Author Archives: notwallygm

Should we hate the Devil Rays more than the Yankees?

Any writer worth their [insert metaphor here: salt, poop, ascot, whatever] writes their introduction after they’re finished with the body of their piece. This column ended up being long. The topic is whether we should hate the Devil Rays more than the Yankees, and that’s enough of a description to let you feel the tenor of my piece before diving in. So this introductory paragraph has served its purpose.

The Yankees have a history of stealing the best talent from the Red Sox, beginning with Harry Frazee selling Babe Ruth to New York in 1919 – subsequently selling the soul of the Red Sox away for nearly a century. Perhaps it’s not coincidental that the Red Sox started winning championships again when another larger than life – and large around the waist – slugger anchored their lineup.

More recently, the Yankees had the services of former Boston favorites like Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, Johnny Damon, and Kevin Youkilis. Jacoby Ellsbury threw away his soul, and a chance at Cooperstown, when New York gave him $153 million to play there right now. Even King of the Bearded Homeless Dude look Andrew Miller shaved off his face mane to look like the tallest 12 year old in the Yankees’ bullpen.

Couple this with the Alex Rodriguez trade clusterbleep in 2003 – where for months the then shortstop and now disgraced player was rumored to be coming to the Red Sox only to have the Yankees take him from us – and we remember how strong this rivalry has been. Back then, who could have predicted that Boston would benefit from not acquiring A-Roid? All we understood then is that the Yankees stole the best player in baseball from us, and it ruined Nomar Garciaparra’s faith in Boston’s front office management.

The cut throat, business-like, professional mentality of the Yankees make the Bronx Bombers the proper representatives of that borough which lies to the south of Yankee Stadium; the borough that contains the blood-sucking leeches on Wall Street who would slit our throats if it meant getting an extra percentage point return on their commodities portfolio.

If you think about it, the Yankees truly represent the city they play for. This fact is an oddity in an era when the NFL has overtaken MLB as America’s primary professional sport. This fact might even make you smile when you consider that NFL franchises stand for nothing. New York’s two football teams play in the same stadium in New Jersey, for bleep’s sake. As far as teams representing the character of a city goes, the NFL is a joke.

Ironically, that cut-throat professionalism of New York City also makes the Yankees an admirable foe. To the Yankees, baseball is just business. It’s not life or death, it’s just a job. Cut your hair, shave your beard, put your head down, don’t express much emotion, and just get the job done. No excuses. “Keep Calm and Chive On” if all you speak is bro. We may consider the way the Yankees play to be boring, but it isn’t offensive.

Afterward, George Steinbrenner would put the politics on the field aside to make an annual $10,000 contribution to the Jimmy Fund.

While we hate to see the Yankees win, all of that makes it tough to hate the Yankees themselves.

Contrast this with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who truly are the antithesis of Boston.

I will always call them the “Devil Rays,” but the reason why they changed their name to the “Rays” makes this team, like the Yankees, representative of the area they play for. There’s nothing refreshing about the Devil Rays representing crazy, paranoid, born again Bible thumping fundies who made the team remove “Devil” from their name because it was too evvvviiiiiillllll!

Boston has a strong Catholic tradition, but we don’t have the Bible thumpers on this level. And thank God. Or beer. Or bourbon. Or D-cups. Or whatever else you choose to worship. (I’ll stick with the latter three, thanks.)

It gets worse, because the Devil Rays represent not just a bi-city area, but a whole state full of crazy people that feels fake. People who move to Florida are wusses who are allergic to touching a shovel during the winter; and those who are born in Florida seem to be the stupidest people on the planet.

Florida is where anything obscenely fake is harvested. Their cash crop is plastic, which grows into gimmicks that no intelligent person can stand for longer than a vacation. So it’s little wonder that, in the land of Disney, Joe Maddon spread like a weed which the populace regarded as a flower.

The irony of Joe Maddon being weaned in an Angels organization that was formerly owned by Disney isn’t lost on astute observers like myself. Maddon is the gimmick that Devil Rays’ “fans” needed, and he titillated their simple minds just like a trip to Disney World might give an eight year old boy his first erection.

What’s the first stupid Maddon gimmick you can think of? The first one I think of is the defensive shift he employed against David Ortiz, which every stupid baseball “journalist” claims is one reason why Maddon is a super-bleepin-genius. Maddon’s defensive shifts worked so well that it led to Ortiz having a horrible career line against the Devil Rays: .281 BA, .397 OBP, 44 HR, 152 RBI, and… Well, actually, those are some pretty damn awesome stats. Guess the defensive shift Maddon employed didn’t do bleep. The shift didn’t help the Devil Rays in the 2013 ALDS either, when Ortiz had a .556 OBP with two homers. But hey, who needs success when you have the gimmick?

Another stupid Maddon gimmick is having pitchers take as much time as possible between pitches. Every stupid baseball journalist claims that the Devil Rays develop the best pitchers in baseball, but MLB Rule 8.04 says that, when there’s no one on base, pitchers must deliver the ball to the plate no more than 12 seconds after receiving the ball from the catcher. So how long did David Price take between pitches in 2014? Only [ahem] 26.6 seconds – the most in the majors. How about Chris Archer, another venerable stalwart of the Devil Rays supposed juggernaut? Archer took 25.2 second between pitches.

