September 30, 2008
Tomorrow night, I will be live-blogging the broadcast of Game One of the ALDS. Likely topics will include discussion of the overrated-ness of K-Rod, complaints about the frequency of Frank TV ads, mockery of the TBS announcers, and, hopefully, further praise for Jon Lester. Thanks to the late west-coast start time, things might get a bit interesting towards the later innings. Stop in and say hello.
September 29, 2008
I’ve been
saying for a while that this October seems already shaping up to have a 2005-Tony-Graffanino
kinda feel to it.
Lately, though,
I’d starting thinking that assessment was a bit harsh. After all, who knows.
Sure, we’re banged up, definitely don't seem to be the well-balanced, leak-proof attack machine
we were last fall.
But October is wide open. Anything can happen. A whole new
ball game. Right?
Well, last night I
started getting that feeling again.
Time will
tell.
Let’s just
pray Lester
and/or Dice-K can come up big on Wednesday and/or Friday.
And,
especially, that Justin Masterson and the bullpen can tow the line.
With
luck, Beckett can go on Sunday.
And if he can
pitch like Josh Beckett should pitch, all the better.
I just wish I could be as
sanguine as Bob Ryan.
In the
other news...
I paid a
visit last week to a relic of Red Sox’ past.
The 1912
World Series Trophy was at the Cask and Flagon,
a quick stop before it heads to New York, where it’ll be auctioned off by Guernsey’s
Auction House on October 18 at Madison
Square Garden.
The auction
is primarily meant as a commemoration of “the closing of Yankee Stadium and the end of a baseball
era,” says Guernsey’s president Arlan
Ettinger, but there are hundreds of other artifacts on the block, many of them
“from the great teams that played against the Yankees.”
The trophy,
Ettinger says, “is one of the greatest baseball treasures ever to be offered
anywhere, at any time. Physically small, it nevertheless represents one of the greatest
achievements ever. It’s certainly one of the most important baseball artifacts
that can possibly be sold.”
Back in
1912, the year Fenway
Park
opened, 11 years before Yankee Stadium
was even built, teams didn’t get World Series trophies. Players got rings, but
that was it.
But after Smokey
Joe Wood and Tris Speaker led the Sox to a 4-3 (with one tie) World Series victory over
the New York Giants, John Francis
"Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, mayor of Boston, future grandfather of John
F. Kennedy, and member in good standing of the Royal Rooters — wonder if he knew Hurdy and
Stuffy? — decided to commission a trophy in recognition of the team’s
achievement.
He made
two, in fact. One for owner John I. Taylor, and one for player-manager Jake
Stahl. Taylor’s
hasn’t been seen since, but Stahl’s having been in his family for generations,
and then passed on to a collector, is now up for sale.
It’s your solemn
duty — or, perhaps, that of the Yawkey
Way ownership troika, who probably have a bit more
scratch than you — to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
“Is it
conceivable that some fanatical Yankee fan could get ahold of it and ceremonially
do something to it?” Ettinger asks, miming a lusty sledgehammer swing. Yes.
“But I
doubt that. There is a respect. Despite the hatred on the diamond, there is a
respect [between the Yankees and Sox]. Sentimentally, though, who wouldn’t root
to see this thing back here, where it belongs?”
September 23, 2008
They just
can’t seem to seal the deal. Sorta starting to remind me of Obama in the
primaries.
Hopefully
the same won’t hold true in the World Series and the general election,
respectively.
(Incidentally,
the Sox still have a 11.16 percent chance of winning the division, says
Baseball Prospectus. And Nate
Silver, who made his bones at BP and has since branched out into politics at
his excellent site FiveThirtyEight,
has sifted through the polls, crunched the numbers, and weighted the data all
appropriately, and seems to suggest things
are looking up for Obama.)
In the mean
time,
* Johnny
Pesky gets his number retired this weekend. Terrific news. Well-deserved. No
discussion.
* And how's this for a place to retire at the end of every weary day?
Wanna
buy Big Papi’s bed? Opening bid
is $2500 and all proceeds benefit Boston Health
Care for the Homeless.
Frankly,
I’m surprised a King Size is big enough.
September 18, 2008
Eh. Not
quite the result I was looking for, Timmeh.
Moving on.
About this Schilling thing?
Just. Shut.
Up. Already.
Seriously,
what is the point at this point? Manny is kicking ass and taking names in Los Angeles. Curt is
designing video games in Maynard. This is all old news. Whatever happened to live and let live?
