offenses, with starts against the Twins, Tigers and Rays included there. My personal favorite stat, especially for Clay had him at 0.592 strikes/pitches which is below that 0.60-ish number that seems to mean success for him. It's only one game so I won't try to extrapolate too much, but maybe the fact that he still had a very strong start while going below the magical number indicates some kind of maturation as a pitcher? It wouldn't be completely unreasonable to think that a guy who now has 40+ starts in the majors, the most recent 20 or so with very strong results, is gaining more and more confidence by the outing.

With the Yankees loss today (that had to hurt given how badly Joba coughed it up), the Red Sox are now 2 GB in the Wild Card race and still 6.5 back behind the Rays.

Disclaimer: hokey tie-in to real life coming up...
Now that the Red Sox seem to be really executing on that pitching & defense style that they built the team around in the offseason, I'm beginning to like what I see (and yes, winning certainly helps). In general, I do prefer to see the 1-0, 3-2 types of wins instead of the 13-11 scores like the Yankees and Indians had today. And I can't help but draw an analogy to my son's reaction to doing 'free form' lego building today. The setup is that he loves Legos, but only has done the kits so far. He really gets into the instructions and looking for the right pieces to follow along with the instructions, but he got an issue of the Lego magazine (which is really brilliant marketing) recently had it has a contest to build a farm Lego (anything you want) and send in a picture of your creation. If you win, you get a $100 gift card to a Lego store. So we started working on it today, just breaking up all his existing cars and buildings so we had a good supply of parts, and I started making a cow out of random white and black blocks. He was trying too but got frustrated pretty quickly by the lack of instructions. I kept trying to tell him that he could just wing it and do whatever he wanted, but he just couldn't get into it. At a certain point he got so frustrated that he left the room, very upset. He came back a few minutes later and tried again, following my lead a bit to make his own cow. I encouraged him with whatever pieces he used or wanted, and then a light went on. Suddenly he had built 'Super Cow' and he was so into it, there was no going back. All through the rest of the day he would go back to his room for a bit to make some modifications (including wings, a fire and a 'laser shooter'...this was a very super, super cow!). So it took a little effort and pain, but once he made the turn to the free form Legos he was all over it....kind of like I'm getting with the pitching + defensively minded Red Sox :)

Friday, May 28, 2010

Game 50 - Red Sox v. Royals (@Fenway)

So, yeah, how about them Celtics? Pretty amazing performance from Nate Robinson tonight, as far as I can tell the guy has barely played at all this postseason, then he jumps off the bench and scores 12 in less than 10 minutes right when they needed it (since Rondo was out with after taking that nasty spill). So, uh...yeah, Beat LA!!

Um, what's that, the Red Sox played tonight too? Hmm, let me see what the score was...

WTF??!?!?! They gave up 12 runs to the Royals?? Who much to my surprise are currently middle of the pack in the AL for runs scored...did Willie Wilson and Bo Jackson come out of retirement? I saw Wakefield's line for the night, and decided to check out what his GameScore was, and he got a -1. I didn't even know that was possible, but he did it. Inspired by Wakefield's performance (or maybe so horrified that I have a morbid curiosity now), I decided to check game scores for other performances that come to mind, to see how bad he was in a historical sense. This is hardly an exhaustive survey, just remembering some other memorably bad games in Red Sox history. Interestingly enough, the ones that immediately come to mind are where the Red Sox batter the opposing pitcher.

June 27, 2003 - Carl Pavano didn't get an out, gave up 6 ER on 6 H on way to a 25-8 loss to the Red Sox. His game score? 14

October 16, 1999 - Roger Clemens pitched 2 IP, and gave up 5 ER in the ALDS (I was actually at this game at Fenway...Pedro v. Clemens, it was billed as a heavyweight match). His game score? 24

Ok, so I guess my memory isn't all that great because I couldn't think of any other good examples of bad games. So rather than rack my brain, I decided to spend some time building a game score calculator in JavaScript (see below) so if I think of others, I can just calculate the score here (note, if anyone tries it and finds it useful, post a comment with the game you tried and the score :) )

To use the JavaScript GameScore calculator, just enter the stats in the boxes below and as you move onto the next field, the points box at the bottom will update with the game score!



Total innings:

Innings after the 4th:

Strikeouts:

Hits:

Earned Runs:

Unearned Runs:

Walks:

GameScore:

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Game 49 - Red Sox v. Royals (@Fenway)

It's ironic that after running the gauntlet against the Yankees, Twins, Phillies and Rays (three first place teams and the current AL Wild Card leader) on the road, the Red Sox returned home tonight and lost to the lowly Royals.

Is there such a thing as letting your guard down in a game like baseball that in general, has fewer emotional highs and lows than in sports like football or basketball, which have shorter seasons (so more pressure per game) and run on more emotion (due to the high energy levels involved)? It's hard to say that was the case tonight, especially after watching Hermida botch a flyball to left that led to a run in an eventual 1-run win by the Royals. Also hard to say that it was a letdown looking at the box score and seeing Dice-K walk 8 guys in 4 and 2/3 innings (en route to throwing 112 pitches in less than 5 innings). And yeah, its even hard to say after seeing Dice-K allow a run on a wild pitch (after loading the bases with only one hit). Ok, ok, ok...no letdown theory in this one, just bad pitching and some shaky defense.