Starting to see a pattern here? Additionally, do you know how tough it is to throw a pitch? When a pitcher gets to take an extra couple of breaths before throwing to the plate again, they aren’t feeling as much pressure as other pitchers who play by the rules. This may explain why David Price has a career ERA of 3.16, yet when he’s in the high pressure situations of the postseason, his ERA spikes to 4.50. So much for that gimmick.

What’s worse than the Devil Rays’ on-field gimmicks, though, is their off-field gimmicks. The hockey-style fog horn blared through the speakers of their worst stadium in baseball whenever a Devil Rays player hit a home run, and their fans blowing vuvuzelas during game, is enough to make Ignatius J. Reilly shout “Who’s responsible for this abortion?”

Speaking of abortions:

What the bleep is this?

And what the bleep is this? Does baseball need a team whose main gimmick is [fill in the blank with the flavor of the month] roadtrip themed weekends?

To Tampa Bay, baseball isn’t a businees like it is in New York City; and it’s not a religion like is in Boston. No. To Tampa Bay, baseball is just another bleepin’ gimmick that needs glitter, a tight skirt and a vajazzle just to keep their interest because their minds aren’t advanced enough to enjoy the beautiful simplicity of the game.

What else do you need to hate the Devil Rays? Well, let’s do a comparison of real and fake stuff.

We have Dustin Pedroia, they have* Ben Zobrist. Zobrist is purported to be a spectacular baseball player, but he has two gimmicks: being overrated for playing multiple positions, and being a crazy Christian Fundie. Zobrist co-authored a book with his wife about their “We must home school our children with Jay-sus against the EVIL AMERICAN (ie: Northeast Urban) LIFESTYLE!” Don’t believe me? Here’s the description of their book on Amazon:

Ben and Julianna Zobrist are standout talents, both using their gifts to glorify God. Ben is an All Star Major League baseball player and helped lead the Tampa Bay Rays to the World Series. Ben represented the United States in the World Baseball Classic and also leads Bible studies with his teammates. Julianna is a recognized Christian music artist whose music has affected the culture for Christ nationally. Julianna has performed on both the mainstream and Christian platforms and is actively involved in film and radio. Both Ben and Julianna speak about their faith at events nationwide.

‘Nuf ced.

We have Big Papi, they had Luke Scott. I trust that, after years of #LukeScottFacts, I feel that I don’t need to expound on this.

We play real baseball, they have Joe Maddon.

They’re cheap, which is why they don’t steal our players.

Due to our sense of irony, there are even instances when our fake things are more real than their reality. For example, regarding fake Twitter accounts, Red Sox fans have, well… Me! And Devil Rays fans have “RaysFanGio,” who is nominally a real person but, since everything about Florida is fake, I don’t think his lame existence actually exists.

Boston is erudite city whose populace is enlightened to science. Florida has a governor who forbids state officials from mentioning “global warming” while Miami makes plans to deal with flooding…

But I digress. All of this strays away from the question of whether we, as Red Sox fans, should hate the Devil Rays more than the Yankees. Essentially, the fact that I even ask this means it is a rhetorical question. Given the attitude of both teams and the traditions of the geographic areas that they represent, the answer is obvious.

In fact, the only fake thing missing from Tampa Bay is Dan Shaughnessy. And they can bleepin’ take him.

* – I struggled with using present or past tense here. Zobrist now plays for the A’s, so should I use “had” or have”? Ultimately, I opted for the present tense because, even though Zobrist is no longer in Tampa Bay, he represented the patheticness of this organization for so long that he might as well still be a member of this band of ingrates.

A Rotating Experiment

The Lester-less 2015 Red Sox Starting Rotation is comprised of the following: Question mark, Question mark, ¿Qué carajo?, ???, and Buchholz.

This is better than having a starting rotation of minor league prospects and Buchholz; essentially, what we witnessed at the end of 2014. The Red Sox can again use prospects as rotation depth instead of certainties. But an ace-less rotation isn’t screaming October to any knowledgeable Red Sox fan.

Oddly enough, though, Cherington’s Plan B after Lester could work.

With the advent of the second wild card, a third of the teams are guaranteed a playoff berth each year. So a team has to be pretty horrible not even be in the playoff hunt a week before the trade deadline on July 31. Given that a team’s regular season performance need not be spectacular to get to the playoffs, teams can experiment with different ways to get through the regular season.

The two best examples of teams achieving success through experimenting with non-typical rosters are the 2014 Giants and 2012 Orioles.

The Giants victory in the World Series is a recent memory of course, and we can quickly remember who was in their starting rotation: Bumgarner followed by a bunch of actual bums. Let’s remember that the Giants thought acquiring Jake Peavy before the trade deadline would improve their starting rotation – the same Jake Peavy who hadn’t won a game since April and had an ERA larger than Paula Deen’s collection of lard. And those Giants won the World Series.

