Well, I'm sure all the Yankee a*holes will be chirping now. Never mind that they still have the largest deficit of any second plance team. Or that they still have only beaten two pitchers with ERAs under 5.00 since the ASB.
I guess as a Sox fan we should just forget about winning the division and be thankful that we have 4 game lead in the Wild Card (sarcasm intended).
Well, I was going to write about how the Yankees gained ground even though the Sox had gone 14-7 over their previous 21. I was going to add that you can't do much about that. But this series against the Os should have been a sweep...
The offense looks terrible. The bullpen was due for a small let down.
On the upside, the "Big 3" starting pitchers all gave us quality outings...Beckett was awesome, as was Daisuke. Schilling was solid over 6.
I agree with X that we have the biggest lead...But the Yankees just went to Cleveland and beat the hell out of the Indians. It's hard to imagine the Sox winning the division if the Yankees keep this up. But they have to be due for some bad starts soon...Of course, they get to play Detroit when they suck...but whatever...
Someone called a radio show this morning and claimed that Texas didn't use him much in July because he had started sucking. Time to go look at the splits!
One more thing...we better bring someone up to pitch the second game of that double-header next weekend against LA. Otherwise we are slated to have Schilling, Wakefield, Lester against the Yankees...
WEll the Yanks did beat CLE, but they beat CLE without having to face CC and without Hafner. They sure seem to have caught all the scheduling breaks this season, so far.
I'm hearing that Bucholz is going to pitch this Friday. Why not. Lester has not been overly impressive this year. He just walks to many hitters. So lets see if we can go get some help within - like the Yankees have.
Speaking of other teams, never had a chance to comment last week of how annoying it is listening to the Angels announcers. Apparently the Angels are the best team ever in the history of the world. They made McCarver and Buck talking about the Yankees seem down right pessimistic. It was so bad that in the last game when Papelbon came in with a two run lead, Hudler was drooling all over himself saying all sorts of things that made it seem tthe Angels victory was just moments away. And on two of the outs, he said the Sox and Papelbon were lucky (lucky it was right at so and so and lucky that Guerror missed that pitch). Maybe it bugged me more since the Sox were playing like crap, but I had listened to him before and it never really bothered me that much.
The Os almost took that one last night. Maybe we just caught them when they were hot.
However, we only scored 3 against the D-Rays...Looking closely at that game last night, it struck me how undisciplined the Sox hitters were. Ortiz swung at a bad 3-0 pitch and grounded out to short. That sort of stuff.
Also, I have to believe that a lot of the "lack of power" we are seeing is a result of Dave Magadan. Don't get me wrong...Youk, Lowell, Pedroia, Manny, and Ortiz are all hitting over .300. Drew, Lugo, and Crisp are performing as of late. But everyone (with the exception of Manny) has been just slapping the ball around, much like Magadan when he played.
Still a 4 game lead... Still playing the D-Rays... Yankees are going into their "rough" stretch against a lackluster Tigers team...
It's worth noting a few things re: Magadan and power production. First, offense, and particularly power numbers, are down league-wide this season - AL SLG was at .437 last year, and is at .421 this year, and HR/G was at 1.23 in 06 and is at 0.98 in 2007. The same is true, with slightly different figures, for MLB as a whole. Also good to note for the Sox is that in terms of rate stats, this team has been more productive offensively than the 06 team, but with fewer HR - team SLG is 2 points higher in 07 (.435 to .437), but the HR rate is down from 1.19 per game to 0.97 per game. That is definitely a somewhat bigger gap than in the AL as a whole, but the Sox have avoided the league-wide SLG drop. Maybe the HR drop is responsible for the slight decrease in runs per game, but maybe not. Regardless, this is certainly not a weak offensive club - our 4th place rank MLB wide in Runs Scored attests to that.
Papa jackson was the hitting coach when the Sox were mashing and leading the world in runs scored. And he was exactly the same kind of hitter as Magadan - so you can't blame it on the hitting coach. The Yanks lead the league in HR, and while not technically their hitting coach, Mattingly was not a home run guy.