Obviously the bigger news in the Boston sports scene these days is the Celtics, who looked pretty bad last night against the Magic and the media is now all over as a team that looks very vulnerable. I didn't watch the whole game and missed most of the controversial calls (here's the crummy YouTube video since for some reason, finding high-quality video of the game is harder than my 15min of blogging/night allows)

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Game 47 - Red Sox v. Rays (@Tropicana)


One win against a good team (Philadelphia) when you're struggling doesn't even raise an eyebrow.

Two wins in a row against a good team (Philadelphia) when you're struggling looks like a fluke.

Three wins in a row against good teams (Philadelphia then Tampa Bay) makes you think there may be something to this.

Four wins in a row against good teams (Philadelphia then Tampa Bay) gets you excited for tomorrow's game.

That's really the best way to describe it right now, I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow's game instead of dreading it (worst case), or just being totally ambivalent to it (best case). The Red Sox are really starting to hit a stride that we had all hoped they would. Red Sox starters over the last 4 games, against very good lineups, have allowed one earned run. The Red Sox pitching staff has held Tampa Bay to one run in the last 18 innings, a season low in back to back starts for Tampa Bay (previous was 2 runs in 2 days against the A's on May 8 + 9, and that was on the road in Oakland).

Jon Lester is really establishing himself as the ace of the staff, and he's arguably the best left hander in the majors over the past few seasons. This year he's 6th in WHIP and tied for first in SO among left handed starters in the majors after tonight's start. And then there's Big Papi, with the following stats over the last 30 days:

AVG/OBP/SLG HR RBI
319/375/681 8 20

Things are indeed turning around...

Monday, May 24, 2010

Game 46 - Red Sox v. Rays (@Tropicana)

Dare I say, things appear to be turning around?

This was a very good win tonight, not only because it was against the best team in the majors, on the road, and THE division rival at this point in the season, but also because Clay did it again. He's had a very strong start (6IP, 6H, 1BB, 8K) against the 4th best offense in the majors (in terms of runs scored). Clay is now 11th in the AL in ERA and second in the AL in wins, leading the team with 6. And yes, wins are largely meaningless for starters, but I had to throw that in since I have him in one of my espn fantasy leagues (a team that ironically also has Lester and Beckett, so I'm struggling for W's...go Clay!)

At the plate, Big Papi is clearly coming around with a 1.337 OPS over the last 7 days, joining both Kevin Youkilis (1.609) and Victor Martinez (1.400) in the top 35 in the majors for that time period. So the offense is chugging, and the pitching is shaping up, I've even seen much better defense of late (granted, this is largely anecdotal from a handful of web highlights and a few innings here and there from national broadcasts, but hey, it's something).

The Red Sox have won 3 in a row now and are 7.5 games behind Tampa Bay, 2.5 behind the Yankees for the wild card. It's way too early to really put much stock into either number, but at least the deficit is heading in the right direction for once this season :)

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Games 44 & 45 - Red Sox v. Phillies (@Citizens)

I was saying to my wife over breakfast today that there would be a lot of disappointed readers today since I didn't get a post in last night about the Saturday night game against the Phillies. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "There will be alot of disappointed readers on my blog today"
Her: "Mmm hmm, and why is that?"
Me: "Because I didn't blog last night, and I had promised a movie review"
Her: "Mmm, hmm"
Me: "But don't worry, I've got a backup plan"
Her: "Mmm, hmm"

At that point I could take the hint so I moved back to eating my waffles.

So yeah, I didn't get a post in last night after Dice-K's near no-hitter, no excuse other than just too tired to get on the computer. We had gone out for pizza with the kids after watching a little of the Celtics game at my in-laws house and over dinner I checked the Red Sox score on my phone. It was the 6th and the Phillies didn't have a hit yet. Being the naturally superstitious baseball fan, I didn't say anything other than show my wife the box score and point at the hits column for the Phillies. I guess my finger was too fat or pointing in the wrong place because she said "is there something special about Placido Polanco?". I recalibrated my pointing and then she caught on and gave me the good advice of putting my phone away during dinner so I wouldn't jinx it. Dice-K may have lost the no-hitter in the 8th, but at least it isn't hanging over my head today.

The performance overall put me back into the well-maybe-he-CAN-contribute-something-this-year camp after all. I was pretty disgusted with him after the start in New York last week, but throwing a 1-hitter against a good Phillies offense isn't anything to sneeze at, so I'll hold out some hope, I guess we'll need to give it a month or so to see what he's really got this year.

Today's game was even more encouraging. The game was on TBS so I watched most of it, and while Roy Halladay clearly didn't have his best stuff today (lots of pitches out over the middle of the plate), the Red Sox offense looked very good in taking advantage of all the mistakes. Youk in particular hit some rockets, which reminded me of the way he was hitting the ball in 2008 (everything was hard, even outs), and having Ellsbury back at the top of the order makes the lineup tougher because Scutaro is a reasonably tough out in the bottom third. So they did what I was hoping for (take 2 out of 3 against the Phillies), and now head to Tampa Bay for another 'must win 2 out of 3' series (at least in my mind). I look at the need to win games more to show themselves (and fans of course) that this actually is a good team more than to make up ground in the standings, there's plenty of time left in the season for the latter, not as much for the former.