The 2012 Orioles didn’t have as much success as the Giants, but they did make it to the playoffs with a rotation that, quite frankly, looked worse than what we can expect from the 2015 Red Sox. The Orioles’ rotation had only one starter with double-digit wins (12 wins), and none of their starters pitched 200 innings. In fact, only one starter pitched more than 140 innings. That team made it to the ALCS.

Personally, the baseline I use to predict playoff hopes is the probability a team has of winning 88 games. Let’s look at the 2015 Red Sox in this respect: Can they win 88 games?

They have a rotation starters who have MLB experience, but they are 3-5 starters at best. Porcello is the one starter who has the best chance of having a breakout season, and he becomes the proverbial “ace.” The rotation will have an average ERA of, let’s guess, 4.30.

That’s not great, but a starting lineup with 3. Papi, 4. Han-RAM, 5. Panda, and 6. Napoli is going to score a lot of runs – especially with Mookie Betts hitting leadoff, followed by a finally healthy Dustin Pedroia. With the rate that Betts and Pedroia can get on base, they’re poised to each have 100+ runs scored in 2015.

Hitting behind Napoli will be Xander Bogaerts, who has something to prove in 2015. Throw in Rusney Castillo, and we can forget about the fact that hitting production from the catcher’s spot in 2015 is a total unknown.

Can this lineup score enough runs to overcome a starting rotation with an ERA of 4.30 or a little more? Simply put: yes.

The 2015 Red Sox will be an interesting experiment. Before the experiment starts, it would appear that they can win 88 games next year and remain in the playoff hunt. But, by July, if it looks like the experiment may fail, then there’s always a blockbuster trade for Cliff Lee. That’s a hell of a back up plan which must have crossed Ben Cherington’s mind at some point last week.

Cespedes and the Value of Protection

Yoenis Cespedes #52 of the Boston Red Sox doubles in a run in the third inning against the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park on September 6, 2014 in Boston, Massachusetts.

When the Oakland A’s traded Yoenis Cespedes to Boston, something weird happened to Brandon Moss.

Moss has never been a great hitter. His batting average is low, his strikeouts are high – but he has power. He hit 30 home runs in 2013 and looked to be on his way to putting up similar stats this season. Moss, along with Cespedes and Josh Donaldson, comprised the core of Oakland’s hitting attack.

Swapping one of those power hitters for Jon Lester, an ace starter, seemed like an even deal. Oakland would score less runs, but pitching matters more than hitting in the playoffs. This trade shouldn’t have backfired.

But after Cespedes left, Brandon Moss became a shell of the hitter he was in 2013. In fact, Moss’ stats without Cespedes being on Oakland’s roster look similar to his stats when he hit behind Cespedes in the batting order instead of hitting in front of Cespedes.

This is interesting, because if Moss performed worse when Cespedes wasn’t protecting him in the batting order, this suggests that Cespedes provides value in the protection he provides to hitters in front of him. Sluggers protecting hitters is one of those facets of baseball that aren’t reflected in measures like WAR.

I will not call WAR a “stat” because it’s a weighted measurement of players, and as far as I’m concerned, the linear weights attached to calculations that comprise WAR are biased. Therefore, WAR is an opinion and not a stat. And the opinionated bias of WAR is reflected in things that those calculating WAR choose to ignore, like the protection power hitters provide to other hitters in the lineup.

To see what effect sluggers protecting hitters has, let’s look at what happens to Moss when Cespedes isn’t hitting behind him.

Cespedes mostly hit 4th when he was with Oakland; sometimes he hit 5th. Moss generally hit in front of Cespedes, but Oakland’s manager likes to switch the batting order around a lot so there’s a decent sample size of times when Moss hit behind Cespedes. During those times, when Moss bats 5th or 6th in Oakland’s batting order, he’s hitting .188 with a .317 OBP, and he has 5 HR. That’s one homer every 18 AB, which isn’t that bad, but you have to hit the ball to get on base and drive in runs. As a .188 average attests to, Moss was not hitting the ball when he batted behind Cespedes.

That stat line looks similar to Moss’ stats post-Cespedes. Here’s how Moss has done in August and September: .163 AVG / .317 OBP. His power has dropped off as well, with Moss hitting only 2 HR in that time.

Moss’ strikeouts are up as well. With Cespedes on the roster, Moss was striking out once every 4.22 plate appearances. But since Cespedes’ departure, Moss is striking out once every 3.24 PA. Similarly, when Moss hit behind Cespedes, he’s K:PA ratio jumped to 2.87.

Coincidentally, while Moss has regressed, David Ortiz‘s stats have received a boost since Cespedes arrived in Boston. Before the trade, Ortiz was hitting .250 with a .344 OBP, and he averaged a home run every 15.36 AB. Which isn’t bad, but look at Ortiz’s stats with Cespedes hitting behind him: .307 AVG / .393 OBP, and he’s averaging one HR every 14.11 AB.

What does this mean?

