ROYAL ROOTING: 5/20 Surfing to Normalcy

Put aside the "As TheWorld Turns" histrionic forced debacle of the whole Jorge Posada Greek Tragedy, mostly manufactured by the insatiable drama-vaccum of modern sports reporting which on the standard-issue ESPN manual states:

Chapter 3 "Boston and New York Sporting Clashes" Section 2: para.34:
"There must, prior to a Sox vs. Yanks series, be some locker-room story of import from either side (the decision of which we benevolently leave up to you, Journo-Monkey) to enhance and intensify on a personal level and thusly preserve this treasure-trove of ratings and mouse-clicks we call "TheGreatest Rivalry in Sports."

This is right after the section entitled:

Section 1: "Make Mention of Another Random Pairing of Teams which Might be Exhibiting Signs of A Rivalry Just to Keep the rest of America from Feeling Left Out"

and before:

Section 3: "Always Broadcast in Front of a Group of Rowdy, Chanting Fans which will Better Drown out the Anchor should He Decide to Say Something Completely Asinine or Refer to a False Statistic"

Yes, all that aside.

And the O's aside, and the Tiger's aside... on walk-off's.

The Blue Book Exam

Mid-Term Section # 1: Verbal counts for 50% of  your grade

1) How does a team adjust to being thrown directly into the spotlight after a major offseason realignment of galactic scope?

2) Once the season starts and the pressure proves to be quite a bit more than expected, how do you recover?

3) When the recovery fails, and you're looking from the barrel-bottom up and sports news entities are calling it Panic-worthy End of Days, how do you deal with it?

Bonus: One of your two major offensive acquisitions is near-hitless the first month of the season, much like both options at the catcher position.

Mid-Term Section #2: Math counts for 50% of your grade

1) How many games does it take to recover from a 2-10 start to the season?

2) Your Captain, who can call the hell out of a game, is hitting sub.100 and might be a hair's breath from retirement.

3) Millions of fans who REALLY don't like to see their team lose.

Response

You make all of the above irrelevant. The Sox are now in a position where losing a game doesn't resonate with the same meteor-crater impact. We are in essence back to a point in the season where the concept of "win some / lose some" is pleasingly normal.

And somehow that drama at the beginning of the season is now dull red and disappearing into the night like a road-sign in the rearview.

Welcome, welcome. We've been expecting you.

-Punchy, Red Sox West

ROYAL ROOTING: One Bad Inning (in One Bad Season)

It can't be like this all season.
                              - Jon Lester

The Rays couldn't get much going against Lester last night, but they were able to bunch their hits together -- something the Red Sox are having trouble doing themselves -- and one bad inning did him in.

If you take out the fifth inning, Lester's line is no runs on 3 hits in 6 innings pitched, with 2 walks and 8 strikeouts. And the fifth inning? 3 runs on 4 hits in one inning pitched, no walks, no strikeouts. In fact, he struck out the side in the fourth before giving up those three runs in the fifth, and then he settled down again, facing the minimum in both the sixth (he walked Lopez and then picked him off) and in the seventh (courtesy of a double play).

And the fifth didn't start out so bad; he retired the first batter, Ben Zobrist. (Is there any position Zobrist can't play, by the way? He's listed as a second-baseman, but he definitely robbed Varitek of a hit last night in right.) But then he (I'm talking about Lester again) gave up three straight singles to Shoppach and the two Johnsons (insert joke here) to load the bases. Then the swinging bunt by the New England kid Sam Fuld (Durham, NH) tied the game at 1. (When I saw it live, I thought Gonzalez had a chance to tag Fuld, but after watching the replay, I'm pretty sure his only play was to the plate. Which is why I don't play first base professionally.)

And then, of course, Johnny ____ing Damon came up with the big hit, driving in two more, including the eventual game-winning run. (He's got five RBI so far in this series. Maybe his dad was right, and letting Damon walk after the 2005 season was the Red Sox' biggest mistake since Babe Ruth.)