Now the really tough news, no movie review. After we dropped off the kids at the in-laws we realized we didn't have enough time to make any of the three movies we had talked about, so decided to get some lunch instead. The food was good, but the place (Cactus in Alki) had one problem for me, slow service getting water refills. To be fair, I do drink alot of water with my meals, but the combination of small-ish water glasses and slow rounds by the waitress to refill left me thirsty...and sparked an idea. In addition to reviewing restaurants on food (with stars), cost (with dollar signs), how about rating a place based on the size of the water glasses? Sure it would only be of interest to the handful of other thirsty diners like myself, but I would absolutely pick a restaurant based on this criteria if all other things were equal. The larger water glass makes my meal more enjoyable because I don't have to be on the lookout for a waitress while I'm eating, rationing out my water so I don't run out before I get a refill.

So there you have it, hopefully the brilliant water glass restaurant review metric idea makes up for the lack of post yesterday!

Friday, May 21, 2010

Game 43 - Red Sox v. Phillies (@Citizens)

When does John Lackey start to turn it around?

With the recent performances from Lester and Buchholz, and putting Beckett on the DL (which is good news as long as it's not a serious injury since it means that Beckett's poor start is due to injury), it's time for Lackey to start pitching like the guy who signed that big contract in the offseason. Lackey's ERA in May is now up to 5.46, which is not only high, but a little troubling given his ERA in the April/May over the past 3 seasons has been:

April: 2.19
May: 3.08

So, unlike Lester, he's not a traditionally slow starter. I'm guessing part of it is trying to prove his worth to the team, since Lackey has always come across as a guy with a ton of pride in his work. Compared to his career stats, Lackey's strikeouts/9innings are down (5.6 this year compared to 7.1 over the previous three) and his walks/9innings are up this year (3.8 this year compared to 2.3 over the previous three), which obviously is impacting his overall effectiveness.

By the way, kudos to the Angels fan (at least I'm assuming it's an Angels fan) who sponsored Lackey's page on baseball-reference.com, I like the Benedict Arnold reference and it's surprisingly bitter coming from a laid back Californian :)

Looks like my wife and I may end up seeing a movie tomorrow, candidates include Date Night (meh), Robin Hood (yay) and MacGruber (I can't believe I just typed that), so hopefully I'll have a movie review + a post about a Dice-K shutout to write about tomorrow night!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Game 42 - Red Sox v. Twins (@Fenway)

I have to admit, I barely know that they won today given a way too busy day at work and just a few minutes on the bus ride home to check the score on my phone. I guess Lester pitched quite well, and the offense is continuing to do its job.

Big series coming up against the Phillies, a team that is not only good (like the Twins), but playing well recently (unlike the Twins). The pitching matchups:

Fri: Lackey v. Hamels
Sat: Matsuzaka v. Kendrick
Sun: Wakefield v. Halladay

Don't look super inspiring (that Saturday game looks like a fireworks explosion just waiting to happen), but winning 2 out of 3 doesn't look impossible if they win Friday night. Given the Red Sox have hit lefties fairly well so far this year (team OPS of 0.814 v. 0.794 for righties), there's reason to believe they'll win that game IF (and it's a big if) Lackey gives them a strong start. He really only needs to give them 6 good innings since the bullpen is rested thanks to Lester's CG tonight.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Game 41 - Red Sox v. Twins (@Fenway)

First things first, Clay's strikes/pitches ratio was outstanding tonight at 0.653, which translated to a very strong start and a Red Sox win against a good Twins team. It sure would have been sweet to have three in a row against top teams in the AL, but I'll take the 2 out of 3 given that Monday night was just a choke job by one guy (a very important guy, but still just one guy). With the win, the Red Sox are still 8.5 games out of first, but only 4.5 games out of the Wild Card, which based on the torrid pace the Rays are on, is what the Red Sox should be shooting for.

Also, in a strange way, I was glad to read that they put Beckett on the DL. You never want to see a guy get hurt, but I'm interpreting this as there really is something physically wrong with him, which lessens the sting of his poor start to the season. Hopefully with the downtime, his back heals up and he comes back in a few weeks in the form that we all expected him to be in at the start of the season.

Back to Buchholz, he's been the best of the starters so far this year, leading the team in ERA, ERA+ and Wins. Let's hope that the other guys start following suit!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Game 40 - Red Sox v. Yankees (@Yankee Stadium)

Thanks to MLB Network I was able to catch the last inning on TV tonight, it was actually on even earlier but I chose the Celtics/Magic game over the Red Sox. I made the right choice given how great of a game the Celtics game was, Jeff Van Gundy said at some point that this Celtics team is every bit as good as the team that won the NBA championship in 2008 and I agree. The declines (due to age) of Allen, Garnet and Pierce have been offset by the emergence of Rondo, the guy is just a stud and I don't see anyone of the remaining point guards being able to slow him down, never mind stop him.

As for the Red Sox, it was yet another up and down game. Beckett stunk once again, and Papelbon was super shaky in the 9th, but they got the win and thats what matters. The question I keep asking myself is, how long does John Farrell have as the pitching coach? If there's nothing physically wrong with Beckett, and there's no reason not to put him on the DL given that they have Wakefield in the pen, then I see a trend of bad mechanics in a bunch of the pitchers, most notably tonight's starter and closer. Beckett has the worst ERA in the majors among starters with enough innings to qualify, and Lackey is 86th. That's absolutely abysmal for two guys that are making big money on new contracts. I'm sure that part of their struggles are due to pressing, they both come across as driven, emotional guys, but there's also part of this that has to fall on the pitching coach (again, if no injuries are involved) since there's nothing in either guy's track record that would lead you to believe they'd be this bad.