And at the risk of sounding like Rob Neyer or Billy Beane, I think some of the results they are seeing this year are just plain bad luck. They just have not had the same production with RISP. They lead the league in OBP but just can't get the runners home. Last night they had 11 base runners and only 3 scored. Not what you would expect.
You could argue that Mattingly was a home run hitter before all of his injuries. He had a heck of a run for a while there...
Yes, HRs are down, and we all thought that the Sox didn't really have any power aside from Ortiz and Manny before the season.
It is possible that Magadan takes the same approach with each guy that he coaches while Papa Jack adjusted to the specific player. Of course, Ortiz has been hurt, and that doesn't help, either.
With all that said, they still could have swept the O's and had a 6-game lead if the pen (which has been very good all year)hadn't blown those games.
"You could argue that Mattingly was a home run hitter before all of his injuries. He had a heck of a run for a while there..."
I would agree he ahd a good run, but it was not really as a home run hitter. He was more of a doubles hitter. He never really created the lift in the ball that today's sluggers do. And a lot of the HRs he did hit were a product of the Stadium - I bet if you checked his home/road splits they would be drastic. He only finished in the top 5 in HRs once (and then just barely), and the HRs stopped coming a couple of years before the injuries.
Amen. Bring back the original Frenchie Rheal Cormeir, eh.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm sure all the Yankee a*holes will be chirping now. Never mind that they still have the largest deficit of any second plance team. Or that they still have only beaten two pitchers with ERAs under 5.00 since the ASB.
ReplyDeleteI guess as a Sox fan we should just forget about winning the division and be thankful that we have 4 game lead in the Wild Card (sarcasm intended).
Well, I was going to write about how the Yankees gained ground even though the Sox had gone 14-7 over their previous 21. I was going to add that you can't do much about that. But this series against the Os should have been a sweep...
ReplyDeleteThe offense looks terrible. The bullpen was due for a small let down.
On the upside, the "Big 3" starting pitchers all gave us quality outings...Beckett was awesome, as was Daisuke. Schilling was solid over 6.
I agree with X that we have the biggest lead...But the Yankees just went to Cleveland and beat the hell out of the Indians. It's hard to imagine the Sox winning the division if the Yankees keep this up. But they have to be due for some bad starts soon...Of course, they get to play Detroit when they suck...but whatever...
Gagne ne pas Gagne!
ReplyDeleteIts a bit of a double-entendre... as in he can't win but also does any believe this is the real Gagne?
This weekend sucked, but I am willing to give him another chance to get settled.
Someone called a radio show this morning and claimed that Texas didn't use him much in July because he had started sucking. Time to go look at the splits!
ReplyDeleteApril- 4 appearances
ReplyDeleteERA 0
2 hit in 3.1 innings
May- 8 appearances
ERA 1.17
3 hits in 7.2 innings (1 HR)
June- 12 appearances
ERA 1.50
7 hits in 12 innings
July- 10 appearances
ERA 4.36
11 hits in 10.1 innings
Well, he did have a rough July, and that seems to have carried over into August.
To give it a bit more perspective
Pre-All-Star
ERA 1.32
15 hits in 27.1 innings
Post All-Star
ERA 9.64
10 earned runs and 17 hits in 9.1 innings.
One more thing...we better bring someone up to pitch the second game of that double-header next weekend against LA. Otherwise we are slated to have Schilling, Wakefield, Lester against the Yankees...
ReplyDeleteGrieve Rules when he has conversations with himself... good ones at that!
ReplyDeleteTechnically it should be "Grieve Rules rules" but I get it...
ReplyDeleteWEll the Yanks did beat CLE, but they beat CLE without having to face CC and without Hafner. They sure seem to have caught all the scheduling breaks this season, so far.
ReplyDeleteI'm hearing that Bucholz is going to pitch this Friday. Why not. Lester has not been overly impressive this year. He just walks to many hitters. So lets see if we can go get some help within - like the Yankees have.