Also, what he said:
As
a fan, I could care less if a guy is impossible in the clubhouse, on the plane,
in the hotel, at team meetings, whatever. If he delivers between the lines, I
want him to be in the lineup. Similarly, I could care less if another guy is
really nice. If he can't hit, pitch, field, run better than another guy he
should be glued to the bench, traded or cut. Mr. Nice Guy is getting paid a LOT
of money to watch more productive players play. He should be happy with that
instead of whining to the manager. I'd rather watch the Sox win with a few
jerks on the team than lose with 100% nice guys. The goal is to win
championships not field the all-Nice Guy team. Let's not lose the reason why
you get to cash those checks. It's not because you pick up after yourself in
the locker room.
And the manager is getting paid to win games, not to win the Miss Congeniality
Award. If he jeopardizes team success because he consistently rationalizes
playing his favorites over better players, he should be fired so he can pursue
his true calling; being Activity Director on a cruise ship.
September 17, 2008
Uh, yeah. Perhaps
I should not have been so hubristic.
A dose of
humility may be just what the doctor ordered. So, Wake,
could you please float like butterfly tonight? A
win would be much-appreciated.
Thanks in
advance!
In the mean
time, I’m gonna try to erase the memory of that tragic waste
of a dynamite Beckett outing by thinking back on my honeymoon, where I was
surprised to discover that Red Sox nation extends south easterly to the British
overseas territory of Bermuda.
One of our cab
driver’s cars was bedecked in Olde
Towne Team paraphernalia (he didn’t miss Manny either). One friendly cashier
filled us in on the details of the previous
night’s game. (You can get NESN down there — and the NBC affiliate at the
hotel, weirdly, was WHDH.) And at The
Swizzle Inn, the island’s oldest pub, the flag out front proudly trumpets its
allegiances.
Ten things about one-run games.
Recipe for Rum Swizzle. (Not to be abused after one-run losses.)
September 16, 2008
Great, great news.
"We are all on the same page with regard to our vision for the organization,"
Henry wrote in an e-mail this afternoon. "The negotiations were pleasant
and were all about rewarding Theo for the great, great job he has done in
bringing two world championships to the Red Sox. We look forward to the
difficult task of trying to win a third."
Well-deserved. And especially gratifying considering how different things were around these parts just three years ago.
Guess he'll have to figure out another Halloween costume this year.
September 16, 2008
If we only
win one at the Trop all year, I suppose that’s
a good way to do it.
But, of
course, we’re not gonna win just one.
We’re
gonna win tonight.
And
then tomorrow night.
And then
we’re gonna stay on top and finish this thing up.
Those devilish
Rays had a nice little run at it this summer, and I’m sure it’s done wonders
for their self-esteem. But now it’s about time for the big boys to take over.
The air is
cooling. Fall starts in a few days. And, my esteemed
colleague’s trepidation notwithstanding, I’m inclined to predict we’ll soon
have — at the very, very least — a white division banner to hang outside our
beloved Fenway Park.
Just win.
September 15, 2008
In Bill James's Gold Mine 2008, he talks at length about Nolan Ryan. In short, he finds Ryan to be a fascinatingly unique pitcher - unique in his approach, and in the results he got by going about his work that way. Ryan, as he tells it, simply refused to get a batter out any way but by striking him out. And to a degree, it worked - he is the all-time leader in strikeouts. He also didn't give up a lot of hits - see his record seven no-hitters - because he'd hardly ever throw something a batter could make solid contact on. But he also walked a lot of guys, too, which would lead to probably just as many base runners as it would have had he occasionally pitched to contact, sacrificing some of those strikeouts for more efficient ground- or flyouts. Without consulting a pile of retrosheet data, I'm also going to assume that this meant he threw a lot of pitches in his career.
James - a Red Sox employee, I remind you all - implies that usually the Nolan Ryan model is not one that leads to a lot of success as a Major-League pitcher. Yet, obviously, it worked for Ryan - although he also was the losing pitcher in nearly as many games as he won (not that a starter's W-L record is much of an indicator of anything). And others have followed in his footsteps. James created a fictional award for pitchers who follow Ryan's lead and find success in doing so. It's based on the convergence of wins, losses, strikeouts, and walks. Last year's winner was Carlos Zambrano - who, incidentally, pitched his first no-hitter last night. This year, Big Z has cut down on the walks, so he's likely safe in 2008. But two of his possible successors for the award match up tonight in Tampa with first place in the AL East at stake, just as they did last week in Fenway - Scott Kazmir and Daisuke Matsuzaka.