Brandon Moss regressing without Cespedes and Ortiz improving with Cespedes could just be a coincidence, true. But I’m reminded of something my favorite International Politics professor, one of those genius intellect type of people, told me when I was an undergrad: “I don’t believe in coincidences.” In baseball, just like in anything else, if something remarkable happens, there’s probably a clear and concise explanation for this event.

Something remarkable is happening to hitters when Cespedes is behind them in the batting order. Personally, I think slugger protection of hitters is the main factor here – but I could be wrong. Something I haven’t seen may be in play here; or it could be a combination of factors.

One thing all reasonable baseball fans should agree with, though, is Cespedes and slugger protection makes for an interesting discussion. I’d hate to see a discussion of Cespedes’ value devolve into an argument over what his WAR is, as so many discussions about players devolve to these days. This is interesting and worthy of further discussion. Let’s talk about it.

photo credit: getty images

The most honest Red Sox post you will ever read

There are 74 games left in the baseball season and the Red Sox look pretty [expletive deleted].

If you only pay attention to the number of games back the Red Sox are in the division and wild card races, which is what the optimists among us focus on, then the situation doesn’t look so [expletive deleted] horrible. In both races, the Red Sox are 9 games back. But let’s introduce our depressing pal reality to the discussion.

A team isn’t going to make the playoffs unless they have 88 [expletive deleted] wins. The Red Sox won’t sneak in with 82 wins, nor 83, nor [expletive deleted] 84. And if any baseball team ever makes it to the playoffs with such a pathetic win total, dump [expletive deleted] gasoline on the the wild card system and set that [expletive deleted] ablaze.

So, with 74 games left, the reality is that the Red Sox can lose 25 more games until it’s mathematically [expletive deleted] impossible for them to reach 88 wins. They will need to go 49 – 25, amassing a [expletive deleted] .662 winning percentage, from now until the end of the season just to have a chance of sniffing the second [expletive deleted] wild card spot.

Forty-nine wins. The Red Sox have only gotten [expletive deleted] 39 wins in the past 88 [expletive deleted] games.

Hell, to even reach [expletive deleted] .500 the Red Sox would need to go 42 – 32 over the last [expletive deleted] 74 games, and that’s means playing for a .568 winning percentage.

Is this feasible for a .443 team with the [expletive deleted] lowest amount of runs scored in the American League? A team that’s lumped in with [expletive deleted] the Cubs and [expletive deleted] Astros on the same level of [expletive deleted] suck right now? A team whose wins have seemed so [expletive deleted] unconvincing that finding out 15 of their [expletive deleted] measly 39 victories have come in one run [expletive deleted] nailbiters isn’t even remotely [expletive deleted] surprising?

[Expletive deleted] no. So 9 [expletive deleted] games back my [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted].

[Expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted].

Ben [expletive deleted] needs to start [expletive deleted] selling off [expletive deleted] parts of this stupid [expletive deleted] team right the [expletive deleted] now to salvage some [expletive deleted] out of this [expletive deleted] season.

The 2014 Red Sox season is [expletive deleted] over, so for [expletive deleted]‘s sake, start [expletive deleted] selling.

I’m turning in my Masshole membership card and [expletive deleted] moving out of Boston anyway, so [expletive deleted] this [expletive deleted]. Now is a great [expletive deleted] time to go fair-weather and stop paying the [expletive deleted] attention to this [expletive deleted] dismal [expletive deleted] season. To me, the Red Sox are pretty much a [expletive deleted] dead topic at this point, so [expletive deleted] it.

Brock Holt, baBIP, and Reality

Brock Holt #26 of the Boston Red Sox attempts a bunt in the fifth inning against the Cleveland Indians on June 3, 2014 at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio.

Brock Holt is not as good as you think he is – at the plate, at least. Holt has done a tremendous job in the field, making plays at first base and in left field that make our eyes jump out of their sockets. The fact that Holt has never played those two positions before and played them flawlessly while maintaining his torrid pace at the plate means he’s a hidden gem, and I’ve loved watching his emergence over the past month.

But Holt can’t keep this up. Nobody can.

Holt’s batting average on balls in play (baBIP) is currently .413. Every time Holt lays wood on the ball, it’s getting that lucky hop to go by a fielder. But the implication of luck here is important to note because when hitters sport a baBIP over .400 it some point during the season, it will not last. A hitter can gear their training to hit for more power or better contact to all fields, but it’s difficult to train for baBIP – it’s a luck-based statistic.

Pete Rose’s highest ever baBIP for one season was .368. Ted Williams’ highest ever baBIP was .378. Arguably, these are the greatest hitters of all time.

Since 1945, the only players who have sustained a .400+ baBIP are Rod Carew, Manny Ramirez, Roberto Clemente, and Jose Hernandez. Hernandez is the only oddity on that list. Other than Hernandez, we’re talking about players with Cooperstown numbers who managed to eek out a .400+ baBIP for an entire season once (or twice, in Carew’s case) in their careers.