Sorry, I'm back. I just had to get seven stitches for the hole my tongue poked through my cheek.

So you could say the breaks didn't go their way last night. Offensively, you look at the bottom of the sixth, and Pedroia (who's batting .366!) led off with a double. Gonzalez probably would have had a hit up the middle, except it went off of Price's backside (the pitcher), deflecting to the second-baseman, and instead of having first and third with no one out, you've got a man on third with one out. Later in the inning, Lowrie's two-out double to drive in Pedroia (a rare timely hit, by the way -- Lowrie's also swinging a hot bat; let's keep him in the lineup) may have scored Gonzalez, too, had he been on.

In the 8th, Pedroia was on second again (walk, moved over on a Gonzalez ground-out, which, in fairness, should have been a double play to get Tampa out of the inning, speaking of breaks), and Price hit Youkilis (who's looking a lot better at the plate), taking the bat out of Youkilis's hands and putting it in Lowrie's. Lowrie, a switch hitter, had been 2 for 3 from the right side of the plate, so Joe Maddon, the Rays manager, went to the pen to get a righty and turn Lowrie around. It worked; Lowrie flew out to center.

Tough loss, but Price is obviously a very good pitcher, and it wouldn't be a huge deal if they weren't 2-9 on the season. (With Houston winning last night, the Red Sox now have the worst record in baseball, all by themselves.) And you certainly can't chalk Monday's loss up to bad breaks. I mean, look at the line score:


If they win tonight, they'll be .500 at home. (Which is better than their .000 on the road, I guess.) The team will come around, right? "It can't be like this all season." But when they finally get hot, will it be too late? Will they have dug themselves too big of a hole to get out of?

With every loss, members of the media tell us how the odds of winning a World Series continue to decrease, as if probability matters in baseball. (Technically, they had a 0% chance of winning the 2004 ALCS after going down three games to none.) Taking up the "we still have a chance" argument, though, Jill Seward of NESN points out that the 1991 Minnesota Twins started their season 2-9. And then went on to win 95 games and beat the Braves in the World Series.

Here's my own "we still have a chance" argument. Maybe the Sox will catch a break tonight. It's pouring right now in Boston. Let's hope it keeps on raining, and the game gets postponed until they're playing better ...


- SummerMatt, Red Sox East

ROYAL ROOTING: When Is Early Over?

The prevailing sentiment on this blog to this point has effectively been, "Sure, the Sox haven't been playing well, but it's early." Punchy and I have both been preaching patience. And I've implied, twice now, that the losses are only magnified because there's no other body of work to compare them to.

But they're not just 1-7 in their last eight games; they're 1-7 in their only eight games. I'd be a fool not to recognize that. So, at what point does the season cease being just a bad start and start being ... well, representative of the season itself?

When Is Early Over?

I'm going to say "not yet," and here's why. I watched a little of the Florida-Houston game last night, and in the bottom of the second, Bill Hall came up with one out. Hall, of course, played 120 games for the Sox last year. This year, he's Houston's starting second baseman, and last night he was batting in the seventh spot. He was batting .160 when he stepped into the box, and then he hit a double to that crazy hill they have in dead center down in Houston.


That one swing of the bat raised his average 32 points to .192. Thirty-two points with one hit! For an every-day player! Next up was J.R. Towles, the catcher last night, batting 8th, with an average of .417. He struck out on a high fastball, and his average dropped 32 points to .385. My point is, when you can affect your batting average by 32 points, for better or for worse, with one swing of the bat, the season can't be too advanced, can it?

(If you're curious, the pitcher, Bud Norris, batting 9th with two outs, doubled Hall home. He later came around to score on a hit by Angel Sanchez. 2 runs on 3 hits, no errors and 2 left; at the end of 2, it was Astros 3, Marlins 1.)