Speaking of other teams, never had a chance to comment last week of how annoying it is listening to the Angels announcers. Apparently the Angels are the best team ever in the history of the world. They made McCarver and Buck talking about the Yankees seem down right pessimistic. It was so bad that in the last game when Papelbon came in with a two run lead, Hudler was drooling all over himself saying all sorts of things that made it seem tthe Angels victory was just moments away. And on two of the outs, he said the Sox and Papelbon were lucky (lucky it was right at so and so and lucky that Guerror missed that pitch). Maybe it bugged me more since the Sox were playing like crap, but I had listened to him before and it never really bothered me that much.
The Os almost took that one last night. Maybe we just caught them when they were hot.
ReplyDeleteHowever, we only scored 3 against the D-Rays...Looking closely at that game last night, it struck me how undisciplined the Sox hitters were. Ortiz swung at a bad 3-0 pitch and grounded out to short. That sort of stuff.
Also, I have to believe that a lot of the "lack of power" we are seeing is a result of Dave Magadan. Don't get me wrong...Youk, Lowell, Pedroia, Manny, and Ortiz are all hitting over .300. Drew, Lugo, and Crisp are performing as of late. But everyone (with the exception of Manny) has been just slapping the ball around, much like Magadan when he played.
Still a 4 game lead...
Still playing the D-Rays...
Yankees are going into their "rough" stretch against a lackluster Tigers team...
It's worth noting a few things re: Magadan and power production. First, offense, and particularly power numbers, are down league-wide this season - AL SLG was at .437 last year, and is at .421 this year, and HR/G was at 1.23 in 06 and is at 0.98 in 2007. The same is true, with slightly different figures, for MLB as a whole. Also good to note for the Sox is that in terms of rate stats, this team has been more productive offensively than the 06 team, but with fewer HR - team SLG is 2 points higher in 07 (.435 to .437), but the HR rate is down from 1.19 per game to 0.97 per game. That is definitely a somewhat bigger gap than in the AL as a whole, but the Sox have avoided the league-wide SLG drop. Maybe the HR drop is responsible for the slight decrease in runs per game, but maybe not. Regardless, this is certainly not a weak offensive club - our 4th place rank MLB wide in Runs Scored attests to that.
ReplyDeletePapa jackson was the hitting coach when the Sox were mashing and leading the world in runs scored. And he was exactly the same kind of hitter as Magadan - so you can't blame it on the hitting coach. The Yanks lead the league in HR, and while not technically their hitting coach, Mattingly was not a home run guy.
ReplyDeleteAnd at the risk of sounding like Rob Neyer or Billy Beane, I think some of the results they are seeing this year are just plain bad luck. They just have not had the same production with RISP. They lead the league in OBP but just can't get the runners home. Last night they had 11 base runners and only 3 scored. Not what you would expect.
You could argue that Mattingly was a home run hitter before all of his injuries. He had a heck of a run for a while there...
ReplyDeleteYes, HRs are down, and we all thought that the Sox didn't really have any power aside from Ortiz and Manny before the season.
It is possible that Magadan takes the same approach with each guy that he coaches while Papa Jack adjusted to the specific player. Of course, Ortiz has been hurt, and that doesn't help, either.
With all that said, they still could have swept the O's and had a 6-game lead if the pen (which has been very good all year)hadn't blown those games.
And tonight they face another tough lefty...
"You could argue that Mattingly was a home run hitter before all of his injuries. He had a heck of a run for a while there..."
ReplyDeleteI would agree he ahd a good run, but it was not really as a home run hitter. He was more of a doubles hitter. He never really created the lift in the ball that today's sluggers do. And a lot of the HRs he did hit were a product of the Stadium - I bet if you checked his home/road splits they would be drastic. He only finished in the top 5 in HRs once (and then just barely), and the HRs stopped coming a couple of years before the injuries.
Great player. Not a HR hitter.