So to expect Brock Holt to continue his current pace of ripping pitchers to shreds, we would have to expect him to be better than: Ted Williams, Pete Rose, Rod Carew, Roberto Clemente, and Manny Ramirez. Holt would have to be that Jose Hernandez oddity.

Could that happen? Sure, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Many Hall of Fame hitters have tried and failed to have a baBIP over .400 for an entire season once in their careers. You would have to have an enormous amount of faith in Brock Holt to believe he can continue hitting like this.

Like I stated previously: I love watching Holt play. But at some point, reality will interlude and Holt’s hitting will drop off. When that happens and the Red Sox are forced to rely more on Stephen Drew, I hope every Boston sports journalist who said the Drew signing sucks will realize how important it is to have depth on the roster. Afterwards, I hope they all volunteer to retire and never be heard from again.

Joe Maddon’s Whiner Line

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are the most pathetic group of sniveling crybabies in all of professional sports.

Since the ill-fated idea of placing a Major League Baseball team in the Tampa Bay area was conceived, the Devil Rays have never stopped whining.

“We don’t like our stadium!” Suck it up, and try selling some tickets for once.

“We’re a small market team!” I love this argument. Judging solely by population, Boston is the 10th largest market in the country; and Tampa Bay has the 18th largest market size. So much for the “big market” crap. Boston has used the area surrounding it to increase its market size: their AAA team is an hour away in Pawtucket, RI; and their AA team is two hours away in Portland, ME. Tampa Bay could use a similar strategy and place an AAA team in Orlando and an AA team on the Gulf Coast. But what have they done instead? They have teams in Durham, NC, and Montgomery, AL. Great going, geniuses.

But playing for the Devil Rays means that you never run out of excuses, and this sorry story continues today with a day/night doubleheader that the Devil Rays didn’t want to play.

Ben Zobrist, a typical overrated blowhard on the Devil Rays’ roster who’s doing his best to get Red Sox pitchers to aim a couple fastballs in the vicinity of his head today, led the charge against the doubleheader. He fed false stories to the media about the Red Sox wanting the doubleheader scheduled today to get rid of Pedroia bobbleheads, spent the rest of his time on the phone with MLB Player’s Union rep Tony Clark (crying, surely), then claimed that the Red Sox are forcing this doubleheader on the Devil Rays.

Zobrist left Fenway Park yesterday telling lies to the media that today’s doubleheader wasn’t official. It finally took a call MLB last night to say “Hey moron, you will be playing baseball on Thursday afternoon.”

The reasons why the Devil Rays don’t want to play tomorrow are because rescheduling the game to another time when they are in Boston means taking away a critical late season off-day for the Red Sox. Additionally, the Devil Rays starting rotation is so depleted right now that they would rather see Cesar Ramos get skipped in the rotation.

What isn’t mentioned is that the Devil Rays have two young pitchers in Durham who haven’t lost a game yet. The most impressive starter is Mike Montgomery, a 25 year old top prospect who pitched 8 /13 innings of no hit baseball in his last start on Saturday, 4/26 (he was pulled from the game). The other starter is Merrill Kelly, a 26 year old who is currently 4-0 with a 2.10 ERA.

Hey Devil Rays, don’t want to toss Cesar Ramos in the hill? Then you’re free to use either of those prospects. One of those prospects could be in Boston right now, but it was your choice to recall Erik Bedard from Durham instead of one of them. Choices have consequences, and having a depleted starting rotation when heading into an unscheduled doubleheader could be one of those consequences.

But instead of being honest about their strategy – to screw the Red Sox out of an off-day, and not use prospects to start games because they want to keep them in the minors long enough to get an extra option year on those players – the Devil Rays whined that the Red Sox are forcing them to play a doubleheader tomorrow because Boston is evvvviiilllll!!!

Yes, it’s going to rain this afternoon and the both teams might not be able to play the first game of the doubleheader anyway. But nobody knows what the weather will be like for the days the Devil Rays wanted to use for a reschedule, and it’s the responsibility of the Red Sox to play 81 games at home. The Red Sox are accepting that responsibility by doing everything possible to get this game played.

One team here is acting like a group of adults, and it’s not the one from St. Petersburg. The Devil Rays should just shut the hell up and play some baseball.

It’s better than you think

Boston fans were spoiled in 2013 because we hardly remember times when the Red Sox looked bad, so we’ve been taken aback at how they’ve played this April. But let’s take a look at the Yankees to get an objective sense of where the Red Sox stand.

New York sits atop what, right now, is a very weird AL East. They have a .600 winning percentage but, like every other team in the division, they have a negative run differential – they’re pitching and fielding has allowed more runs than their hitting has been able to score.

You don’t need to be a math geek to figure out that the Yankees can’t continue playing .600 baseball if their pitching and fielding doesn’t improve. But if you want to be a math geek about it, we’ll dive into the dark arts of Sabermetics.

Personally, I prefer to use hard statistics instead of measurements derived from algorithms with linear weights and what-not which may or may not show the bias of those calculating the measurement, but the Pythagorean expectation for the Yankees is interesting because it suggests that the Yankees are overachieving to an alarming degree.