So they're back at .500, 8.5 GB the Rays who just never seem to lose, and heading home to play the Twins and Phillies for the next 5 at Fenway. I'm very much in 'prove to me I should get excited' mode at this point, a 4-1 run over the next 5 would at least get me going in that direction.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Game 39 - Red Sox v. Yankees (@Yankee Stadium)

I'm not going to panic.

I'm not going to panic.

I'm not going to panic.

Ok, so maybe I'm not going to panic, but I am going to get pissed off. What the F was that tonight? Sure, the offense looked pretty good. But you've got to be freaking kidding me with the PATHETIC performances from Dice-K to start the game and Papelbon to end it. I guess I should be more ticked off at Papelbon, given that the Sox fought back to take the lead in the 8th, only to see him completely and utterly implode in the 9th, but that P.O.S. performance by Dice-K to start the game shouldn't be overlooked either. The first 6(!) goddamn hitters in the first made it on base, before he retired Thames on a sac fly to center, which was the second out...the first coming on a play at the plate. That's an incredibly weak start from a guy who has a ton to prove this year, and actually showed some signs of proving it in his last start. Dice-K's line for the night was a horrid:

4.2IP 9H 7ER 3BB 3K

I think he's got another start for sure, but if he bombs in it the Red Sox can't be patient, time to get Wakefield back into the rotation and let Dice-K figure out his act in either triple-A or the bullpen.

And then there was Papelbon. Watching the highlights of the 9th, he had no control whatsoever. The ball that A-Rod hit out to tie the game was supposed to be down and inside and Paps threw it high and outside. Then the pitch to Thames was supposed to be down and away, instead it was mid thigh and inside. You have to give the Yankees credit for taking advantage of the mistakes, but this was just pathetic pitching from two guys that are getting big contracts and need to do better, especially in big games like this.

The thing that made the game especially tough was that I had checked the score on my way home and saw it was 6-1 early, so gave it an 'wtf dice-k!' in my car, then started to accept the fact that the season was sliding away very quickly now. That turned into excitement when I checked the score after dinner on my phone (while my kids were playing games on sproutonline.com), and saw that they had clawed back to take the lead at 9-7. This was it! (I told myself), the game that was going to turn the whole season around and spark that big run that the Red Sox so desperately need to get into the race. Then I flipped my phones score mode to 'at bat' mode and saw that Gardner doubled, and my stomach started to turn like it has so many times (albeit not as much over the last few years), knowing that Teixeira and ARod were coming up with good chances to tie it. After the Teixeira out, the scoreboard on my phone said 'in play, run(s) scored' for ARod. I frantically hit refresh as I tried to get a 3G signal (the reception in my home office is spotty), until there it was, 2 run homer to tie it....f it (using my inner voice of course).

Thank god the Celtics are playing tomorrow, I'm afraid of what kind of carnage there might be with Beckett on the mound against the Yankees.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Games 37 & 38 - Red Sox v. Tigers (@Comerica)


There were a couple of disappointments this weekend. First, my streak of blogging right after each game was broken. It was actually broken on Friday night when I konked out on the couch around 9pm watching something on the Food Network with my wife, too tired to even check the score, never mind crank out one of my exceptionally high quality blog posts, I shuffled off to bed dreaming of Rachel Ray and Guy Fieri in some weird dream that I won't recount here (other than to say, there was food involved). So like an aging slugger, I tried to shrug it off and come back strong on Saturday, but admittedly went the blogging equivalent of 0-4, with a couple of strikeouts (one looking). I wrote about Friday's game but barely checked out the box score and highlights before (or during) my writing. When I went back to review the tape I saw that I wrote one thing (about the Tigers being a good offensive team) without checking my stats to see they're actually a middle-of-the-road offensive team (at least in terms of runs scored). I even caught the error but just posted the blog anyways, not a strong effort at all.

Then on Saturday I spent several hours out in the yard digging up a flower bed to make way for some new dirt. The stuff around my house is all rocks, clay and sand, so even digging a 15ft long x 3ft wide x 1ft deep trench is a back breaker. Everything, including my lifeblood, typing hands (as opposed to my driving hands which are still pristine) was aching so again I shuffled off to bed early. At least last night I had some semblance of hope that things were really turning around for the Red Sox. Earlier in the day we had a guy come buy to go over a window estimate for our house and the guy was a baseball fan (apparently from the Bronx but he was smart enough not to bring this point up too often for fear of losing the sale). He mentioned how Big Papi had a good game the night before and I had just checked Saturday's score on my phone to see more good signs from Papi. The score was 6-2 with a resurgent Lester on the mound so things seemed in good hands.

I wake up today, do some more godawful digging in the yard then come in to have breakfast and check the scores from last night....and they lost. Ok, I think, well at least we can get 2 out of 3 to start the road trip, which at this point is progress. But then Lackey goes out and struggles (again) and we end up losing 2 out of 3 to the Tigers. This shouldn't be a big deal, but when the Red Sox are clearly struggling to get something going, they really need to start putting some series wins together and while the Tigers are good, they're certainly a team that the Red Sox should be taking 2/3 against when Verlander isn't seeing the mound in the series, and Lackey + Lester are.