"That Said," Part One

That said, it's obviously pretty frustrating when the Sox have opportunities to score and can't do anything with them. I just told you that the Astros pitcher doubled home a run in the bottom of the second yesterday. In our own bottom of the second, Drew and Lowrie led off with back-to-back singles ... and then didn't go anywhere. Saltalamacchia (.182) struck out, Ellsbury (.156) popped out, Crawford (.152) grounded into a fielder's choice.

Then, in the 8th, Lowrie -- who went 3 for 4 at the plate, though his second-inning error led to New York's first run -- got a one-out hit. Salty followed it up with a single, and all of a sudden they had a little something going -- two on, one out. Robertson and Chamberlain had been lights out, but Ayala now looked like he could have been vulnerable. And they essentially had the top of the order coming up. Ellsbury (the sometimes leadoff hitter, today batting 9th) followed by Crawford (the game's actual leadoff hitter), and then Pedroia (the hottest bat on the team -- .355 on the year after hitting three doubles yesterday, scoring a run and driving in two more).


But we never got to Pedroia. Because Ellsbury flew out to center and Crawford flew out to right. Inning over. (If you were curious, they left Ayala in to pitch the ninth, and Pedroia led off the inning with his 3rd double of the game. He was eventually stranded on third.)

It's early (I swear), and the bats'll come around (I promise) ... but, fellas, we've got to start hitting.

"That Said," Part Two

That said, we've got to stop giving up home runs. 19 dingers in 8 games? That's almost two and a half per game. When Buchholz gave up four solo shots in last Sunday's start in Texas, I kind of shrugged and said, "well, at least there was no one on base each time." Four bad pitches, I guess, right? But, as a team, you can't let the ball leave the yard with that kind of frequency. Buchholz "only" gave up one yesterday (the three-run blast to Martin in the 4th). But Doubront gave up a two-run home run to Granderson in the 5th, and Aceves gave up two solo shots (Cano in the 6th, and Martin's second in the 7th).

(P.S. Say what you want about Granderson, but that kid can work a count. He drew a full-count walk in the 2nd. He drew a 10-pitch walk in the 4th after being down 1-2. And he was down 0-2 in the 5th before working the count full and then going deep, turning a one-run game into a three-run game.)

Dogged by Houston

Bill Brown is the play-by-play guy for Fox Sports Houston, and Jim Deshaies, former Astros lefty, does the color commentary. So I was half-watching the game, like I said, and I don't think they were giving updates on scores around the league or anything; they were just talking about the Yankees-Red Sox game:

Bill Brown: Red Sox Nation [is] really down to start the season.
Jim Deshaies: The pitching just hasn't been there, really.
Bill Brown: No, it has not.

Now Houston's also 1-7. (They didn't hold that second-inning lead, by the way. Which, if you're paying attention, you know evened Florida's record to 1-1 in Games I've Watched This Year.) So maybe they were just looking for some solidarity by mentioning the Red Sox. But (1) I thought it was kind of cool that the announcer of an N.L. Central team referred to "Red Sox Nation," and (2) they're right. So let's look at the maligned staring pitching:

Lester: 3.65 ERA (5 earned runs in 12 1/3 innings pitched)
Beckett: 5.40 ERA (3 earned runs in 5 innings pitched)
Matsuzaka: 5.40 ERA (3 earned runs in 5 innings pitched)
Buchholz: 7.20 ERA (8 earned runs in 10 innings pitched)
Lackey: 15.58 (15 earned runs in 8 2/3 innings pitched)

And Lackey's got the only win on the team!

Now let's think on those numbers. At this point in the season, Lester's had one poor outing and one good outing. Feeling OK there. Beckett and Dice-K each gave up three runs in five innings in their first starts; not great, but if your team's hitting, serviceable starts. (The counter-arguments are in my head, too, but let's put aside for the moment what we expect of them vs. what they're giving us. We can work with these numbers.) Buchholz is the one that concerns me; no one expected him to have the season he had last year, but there's clearly something wrong there; hopefully he can get that turned around. Lackey, strangely, doesn't concern me. He is who he is. He's going to get double-digit wins, and he may get double-digit losses. He'll give up a lot of runs, but like Andy Pettitte, teams seem to score for him. (Whether you can explain it or not, when something happens often enough, it stops being a fluke.) Just pitch deeper into games, and he and I will be good.