According to Pythagorean expectation, the Yankees should have a .467 winning percentage and they’re playing like a 75 or 76 win team. Maybe you agree with that assessment or maybe you think it’s junk, so take that for what you will. But it is difficult to believe that the Yankees will continue to play .600 baseball.

How does this reflect on the rest of the AL East? It shows that everything is still up for grabs, which isn’t out of the norm for any sports league at the beginning of its season.

The Red Sox are not (yet) a .500 team, and at times it doesn’t look like they’ve come close to playing like even a .500 baseball club. But they’ve also faced harder tests than the Yankees so far this season. Outside of the division the Red Sox have played against the Brewers, Rangers, and White Sox; all of whom are .500 or above (the Brewers have a .720 winning percentage). Contrast that with the Yankees lackluster opponents: the Astros, Cubs, and Angels.

Regardless of how the Red Sox have looked in April (which hasn’t been great) or how they’ve had to face tougher opponents, they are only two games below .500 right now. With Shane Victorino and Will Middlebrooks out for most of the month, and Clay Buchholz looking like he was a breath away from winding up on the DL until this weekend, that’s not too shabby.

The Red Sox fielding a healthy lineup looks especially appealing when you consider five other things: Derek Jeter is 40, Alfonso Soriano is 38, Carlos Beltran is 37, Jacoby Ellsbury is 30 and has a sorry past with the DL; and Brian McCann is 30.

How long will the Yankees go this season without suffering an injury to a key player in their lineup? I hate to sound like a homer, but that’s a reasonable question.

Beyond the Red Sox and Yankees, Baltimore looks good but Chris Davis just went on the DL, Toronto isn’t impressing anyone with those sub-.200 hitters on the bottom of their lineup, and Tampa Bay is having trouble winning without Matt Moore. If Tampa Bay is pretty much out of the race by the end of May, I suspect they’ll shop David Price around for a prospect. By August, the AL East may be a three team race between Boston, Baltimore, and New York.

Despite what the Red Sox have been through and how they’ve played thus far, the team hasn’t dug itself into a huge hole to climb out of. So if you think the Red Sox took a crap in April, just consider it to be fertilizer for their flowering this summer.

The Dead Ball Dead Sox

To say that the Red Sox lineup has appeared morbid is an understatement.

What’s most bothersome is how the lineup has not been able to execute against lackluster pitching, and last night was just another example of that. The Red Sox faced the once great CC Sabathia, but his fastball barely tops out over 88 mph these days. Sabathia still has a change-up (that acts a bit like a slider), and a curveball that he throws occasionally, but last night his pitch speeds hardly varied from the 82-88 mph range. We’re not talking about a pitcher who can toss 93-95 mph fastballs, pull the string with a sub-80’s mph change-up, and mix in a splitter or slower curveball. (Which a lot of younger starters in the big leagues are able to do right now. What happens when this Red Sox lineup faces those pitchers?)

In short, Sabathia should have gotten hammered last night – but the Red Sox ended up having more fielding errors than hits. That’s embarrassing.

What’s more embarrassing are some stats that Red Sox hitters are amassing. I’ll only highlight a couple because: 1) We don’t have all day to look at the trove; and 2) Looking at everything might induce Friday afternoon weeping.

First, here are the stats for runners in scoring position for 2013 and 2014 for David Ortiz, Mike Napoli, Dustin Pedroia, and Daniel Nava.

	BA w/RISP	OBP w/RISP	RBI w/RISP
Ortiz
2013	.315	.453	72
2014	.174	.318	7
Napoli
2013	.257	.372	73
2014	.174	.269	9
Pedroia
2013	.312	.369	72
2014	.263	.263	4
Nava
2013	.306	.392	58
2014	.091	.286	1

When you focus on stats as a whole, without narrowing it down to RISP, players like Ortiz and Napoli look fine. Napoli is hitting .294 with 5 homers, Ortiz is starting out slow with a .256 average but he has 4 homers. But when you narrow their stats down to how they’re hitting with RISP, when compared to how they hit in 2013, you see where the problem lies.

The biggest shocker here, though, is Daniel Nava. It’s weird to think of Nava, who was essentially a platoon player, as a core part of the Red Sox hitting attack in 2013, but look at how he raked with RISP: .306 average, 58 RBIs. And now? Nava isn’t even on the 25 man roster now. That’s a huge loss.

Speaking of huge losses for the Red Sox, let’s see how Jacoby Ellsbury‘s loss as effected the line up. This next stat comparison may not be fair because Shane Victorino has been on the disabled list, and both Red Sox players I highlight weren’t expected to replace Ellsbury. Regardless, Grady Sizemore and Jackie Bradley Jr. are both centerfielders who are expected to get on base and steal bases. I’ve combined Sizemore and JBJ’s April 2014 stats and compared them with Ellsbury’s stat line from April 2013.