I'm seriously beginning to lose hope, just as I'm planning a trip back east with my family, and we're picking dates so we can see a Sox game at Fenway.

At least my back feels better today.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Game 36 - Red Sox v. Tigers (@Comerica)

Let's hope this was the beginning of a hot streak for Big Papi, 2HR (and from what I read today on Boston.com, they were blasts). The Red Sox offense has been a pleasant surprise so far this season even with very little contributions from Papi, but getting his bat back into the swing of things (pardon the pun!) would go a long way to making this team tougher as we start to head into the summer.

Clay Buchholz's start was effective, although a little ugly when looking at the 5 BB and 111 pitches it took him to get through 6 1/3rd innings. On the bright side, this is a good sign that he can still be effective even without his control (which I've written about a few times already this season). For comparison, his strike/pitch ratio for this game was only .576, which is well below the 0.61-ish number that it seems come with his best starts. But the fact that he still only allowed 1 ER and 3 H against a reasonable good offense is encouraging. Actually now that I look the Tigers aren't all that great at the plate, they're 14th in MLB in runs scored despite having good starts from Cabrera, Jackson, Damon and Ordonez. Looking a little deeper they're team OBP is very good (4th best in MLB), but their power isn't comparable at 12th in MLB. Given that, the 5BB makes sense...not so bad after all Clay!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Game 35 - Red Sox v. Blue Jays (@Toronto)

Tough loss today given the goings on in the 9th inning with Dale Scott blowing not one, but two calls. I've always had Scott next to Tim Tschida (he of the 'Knobby' comment in the postgame interview of a 1999 playoff game between the Yankees and the Red Sox, pictured here), as one of my least favorite MLB umpires, and he came through in spades today. The video from MLB.com really shows it all, from the horrible called strike 3 against Papi on a ball 8" off the outside edge, to the pathetic called strike on a check swing by Adrian Beltre immediately after that. Obviously these calls didn't cost the Red Sox the game, but they sure didn't help either. Boston.com has a nice graphic of it too, I love that this data is available for anyone to see now, hopefully it keeps umpires a little more honest.

So that was the game, now time to both praise MLB and knock them...first the sugar. I'm glad that mlb.com had the video that I linked to above, it would have been easy for them to edit out the questionable calls, especially since with all the replays and strike zone graphics, you can really see how bad the called 3rd strike is. So kudos to them for showing the video even though it makes one of their employees look...well, not so good. Now for the vinegar...why can't these coders over there get a freaking embed button on their video player so I can just put the video on my blog? Is this some kind of legal issue or just blatant omission from their video player? And even if it is a legal issue (because I know its not a technical issue), can we at least get a button to get the link to the actual video guys? They have buttons to post to Facebook, Twitter, Digg or even email it to someone, but no place to just get the damn link and copy it (I had to email it to myself to get the link for this blog). C'mon mlb.com, you're making the guys at espn.com look good.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Game 34 - Red Sox v. Blue Jays (@Fenway)

Thank god for the Blue Jays. Just when you're ready to get down in the dumps about the season after losing 2 out of 3 to your biggest rival, in stroll the Blue Jays for a quick pick me up. Sure the standings say the Blue Jays are 0.5 games better than the Red Sox so far this year, but with a 5-0 record against Toronto it's hard to see that lasting much longer.

The big story in tonight's game was the battery, Dice-K pitched very well (3H and 0BB, the latter being the big story for a guy who is notorious for being a nibbler), and Jason Varitek hit his 6th HR of the season, so he's second on the team despite only having 38 AB!. To put that in perspective, his HR/AB ratio is 0.15, based on that, there's a 15% chance he'll hit a home run when he steps to the plate. Of guys with 6+ HR here are his closest competitors:

Paul Konerko: 0.13
Nelson Cruz: 0.11
Rod Barajas: 0.10
Andruw Jones: 0.09
Jason Heyward: 0.09

Actually now that I look at some stats, the bigger story really is Dice-K. This was arguably his best start since late 2008. The last one that's comparable to this was against, you guessed it, Toronto when he had this line on September 21, 2008:

7.0IP 2H 0R 2BB 6K 109pitches

I had heard he was throwing well in the minors and maybe even feels that he has something to prove after the lousy season he had last year, but could he really round into the same form as 2008? Actually I'd like to see him do even better because that year I remember lots of games where he got wins, but was frustratingly hesitant to throw strikes to batters on any consistent basis (his strike percentage in 2008, 61% was actually lower than 2009 when it was 62%). Tonight he was at 67%, let's hope he keeps those numbers up in his next start which should come next Monday against the Yankees in NY.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Game 33 - Red Sox v. Blue Jays (@Fenway)

Seriously, what is going on with the starting rotation here? The only thing that saved Lackey from really getting panned is how bad some of the other recent performances have been:

Lackey tonight: 6IP, 8H, 6R, 3BB, 6K
Buchholz Saturday: 5IP, 9H 6R, 5BB, 1K
Beckett Friday: 5.1IP, 9H, 9R, 3BB, 8K

that and the fact that Brandon Morrow (fresh off being picked up by yours truly in both of my fantasy leagues, just send my Fantasy GM of the Year award to my PO Box), was even worse.

