Month: May 2015

Red Sox Win Another Close One

Posted on May 15, 2015 in Game Recap
Victorino is congratulated by his pitcher for a job well done. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Victorino is congratulated by his pitcher for a job well done. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

The Red Sox topped the Mariners early this morning by a score of 2-1, giving them two wins in two days by scoring a total of four runs. They’ve won four out of five, and now sit at 17-18 on the season.

Joe Kelly was pretty good in this one. His line was similar to Wade Miley‘s yesterday, but Kelly’s outing felt more like a quality start. Which line is better?

Boston IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Miley (W, 2-4) 6.2 5 0 0 4 1 0 5.60
Kelly, J 6.1 5 1 1 3 2 0 5.58

On the surface, you’d probably have to take Miley with 0 runs in the win. But Miley put runners on in every inning, and was constantly working out of trouble. Kelly, on the other hand, retired seven in a row at one point and had three separate 1-2-3 innings. Obviously the most important thing in pitching is preventing the other team from scoring, but I was more impressed with Kelly’s start.

In the bottom of the 7th the score was knotted at 1, and Kelly got the first man to foul out, but then walked Chris Taylor on a 3-2 pitch that was very close. Farrell didn’t want to take any chances and gave Pumpsie the hook after only 91 pitches. He was not happy when he was pulled. I couldn’t tell if he was upset with Farrell for yanking him, or the ump for calling the last pitch a ball, but he was madder than an old wet hen.

Another low run total for this team is slightly worrisome, so let’s hope it doesn’t become a trend. I’d be more worried if the squad was putting together a lot of weak at-bats, but they’ve been hitting a lot of balls hard, just right at people. What I’m about to say is downright blasphemous to number worshippers, but hitters have been passing “the eye test”, and I feel like they’re on the verge of breaking out. If you’d like to challenge this feeling, look up the team’s BABIP over the last five games and tell me I’m wrong (I haven’t done this, I’m genuinely curious to hear the answer).

Speaking of the eye test, Xander looked great in the field again last night. Smooth, confident, rangy. Full disclosure: I’m not really that comfortable with the advanced defensive statistics, so I can’t argue that his improved Rdrs/yr is a better indicator of his season thus far than his diminished Rtot/yr, but let’s just pretend that that proves my point.

The offense was highlighted by some great individual performances. Hanley had 4 hits, including his FIRST double of the year! I have no idea how that’s possible for a guy who was slugging .532 entering last night’s game and has been one of the best power hitters in the game this year.

Unfortunately HanRam also got thrown out twice on the basepaths, costing the Red Sox at least one run. That’s just Hanley being Manny, I guess.

Victorino had himself a night, going yabo and making a great running catch over his head in right, then doubling off the runner at first who was off with the pitch.

Rusney who?

In the top of the 9th, with the score still even at 1 apiece, Brock Holt! led off with a double, Xander sacrificed him over to third, Panda (pinch hitting for Swihart) got drilled, and Mookie lifted a 1-2 pitch into medium left field, deep enough to score Holt from third. But, Rickie Weeks dropped the ball, so there wasn’t even a play at the plate.

Freebie

Despite the error, the Red Sox failed to do any further damage, so they entered the bottom of the 9th with a 2-1 lead. No matter, Koji slammed the door shut with a 1-2-3 inning. Remember when Jonathan Papelbon was the closer and he’d put a million guys on and recite an epic poem to himself in between every pitch before finally striking out the last batter of the game on a 3-2 pitch to leave the bases loaded? This is much preferable.

Notes:

-Yesterday the aforementioned Papelbon became the Phillies’ all-time leader in saves. God, I feel old.

-Three more 0 for 4 performances by Red Sox batters.

–Pedroia is still awesome.

Wait, What? The Sox Win a Series?

Posted on May 14, 2015 in Game Recap

Wade delivering another shutdown pitch. Classic Wade. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

For the first time in the month of May 2015, the Red Sox have won a series. It wasn’t exactly a magical performance, but 2 out of 3 is 2 out of 3. That’s just basic math.

The listed highlights on MLB.com for this one are mostly A’s videos, even though they put up zero runs against Wade Miley and the 1-2 combination of Tazawa and Uehara. In fact, out of 14 videos, there are as many Red Sox highlights (5) as there are Coco Crisp highlights. I guess what I’m saying is COCO IS BACK BABY.