	OBP	Runs	SB	2B	3B
Ellsbury (April 2013)	.336	19	11	6	3
Sizemore/JBJ (April 2014)	.300	15	6	6	1

Unfortunately, one Sizemore and one JBJ are not equal to one Ellsbury. Both players have been struggling, with Sizemore hitting .212 and JBJ doing worse with a .206 batting average. Even though JBJ is getting on base at an average rate, as reflected in his .324 OBP, this isn’t satisfactory. Both players combined are not getting the job done.

Not that it matters, because the meat of the Red Sox batting order isn’t hitting with runners in scoring position anyway. With Will Middlebrooks and Shane Victorino returning, the Red Sox have most of the lineup that they wanted for 2014 in place (minus Daniel Nava, who looked completely lost at the plate). Ryan Roberts and Jonathan Herrera aren’t whiffing every time the step to the plate anymore, so the Red Sox are out of excuses. It’s time to start hitting.

This Red Sox lineup has some serious problems right now, and the solution isn’t telling A.J. Pierzynski to swing at less pitches. The problems start with the team’s core not being able to produce, and if they don’t figure out a way to hammer pitchers like Sabathia soon, then maybe they’ll need to take pitching lessons from Mike Carp. Because they’ll all be throwing an inning or two soon.

The Game Hidden Between Buchholz’s Pitches

When two teams play baseball, two games are being played simultaneously: the pitching, hitting, and fielding game that fans see, and the hidden (don’t call it “cheating”) game where players try to get gain a competitive edge on the opposition.

Fans usually hear about the hidden game after the fact – like when Joe Mauer stole signs in a game against Detroit in 2009. Mauer was on second base and had a clear view of every sign the catcher dropped down. When Mauer figured out whether a fastball or breaking ball was coming, he would either touch his helmet or do nothing before the pitch to relay that information to the batter. Occasionally, play-by-play announcers will catch onto the hidden game and report it during a game. The most recent example of that is Don and Jerry ranting about the pine tar on Michael Pineda‘s hand during a recent Red Sox v. Yankees game.

But whether or not we, as fans, are lucky enough to hear about it, the hidden game is always being played inside of a baseball game.

So when Clay Buchholz gave up seven hits and six runs in the third inning of yesterday’s Red Sox game with the Orioles, was the hidden game being played? Absolutely. And I wish I could tell you the details of that game.

One complaint I’ve had about NESN over the years is their lack of focus on the game itself. Frequently during games, a player will get a hit and NESN will spend time panning the camera on the player while he’s standing on base, then switch to the next pitch being thrown while the pitcher is in mid-windup. Then there are other diversions: like a fan throwing pizza at another fan, or Heidi Watney choking on a corn dog (which became metaphor nobody needs to think too deeply about to grasp)… There’s a million little diversions to point out, and I don’t mean to be a killjoy, but they all distract from both baseball games that are being played.

In the case of Buchholz’s disastrous third inning, I watched it over again a couple of times. Only once did NESN allow me to see some signs that David Ross dropped to Buchholz to decide on which pitch to throw. At barely any time did NESN have a camera on the Orioles’ baserunners, so I couldn’t tell if they made any telltale body motions that tipped off Buchholz’s next pitch to the batter.

But, despite NESN’s distractions that don’t allow us to keep our attention on the game; and despite the implication that the other team must be cheating, an explanation for the Orioles hammering Buchholz may be more mundane: they may have picked up on where Ross set himself up to receive Buchholz’s pitches, and they were able to relay that information to the batter.

I don’t consider this cheating because, quite frankly, if Buchholz didn’t take forever and a day to make a pitch when runners are on base, baserunners probably wouldn’t have time to relay information about where Ross has set up to the batter.

There’s a few examples where Buchholz’s extended delay between pitches gave Orioles’ baserunners enough time to relay information about the upcoming pitch to the batter. I’m not saying the Orioles baserunners did relay this information since, as I mentioned, I couldn’t tell what the baserunners were doing because of the way NESN broadcasts their games. I’m just saying that Orioles’ baserunners had time to relay information about the next pitch, and this is mostly due to Buchholz’s long delay between pitches when runners are on base.

Example 1: The first batter of the inning, Steve Lombardozzi, hits a single. Next batter is David Lough. Ross immediately sets up outside, then Buchholz steps off the rubber. Delay. Buchholz prepares to pitch again, but throws a pick off attempt to first base. Another delay. After the pick off attempt, Ross sets up outside again – so they never changed what pitch was next up – and Lough gets a first pitch single. It took Buchholz around a minute to get through that charade and deliver a pitch to the plate, and anyone paying attention to where Ross setup would have known what was coming. Lough certainly did.

Example 2: After Lough, Nick Markakis came to the plate. This is the only time NESN allowed the viewer to see what signs Ross dropped to Buchholz between one of the pitches, the 2-2 pitch. Ross’s sequence ended with two fingers, Buchholz appeared to throw a two seam fastball, and Markakis smacked it for a single. It’s worth noting that in this at bat, and throughout the inning, Ross sometimes tried to deliberately slow down the time it took him to set up to receive the pitch – waiting until Buchholz was in his windup. So, in this instance, the Orioles may have stolen a sign. Also worth noting that Buchholz’s pitch was a meatball down the center of the plate, so maybe the Orioles didn’t even need to steal a sign.