At what point should John Farrell start to worry about his job security?

On the bright side, at least our old, maybe-should-retire DH isn't sleeping on the job like some of his peers.

Then again, I haven't heard the Seattle Mayor say anything along the lines of "remember when Jack Sikma doubled down the line to drive in Griffey in 95?!?"

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Game 32 - Red Sox v. Yankees (@Fenway)

At the risk of using a dumb superstition, maybe it's me.

Since the game was on ESPN tonight, I settled in at 5 to start watching (it's been 4 years since we moved out here and it's still a little strange for me to watch sports earlier in the day than God intended, but I'm getting there). We (my kids and wife were into it too, after an exciting end to the Celtics game earlier that led into some good bug hunting in the back yard afterwards) watched the first inning and a half. It was around then that realized that we didn't really have anything good to make for dinner, so combine that with it being Mother's day and my daughter already asking about eating out earlier so we went out to pizza to celebrate, on our way out the door it was 1-0.

After we got to the restaurant and ordered, I broke out my phone to check the score and lo and behold, it was now 6-0, and Lester hadn't allowed a hit yet. But no sooner had I hit refresh on my browser a couple of times (I still use the mobile browser even though I have a better app for this stuff, old habits die hard), that the no-hitter was gone, but so was the shutout thanks to a Nick Swisher home run. I hit refresh another time and POW, an ARod home run had made it 6-2. I quickly shoved my phone back into my pocket before Robinson Cano hit a 5-run homer to give the Yankees the lead. While I was eating my salad, my son blurts out 'whats the score', which my wife got a kick out of because he wasn't really using good manners, something both he and his sister are working on, but also because she felt thats what I got for exposing them to so much sports. Funny thing was, his tone totally resonated with me so I shot back with 'after I eat my salad' and we were done, until I had in fact, finished my salad. I sheepishly took the phone out and hit refresh, and it was now 9-2, all was well en route to a much needed win to end the series.

I'm in no way excited, but maybe, just maybe if I don't follow the next few games as closely as I have been, there will be a string of wins ahead (oh and by the way, great start by Jon Lester and I AM still being hopeful about David Ortiz turning it around...and I'd write more but ironically enough, I got a trade offer to acquire Dallas Braden in one of my fantasy leagues, so I better tend to that before the offer gets pulled of the table!)

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Game 31 - Red Sox v. Yankees (@Fenway)

I read a quote from Mitch Williams today (Mitch had picked the Red Sox to win the division) where he basically said 'you can't win the division in April, but you can lose it, and based on their start, the Red Sox are done'. Call me overly loyal, but even after last night's drubbing and overall mediocre performance to date, I thought it was a bit much to say they're done with so much baseball left to play, but I am inching closer to that realization after today's loss.

I won't even bother with the analysis of Clay's start, he sucked, the offense sucked, the bullpen sucked and the defense sucked. Since the game was on Fox, I got to tune in to see CC Sabathia, despite not having his best stuff or control, keep the Red Sox in check while at the same time, pitcher after pitcher (started with Buchholz, through Schoenweiss and Bard), left meatball after meatball out over the plate. It got so bad that even Tim McCarver realized it (he made a dead on observation about a poor pitch from Buchholz to Mark Teixeira that led to Tex' first home run of the game).

What's most staggering (to me at least) about the Red Sox this year is their team stats and relative positions in the league:

Runs scored: 6th in all of MLB
Runs allowed: 3rd worst in all of MLB

So basically, the team has performed exactly opposite to what everyone (possibly including their own management thought. How does a team with what seems to be a great pitching staff, get such horrid pitching performances over the course of the first 30+ games? Let me try some analysis (disclaimer, I'm typing this as I research it so who knows if this will lead anywhere). Pitching is about keeping the other team from scoring, and the other team scores by getting men on base, so how have the Red Sox pitchers done in keeping guys off the bases:


Opponents AVG:
.263 (17th in MLB)
Opponents OBP: .336 (18th in MLB)
Opponents SLG: .766 (23rd in MLB)

While none of those numbers (or their ranks) are good, they also don't imply that the staff would be the 3rd worst in all of MLB at preventing runs. So that leads me to think it's either poor defense, or just really poor pitching 'when it matters' (i.e. with runners in scoring position, or giving up loads of home runs...or worse, both). So let's take a look at that data:

Team defense: I'm not familiar enough with defensive stats to know if there are a set of great indicators for team defense, but I did just spend a few minutes looking at where Boston sits relative to other teams in the AL with respect to the team defense stats reported on baseball-reference.com, and I don't see anything that shows the Red Sox being in the basement defensively (certainly not bad enough to drag down an average pitching staff).

When-it-matters pitching: Boston is 8th in MLB in home runs allowed and 6th in MLB in total baserunners allowed, so while they're slightly below the middle of the pack when it comes to putting guys on base, they are much worse than the field in giving up multiple bases per hitter. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a site that has "opponents average with runners in scoring position", which at this point would seem to be a rather telling stat.

At this point, I'm left to conclude that it's mostly the pitching (which the stats bear out), and that it's probably a lack of clutch pitching that is the driver of the godawful start.