(After pitching a perfect 8th and 9th yesterday, facing the minimum both innings, Tim Wakefield's ERA for the season is 3.00 -- 2 earned runs in 6 innings pitched. I mean nothing by mentioning it; they're just numbers.)

So let's see how Beckett does today. On the one hand, it's one game, out of 162. 1-8 vs. 2-7. But on the other hand, if he can get going, and beat a (hated) divisional opponent ... then we've got Tampa Bay coming into town ... they're also (inexplicably) 1-7 after losing to Chicago yesterday ... I think this game tonight means a lot. It's not the end of the world if they lose it, and it won't automatically catapult them into eventual first place if they win it, but it's a big game, and we need Beckett to be a big-game pitcher, even without his best stuff. Josh, shut these guys up, if you would, please. Thanks.

- SummerMatt, Red Sox East

P.S. If you like this blog, you should "like" our facebook page. There are some great people on there. For example, Kellie, I've never met you, but your enthusiasm during Friday's game was infectious! Thank you!

ROYAL ROOTING: 0-6 on The Eve of the Season Opener vs. the Yankees

ROYAL ROOTING: It's All My Fault

I write this while watching Washington play Florida. It's stretch time in Miami, and the game's tied at 3. I'm kind of rooting for Washington, and as I tell you why, you'll realize that Boston's 0-6 start is really all my fault.

I'm in a pool at work where, before the season starts, you pick four teams. At the end of the season, you add up their wins, and the most combined wins takes the pot. There's a catch, though -- each team is ranked 1 - 30, based on the number of wins they had the previous year, and you get bonus "wins" for picking teams that didn't have great years last year. (Philly had the most wins in 2010, and their cross-state neighbors in Pittsburgh had the least wins. Or cross-commonwealth, rather.)

Without getting into the math too much, partly because I'm afraid your eyes will glaze over, but mostly because I'll expose the faulty logic that defined my strategy, you get rewarded for picking teams that you think will overachieve, based on last year's records. I picked Boston (0-6), Washington (1-4, pending the outcome of this game), Milwaukee (3-4; they started 0-4 but have won three straight) and Baltimore (4-1, pending the outcome of tonight's game against Detroit).

I didn't want to pick Boston. There was too much hype, and it's never a good idea to bet on the team you root for. I almost picked the Dodgers as my fourth team. I was this close to picking the Dodgers:


But I picked Boston. They were kind of far down. 10th from the top, based on last year's records. I convinced myself that it was logic driving this decision. And if that wasn't enough, it was pointed out to me -- by an Indians fan, no less -- that I further jinxed the Sox by including that image of the Cleveland grounds crew from Major League in my last post, when there were still two games left in the series. (Thanks, Eric. Good series. Rematch in August?)

Give Credit to Cleveland

Which is a perfect segue into giving the Indians their due. (If "perfect" can sometimes mean "slightly awkward and disjointed.") Before we dump on the Sox (and after we dump on me), let's talk about the 4-2 Cleveland Indians who are now in a three-way tie for first place in their division.

Manny Acta, Cleveland's manager, had this to say after today's game: "We did beat a very good ballclub -- regardless if they're struggling or not. We won and it was a very well-played series. It wasn't like they were sloppy and we got lucky. We played good baseball."

I'll back him on that. I wouldn't say the Sox played crisp ball ... but come on. Asdrubal Cabrera laid down one of the prettiest bunts I've ever seen to drive in today's only run. Look how far outside this pitch is!


And he goes and gets it. Because he has to. Because it's a suicide squeeze and Adam Everett is coming home one way or another. And he doesn't just get a bat on it; he lays it down perfectly. Look where the ball is, and somehow he pushes it fair.


