Red Sox News & Notes – 8/21

Carl Crawford #13 of the Boston Red Sox hits an RBI double to center during the fifth inning against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field on August 12, 2012 in Cleveland, Ohio.

While I was in a battle with technology the past few days (it won obviously), let’s recap what I missed.

The Boston Red Sox lost to the New York Yankees on Sunday night 4-1. The Red Sox announced that they had fired pitching coach Bob McClure on Monday afternoon. And later in the day, the world’s worst kept secret of Carl Crawford needing Tommy John surgery was made official.

Well, I can’t talk about the game on Sunday because I didn’t see a lick of it. I can tell you the loss pretty much kills any hope the Red Sox had. They needed to have a successful 10-game road trip. They didn’t as they went 4-6 with four of those losses coming to teams they were battling with (Baltimore Orioles and the Yankees).

The firing of McClure shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. Besides the injuries, the Red Sox pitching, especially from the starters, hasn’t been there all season long. Yes there are bright spots in there but when you look at the overall picture, it’s been subpar.

But is McClure the real reason why the pitching has stunk? Not really.

He’s not the one out on the mound executing the pitches. He’s the one helping them make adjustments when something isn’t working right. So despite the fact he isn’t on the mound, the Red Sox needed a fall guy for the bad pitching and it was McClure.

Sure it’s not probably fair to him but coaches are usually the first one to go when something doesn’t go right.

As far as Crawford goes with the TJ surgery, I wish they hadn’t waited this long. With a potentional recovery of nine months, it’s likely Crawford could miss the first month of the season. Had they not waited, Crawford would have been ready for 2013 because yes folks that’s where we are at in regards to the 2012 season.

There are going to be some fans out there that are pissed that Crawford is going to miss the rest of the 2012 season. I am not one of them.

While I have my reasons above for wanting him to have gotten the surgery earlier, you have to admire him for trying to play through the injury. Obviously his poor 2011 season, his first with the local nine, may have factored into it a little. But he went out there and tried his best to get through things but unfortunately the injury won out.

He was able to get 31 games in this year hitting .282 with three home runs, 19 RBIs and five stolen bases. Basically, he showed us what he can do. Had he been healthy for the entire season, there’s no doubt in my mind that we would have seen the Crawford of old. We saw glimpses of it in the 31 games and remember he was playing hurt.

Obviously this isn’t the way that Crawford and the Red Sox thought how the 2012 would go. But it is what is and now we move forward.

We’ll be back later with today’s lineups, batter/pitcher matchups and links from the day. So for now, let’s take a look at the overnight links from the media.

To open the links up in a new tab or window, use Control+click

McClure fired by Red Sox [boston globe]

Communication gaps bedeviling Red Sox [boston globe]

Season is over for Crawford [boston globe]

Players, family give their final cheer to legend Johnny Pesky [boston herald]

Club finally facing up to grim reality [boston herald]

Red Sox GM knows bigger fixes needed [boston herald]

Carl Crawford surgery Thursday [boston herald]

Hello, Randy Niemann [boston herald]

Examining the reason the Red Sox fired their pitching coach [rob bradford – weei.com]

First pitch: End of the road for Red Sox [csn new england]

Crawford set for Tommy John surgery Thursday [csn new england]