Lets hope the Celtics + Bruins grab a couple of wins over the next two days to give us something else to think about.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Game 30 - Red Sox v Yankees (@Fenway)


...and this is what I thought might happen. I was hesitant to get excited after the sweep of the Angels because lets face it, the Angels aren't setting the world on fire so the real test was going to be again the Yankees, and while it's only game 1 of the series, it's a tough loss when you've got your nominal #1 starter (emphasis on nominal) going against the other team's nominal #5 starter (again, emphasis on nominal). I hope there's something physically wrong with Beckett, because this was an absolute stinker of a start that saw his ERA skyrocket to 7.46 for the season, that's AWFUL (which is saying something for a guy that had already given up 7+ ER in two out of 6 starts on the season).

I'm not even going to bother discussing the game anymore since talking sports would also remind me of how terrible the Celtics were (I guess LeBron's elbow is ok after all) or how the Bruins lost in overtime...for all the hype over Boston's big sports night, best let it go.

I did see Iron Man 2 this morning though and since I do have a rating system, I figured I'd dust it off and put it to good use. Overall, IM2 wasn't nearly as good as the first one, partly because they screwed up with Mickey Roarke as the villain. He had great potential, but his character was just kinda lame, and what's with the jump rope weapon ('look out Iron Man, I'm going to double-dutch you to death!'). The other big flaw was the attempt to make Tony Stark more 'human' with the storyline about how that thing in his chest is affecting his health. Sorry guys, but what made Robert Downey Jr + Tony Start so great in the first movie was that he was a balls out playboy, rich with tons of women around him and smart enough to build robot suits in his basement, what else could you want? Adding the human element stripped that away a little and made the movie less entertaining (at least it did for me). On the plus side, Scarlett Johansson looked H-O-T, especially in that tight black jumpsuit thingy, rrrrraarrrrrrrrrr. But even that came at a cost as her appearance made Gwyneth Paltrow look, well, old. I've never been a big Gwyneth fan, but thought she looked good in the first movie, but the combination of a couple of years later and Scarlet in a tight jumpsuit was too much for her this time around. Enough with the babe analysis, on to the review:

Dumb (0-3 stooges): ok, so here's a flaw with my rating system...I'd actually rate this as pretty dumb, but not in a good way. I'm going to give it 1 stooge, and it's a Larry...not sure exactly what that means but it seems to fit.

Funny (0-10 LOLs): urgh, another flaw. Didn't I realize that I don't just see comedies, what was I thinking? I think I laughed once (probably at the Larry Ellison cameo), so I'll give it 1 LOL.

Length (1.5-2hrs): I think IM2 was in at just around 2hrs, which puts it at the outer limit of what I can generally tolerate.

So yeah, overall it wasn't that good, and I just realized how flawed my review system is...another thing to be pissed about today!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Game 29 - Red Sox v. Angels (@Fenway)

Ok, so yeah, I am getting a little more intrigued in this team after a 4 game sweep of the Angels, but I'm holding out on actual optimism until after this weekend against the Yankees, mostly because the Angels are sliding so while sweeping a team that's down is what a good team should be doing, it doesn't exactly prove to me that the Sox are for real just yet. Taking 2 out of 3 against the Yankees this weekend would do that.

On a completely unrelated note (if you're heard to read baseball, you can stop reading, I'm about to go on a work-related rant)...I had one of those 'what the f' moments today at work while trying to do some testing on an upcoming release of my team's software. While trying to use the internal version of our site, I was experiencing just ridiculous slow downs, to the point where I couldn't tell if there were actual bugs v. just slow network connectivity internally. It got so bad that I basically had to stop and wander around, asking my team if they too were seeing similar issues. I got the usual recommendations like 'change your proxy' which is a reasonable thing to suggest, but for some reason today, just flipped my 'what the f' bit and I went on a rant about how ludicrous it is that this kind of stuff is still a problem these days, especially at large corporations that have resources to build great infrastructure for their teams, but don't (or at least sure feel like they don't). I suppose there's a bottom line somewhere that has to be met, but since my employer is certainly very profitable, it doesn't seem that our bottleneck is a lack of resources, but rather a lack of good investment (at least from this engineer's view) of those resources. Of course it didn't help that earlier in the week I spoke with someone who was interested in a coding job on my team, and the guy was just awful, couldn't even get through the basics of my standby C++ question, and yet he's got a job at my company, urgh.

Speaking of wastes of corporate resources, I love this device:

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Game 28 - Red Sox v. Angels (@Fenway)



Nomah!!!!!

I really like the fact that the Red Sox have been able to patch up the whole Nomar thing. The way things ended in 2004 always left a bad taste in my mouth, not just because of the trade, but mostly because of the connections people tried to draw between his departure and the eventual World Championship that year. Sure I've heard all kinds of stuff about how he was difficult and hornery, but he was a hell of a player for them for many years and I always felt like he got the shaft after he left, so good for him.

As for the game today, another positive step forward with a prototypical game that had good pitching and defense and enough offense to get a W. And of course it was heartening to see Papi's line for the night with a couple of hits, including an opposite field home run. His home run was about the only good news I had on my drive home, as 405 was a parking lot and even the surface roads were abysmal, so my usually 15min drive. Good thing I have a smartphone now so I can get scores when I'm stuck, since it's either that or listen to the local sports guys try and talk hockey (seems that the Canucks are getting way more attention around here this year than in years past, no doubt due to people trying to forget the Sonics).