Cabrera had a great series all around, actually. He was 1 for 3 with a double in the first game, scoring one of Cleveland's three runs. He was 2 for 5 in the second game, scoring a run and driving in four more, including the three-run shot in the 6th that broke the game open. And while he may have been hitless today, he drove in the game's only run.

And say what you want about the Sox' lack of hitting, but the fact remains that Cleveland's staff had an ERA of 1.67 for the series. (1) Tomlin pitched well in the first game: 7.0 IP, 1 R, 3 H, 3 BB, 3 K. (2) The bullpen came through when it mattered in the second game, which was in the 5th. Manny Acta handled that situation perfectly, arguably the turning point in the game. Runners at the corners, one out, he goes and gets Talbot, bringing in Durbin, who strikes out Youkilis. Then he brings in Perez, who gets Ortiz to ground out. Inning over; Cleveland hangs onto its one-run lead. (3) Carmona bounced back from his atrocious opening day to pitch seven shutout innings today.

Timely Hitting

Which is a better than perfect segue (according to my exciting redefinition of "perfect") into ... well, dumping on the Sox, like I promised.

In the middle game, Beckett gave up that two-run shot to Choo in the bottom of the first, and in the top of the second, the Sox got those runs right back. And they caught some breaks to do it. Ortiz went the other way to dump the ball into left center. (No, for real. He didn't hit into the shift.) Drew had that checked-swing "excuse me" hit that rolled down the third base line, Tek drew a walk, and Scutaro hit a bouncing ball to short that they couldn't do anything with, scoring Ortiz. Ellsbury grounded out, scoring Drew. Tie game. There wasn't a solidly hit ball the entire inning, but I thought at the time that might be enough to turn their fortunes.

Not so much. Next inning, Pedroia was hit by a pitch and Gonzalez doubled. 2nd and 3rd, no one out. I thought Pedroia maybe could have scored from first, but with no one out, why risk it? Because what Tim Bogar, the 3rd base coach, didn't realize is that Youkilis was going to look at strike three, Ortiz was going to line out to short (again, the other way, though!), and Drew was going to ... also watch strike three go by. And two innings later, they had runners at the corners with one out ... but you've already heard how that ends.

(P.S. The Nationals and Marlins are headed into the 11th inning, still tied at 3. If you were curious.)

A Bad Trip

For those of you who don't live in New England, this is all people are talking about here. Today, I went to the post office, CVS, the liquor store, and the falafel place at the top of my street. Strangers, waiting on me, and instead of asking me how I was, they just shook their heads and said, "Man ... the Red Sox ... what's wrong?" (Although, in fairness, they actually know me at the falafel place. OK, fine, they know me at the liquor store, too.)

But it was just a bad road trip. We'd be up in arms if they went 0-6 in June, too; we just wouldn't have to keep hearing about how this is their worst start since they went 0-8 in 1945, or how they started 0-6 in 1927 and lost 103 games that year (in a 154-game season, no less).

Who cares? Those teams sucked (I say like I was there). This team doesn't (I say confidently, like they've proved it). They got a quality start out of Lester today, and the bats will come around. They begin a 10-game home stand tomorrow, all against divisional opponents ... so the bats do need to come around soon, I get that.

The media asked manager Terry Francona after today's game what he thought the fans' reception would be tomorrow. "I don't know," he answered. "I've got more important things to worry about than how the hell they're going to clap." Fair enough, but Cleveland's total attendance for this past series? 29,142. For all three games combined. There will be more people in Fenway Park for every single one of those 10 games this home stand. Including me -- I'll be at Monday's game against Tampa Bay (Crawford's first game against his old team). And Tito, I promise to clap.

(Good news, by the way: Washington won 5-3, courtesy of Adam LaRoche's two-run shot in the 11th. Maybe I'm off the hook?)

- SummerMatt, Red Sox East