Example 3: Nelson Cruz bats after Nick Markakis. Ross sets up outside way before Buchholz starts to deliver his pitch, and Cruz swings like he knows an outside fastball is coming – but Buchholz misses his target by a foot, it becomes an inside fastball that Cruz fouls off. Ross again sets up early on the 0-1 pitch, and it’s the outside fastball Buchholz tried pitching the first time. Cruz smacks it for a single.

Afterwards, Buchholz induced a fielder’s choice ground ball from Adam Jones (albeit with a run scored), but Steve Clevenger gets a hit with a ball deep to right field. Jonathan Schoop, the last batter Buchholz faces, has a seven pitch at bat that ends when he hits a curveball off the Green Monster. Buchholz’s first pitch to Schoop was a curveball off the plate, so Schoop already knew what Buchholz’s curveball looked like. Unfortunately, Buchholz’s second curveball was over the plate. Schoop’s hit was probably totally legit.

As I mentioned previously: Do I know if Orioles’ baserunners were relaying information about Buchholz’s pitches to batters? Nope. Absolutely not. Due to the way NESN broadcasts these games, I don’t have a clue regarding what the Orioles’ baserunners were doing. But it’s quite feasible that, because of Buchholz’s intentional laboring between pitches, he gave the Orioles time to execute the hidden game against him.

All it took was Lombardozzi’s single at the top of the inning to give the Orioles a baserunner with a chance to relay Ross’s placement to receive Buchholz’s pitches to batters, and the Orioles certainly executed after that. Buchholz gave up seven hits – including 5 hits in a row – and six runs.

After the game, John Farrell said that nothing is physically wrong with Buchholz. Comments were made about Buchholz needing to increase his arm strength, which would explain why his fastball barely tops 90 mph. His pitches also lack movement, and 88-90 mph straight fastballs can easily become batting practice pitches. So maybe Buchholz just sucked. Or maybe he’s hiding an injury and he should go on the DL.

But, if you’re able to catch a replay of the game, watch that third inning again. Don’t you think that something hidden, that we didn’t see the first time we watched the game, could be going on?

photo credit: getty images

Beer in the Shower

It’s a beer in the shower kind of morning.

Seriously, what is it with this baseball season? I know that you know exactly what I’m talking about. The tension is so thick that you could poke it with one of A-Rod’s used steroids needles. And its only mid-April. There’s five and a half months of regular season baseball left before the postseason begins.

This tension is being felt throughout baseball, not just in Red Sox Nation – though it’s certainly bad enough here. Since writing a post titled “What, we worry?” on April 10, which urged us to take early season baseball with a grain of salt, here is what’s happened with the Red Sox: they’ve gone 1-5, Dustin Pedroia and Koji Uehara got MRIs and we wondered if they would spend a significant amount of time on the disabled list; John Farrell got ejected after the team got screwed on two instant replay calls in New York; and last night, we saw Mike Napoli dislocate a finger on his left hand.

Ready to breathe yet? Or are you afraid of what might come next?

A day before publishing “What, we worry?”, the Red Sox celebrated a 4-2 victory over the Rangers. We weren’t even allowed to breathe during that game until David Ortiz hit a homer that gave the Red Sox the lead in the 8th inning. Then, after a quick sigh of relief, we saw Edward Mujica warming up in the bullpen instead of Koji. And we all collectively reached for our heart medication, if we’re lucky enough to have some.

As for the rest of baseball, John Farrell’s ejection highlighted two issues that are rapidly rising to their boiling points: the umpires suck and they’re blowing calls despite being able to use instant replay; and nobody knows what a catch is anymore. But if a player, coach, or manager dares to speak out publicly about these issues, Joe Torre (whose name may be legally changed to “Joseph Torre Goebbels” before this season is over) has said they will be fined and, perhaps, suspended. Torre made a point out of Farrell somehow not getting suspended when announcing that he will be fined.

The new definition of a catch goes beyond the Napoli/Cervelli replay that got Farrell ejected, where the debate centered around whether Napoli caught the ball when it hit his glove or when he closed his glove. Now we don’t even know what a catch is on a simple outfield fly ball because of the asinine new transfer rule.

David Schoenfield at ESPN has a good rundown of the new transfer rule and the problems it has already created. Dave Cameron at Fangraphs goes beyond the problems already created by the new transfer rule and theorizes that it’s now legal for an outfielder to catch a fly ball, run to the infield, “drop” the ball out of his glove to invalidate the catch, then toss the ball to a base where there’s a force out and maybe even tag out another runner to get a double play.

That, technically, could be a legal play now. Seriously.

So, to summarize: the Red Sox have already given us 10 million heart attacks, nobody knows what a catch is anymore, and it’s only April 16.

Stock up on whiskey now and make sure there’s a beer in the fridge for the morning, baseball fans. There’s snow on the ground and the temperature will barely scrape the 40’s today, but don’t be fooled: October is a long way off.

Sox and Dawgs

A New England Sports Blog