Let's try and get a sweep tomorrow so we're on a roll for the Yankees!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Game 27 - Red Sox v. Angels (@Fenway)

Several good things about tonights 5-1 win over the Angels, in no particular order:

(1) Another good start from Lester, seems to be coming out of his early-season funk as he's gone 15 innings in his last 2 starts combined with 1 ER and 16 K's

(2) Good defense, Scutaro made a heck of a play on the grounder from Morales (ironically this pushed across the only Angels run) and saw another nice place on the double play by Pedroia in the 8th against Abreu.

(3) Clutch hitting (at least in he 8th), granted it looked to me like Rivera misplayed Hermida's fly ball into a double, but we'll take it, and another double by Lowell to make it 5-1 was good to see.

On the downside Papi just looks terrible. While it's possible I've only seen his worst at bats given the small sample size of clips that I get to see, the stats are bearing out that he's just dreadful right now. Time to give up? No, but Lowell should be starting at DH at least 4x a week if you ask me.

Now if someone (yes I'm looking at you Mariners) could beat the Rays in a series, we might start to climb into this thing.

By the way, I really enjoyed the latest from Chad Finn on Boston.com, great way to summarize the sentiments of all Red Sox fans when it comes to the Rivera/Jeter/Posada/Pettite quartet.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Game 26 - Red Sox v. Angels (@Fenway)

Call me cynical (I am a Red Sox fan afterall), but while tonight's game was an obvious improvement over what we saw in Baltimore, I'm not buying in yet. Why? Well for one, Joe Saunders has been pretty horrible so far this year, so while clubbing him is the thing that good teams should do, it's not exactly a major accomplishment either. Also, while Clay did get the W (good for my fantasy league team too!), he slipped back a bit on his strike efficiency (I'm really starting to like this stat to evaluate his starts). For the night, only 0.596% of his pitches went for strikes, which is below that 0.6ish number that is looking increasingly like the mark he needs to hit to have a good start (his other numbers for the night were 5 2/3IP, 8H 4ER 3BB and only 2K).

And what's the deal with Adrian Beltre, who committed his 6th error of the season tonight? Living in Seattle I saw a little of Beltre over the last few years (not that I'm anti-Mariners or anything, but they're broadcasting crew is just lame, especially Dave Sims, the guy is just a rah rah knucklehead if you ask me, not that you did of course), and while what little I saw was good defense, I never saw the kind of stand out defense that we all heard about after he signed with the Red Sox.

But don't listen to me, here's espn's resident knucklehead with his deep analysis (they need to pitch better, hit better and field better):

Tim Kurkjian on what the Red Sox need to do.

Uh, thanks Tim.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Game 25 - Red Sox v. Orioles (@Camden)

Ouch (5-4 loss in 10 innings on Friday)
Ouch (12-9 loss on Saturday)
Ouch (3-2 loss in 10 innings on Sunday)

Bleh. Ok, you get the gist...I'm not feeling so hot about what happened over the last three days. It's bad enough to get swept for the second time this year, and losing the fourth series (out of 8), but its just compounded by the fact that it was (a) against the Orioles and (b) lost with our best reliever in the game after the guy that is nominally the best starter on the staff started the game.

So much for the hopes of a 5-1 road trip and getting back to respectability (not to mention over .500), the Red Sox are now 7 games behind the streaking Tampa Bay Rays, there are only two teams further out of first place in their respective divisions right now:

Baltimore (11 GB)
Houston (8.5 GB)

Hopefully we don't see the Orioles passing us on the way down. Even worse (and yes I am piling on now) the Red Sox are the only team that is overachieving in the AL East now (at least according to the Expected Win/Loss stats that espn.com keeps which uses Bill James' Pythagorean Expectation formula to calculate how many wins and losses a team should have based off of runs scored and runs allowed. While not quite as disasterous as Krispy Kreme's attempt to invade New England (and take on the 800 LB gorilla known as Dunkin' Donuts), this start is making feel about as down as I did after I ate my first Krispy Kreme.



Lots of hype, and disappointing taste.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Game 24 - Red Sox v. Orioles (@Camden)

Ouch, this one hurt a little for a few reasons. They fell two games under .500 and lost a chance at going 5-1 (which is what I was hoping for when the road trip started), and seemed very achievable after the sweep in Toronto and heading into Baltimore to play a floundering Orioles team. Also painful in that Dice-K got shelled (10 baserunners and 6 earned runs in 4 2/3 innings). Judging by the box score and pitch count, it sounds like he was his typical, annoying, nibbling self instead of attacking hitters. About the only good thing (from a Red Sox perspective) that came out of this game was Ortiz hitting 2 HR, one of them off left handed reliever Alberto Castillo, lets hope this turns into the start of a bit of a hot streak for Papi.

Papi has more HR than he did at the same point in the season as last year, but has fewer RBI (possibly from hitting a little lower, and just fewer chances as he's only had 56 AB this April versus 87 AB last April. His OBP + AVG are also down year over year, but his SLG is up (with a huge boost from tonight's performance). His K/AB ratio is up:

2009 (through April): 0.252
2010 (through April): 0.375

None of these are making me feel particularly optimistic about him turning it around, but given that he did turn it around in the summer last year and he's earned some slack because of his history with the team, it will be a wait and see situation for at least another month IMO.