Dice is second in the AL in walks and he missed a few starts with injury. Kazmir is just outside of the top ten. He, too, has missed time with injuries. Kazmir has about 15 more strikeouts to his name, but they're both in the top twenty in the AL. On the anecdotal tip, most Red Sox fans I talk to say things like "I
can't stand watching him pitch" when discussing Matsuzaka, yet he keeps
on winning. Somehow, the two have only been on the losing end eight games, though, perhaps a testament to the Red Sox and Rays offense on days when the two pitch, or perhaps it's that the two are adept at keeping batted balls from becoming hits - Dice's BABIP is .272 and Kazmir's is .276, in other words, both on the lucky side, but not glaringly flukish. But they both throw a lot of pitches, so tonight's game might resemble last week's, when both starters had thrown over 100 pitches and exited the game by the sixth inning.
Also, there's a more likely candidate for James's "Nolan Ryan Award" this year - A. J. Burnett, who's 18-10, leads the AL in strikeouts, and is third in walks. Burnett can become a free agent after this year, and rumors have had the Red Sox interested in making a run at acquiring him. One imagines James advising against it.
September 09, 2008
More like "Scott Kaz-yourworstnightmir," am I right Sox fans?
Okay, fine: Kazmir has given up seven runs in nine innings (two starts) against the Red Sox this year. And yeah, he has problems pitching late into ballgames (which looms as a potential bugaboo for the Rays come playoff time.) But we still fear him when he pitches against the Sox. We can't help it.
Lest we sound too negative, we should point out that even if they do lose today, we're sure they are still going to pass the Rays soon enough. Just maybe not tonight.
We'll check back in during the game, perhaps do a little live-blogging if things are going well.
UPDATE #1: Vintage Daisuke tonight; sort of sums up his season - 5 innings, 102 pitches, 5 strikeouts, 4 walks. This may merit a blog post soon. But this thing isn't over yet.
UPDATE #2: Wow, that sucked. Let's not read too much into this, though.
September 05, 2008
We are the jockeys; the jockeys are we.
So a lot of people have been talking up the idea of Dustin Pedroia winning the MVP award lately: the Fenway crowd chanted it at him, Ozzie Guillen famously called him a "jockey," David Pinto used his success in the cleanup role as an excuse to post the video of Andy Kaufman performing the Mighty Mouse theme on Saturday Night Live, and even Rick Sutcliffe floated the possibility during the broadcast of Wednesday's Rays-Yankees game. On Sons of Sam Horn, they're comparing him to the likes of George Brett, Derek Jeter, Pete Rose, and vintage Nomar. He is hitting (ready for this?) .667/.667/1.222 when batting fourth in the lineup (sample size, etc.) He's leading all second basemen in Nerdy McNerderson stats like VORP and Wins Probability Added. He is awesome.
The question, of course, is not whether or not he deserves the MVP award. He deserves to be considered as a serious candidate, for sure, along with Carlos Quentin, Justin Morneau, Josh Hamilton, Joe Mauer, Alex Rodriguez, Jermaine Dye, Grady Sizemore, and . . . well, Kevin Youkilis, but he's probably a different blog post altogether. The real question, though, is whether or not he can win the award when you factor in the mercurial nature of the voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Just looking at how they've voted in the past, they tend to look at a couple of things. First, with some exceptions, they tend to believe the MVP should come from a winning team, one that either makes the playoffs or comes close to doing so (closer than expected anyway.) They like guys who reach the classic plateaus in the Triple Crown stat categories - batting .300, hitting 20 home runs, and driving in 100 runs, though that last one has been negotiable for leadoff types. And sometimes, being a vocal-leader type, "clutch," or just generally a guy the media likes and would make a good story help out.
Pedroia fits all of those criteria - the Red Sox are likely to make the playoffs and 20 homers and a .300 average are within reach for him. He's perceived as "clutch" and he never shuts up. He gets a lot of "heart and soul of the Red Sox" ink. Would he make a great story? Of course he would! The media loves stuff like this! Pedroia's got more talent than most guys of his stature. But at the same time, when a lot of the people who write about baseball for a living see the guy, all they see is his height. And they love it! Couldn't this be a case of the media's ignorance playing into Pedroia's favor? Pedroia and Eckstein aren't similar players - Pedroia is, to put it succinctly, better at baseball - but the media frequently mentions them in the same breath, because they're both short guys. And they love Eckstein so much. They would have voted Eckstein for MVP five times over had his numbers been even remotely good enough to justify it. So they see Pedroia, who is a media-approved candidate, who is kind of short and plays up the middle like Eckstein . . . I mean, would you be surprised if they made the connection? They'd be voting for a good candidate, but for a bad reason. And I suspect Pedroia and the Red Sox would be okay with that.