From a certain perspective, Miley had a terrible start. He let people on base because he liked the cut of their jib, including the first two batters of the game on eight straight balls after a strike to start things off. In the first six innings he pitched, Miley allowed at least one runner into scoring position 5 separate times (the 5th inning being the only exception), each time with less than 2 outs. In each of the first three innings, Miley allowed a runner to reach third but no farther, including Marcus Semien, who led off the 3rd inning with a triple over Mookie Betts‘ head. Mookie misplayed it pretty badly – possibly losing it in the sun? – by running pretty nonchalantly in its general direction until he realized it was going over his head, turning on the afterburners a little too late to catch up.

But as in every other inning, Miley found a way out of the jam. He wasn’t doing it with nasty stuff: he only had one strikeout on the day. He wasn’t necessarily doing it with the sinker: he actually got the A’s to fly out (10) more than ground out (9). He wasn’t getting bailed out by his defense: most of the plays made by the Sox were fairly routine (excepting this outstanding pick by Sandoval that kept the game-tying run at second base). The best you could say for ol’ Wade was that he induced weak contact, serving up pitches that looked hittable but never resulted in anything better than a triple over the center fielder’s head that Jackie Bradley, Jr. would’ve caught with his eyes closed.

So is inducing weak contact a thing? So far this year for Miley, it is, according to Fangraphs. He’s giving up less line drives and less hard-hit balls. As the statheads say though, things always regress to the mean, and Miley hasn’t been good even with these possible anomalies.

On a day when five Red Sox went 0-4, including Brock Holt, who’s now below .300 for the first time since he went 0-1 on April 9, and the team as a whole only managed to draw one walk, they still managed to plate two runs. How? Righty’s blog title from yesterday’s game comes to mind – the ugly way, with a struggling Daniel Nava as the key cog.

Sonny Gray pitched seven innings, with five 1-2-3 appearances. But where the Athletics struggled to plate runners in scoring position, Boston managed to bring home its only runner to reach second base against Gray in the second inning. After a leadoff single by Hanley, the next two batters struck out, but the pitch got away from Oakland catcher Phegley (that is one ugly last name) and Ramirez trotted as slowly as possible to second. Then, according to MLB.com, “Nava flare[d] a run-scoring single to left,” which is probably the kindest possible description of what happened. Make no mistake, this was a pop-up. But it was one of those pop-ups that immediately looked uncatchable, and so it was, bouncing easily in front of Crisp to score Ramirez from second easily, as he’d obviously been running on contact. Better lucky than good.

After a much cleaner single by Nava to lead off the eighth and a botched bunt by Jackie Bradley, Sandy León managed to get plunked by a curveball, pushing Nava into scoring position, just the second runner to touch second base for the Sox all afternoon. And after a disappointing full count strikeout by Mookie, Marcus Semien (currently tied for the league lead in errors with Ian Desmond, with 11) airmailed a would-be inning-ending ground ball by Pedroia over Canha’s head at first, allowing Nava to score. For what it’s worth, the scorer gave Pedey an infield single and awarded the Sox’ baserunners another base on Semien’s throwing error. Again – better lucky than good. This is one of those games that drive stat guys crazy, a game that, by the numbers, the Red Sox should not have been in position to win…and yet they did. The 2015 Red Sox, everybody!

P.S. Forgot to mention, Tazawa was lights out over 1.1 and Uehara was near enough to lights out to make no difference. I love those guys.

U-G-L-Y

Posted on May 13, 2015 in Game Recap
Pitching is hard. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Pitching is hard. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Whenever my buddies Zack and Sal do something they’re not proud of and they’re called on it, their response is invariably “Theah’s not much ta say.” (They’re from the South Shore.) I think that sums this one up nicely.

Justin Masterson was roughed up to the tune of 6 runs, all earned, on 6 hits, while surrendering 2 home runs in just 2.1 innings. The cries for him to be moved to the bullpen will now reach a deafening roar, and I can’t say I think it’d be a bad move. He certainly is the most logical candidate of the starting staff to be moved given his prior experience in the ‘pen, and he has looked lost as a starter for more than a full season now. Moving him to the bullpen may also allow him to get his fastball back up in the 90s. His fastball velocity was down to start the season, and has now dropped even further, sitting in the mid-80s. This is allowing opponents to key in on his sinker, and they’re hitting .319 against that pitch.

Steven Wright again saved the bullpen, pitching the rest of the way after Masterson was lifted. Being able to go 5.2 innings in relief is always a huge service to your team, especially with the quick turnaround (Sox play this afternoon).

Though the offense managed just 2 runs on 4 hits (two by Pedroia) they actually looked pretty good. They squared up a lot of balls, but the A’s played uncharacteristically great defense. The A’s lead the majors in errors, but made play, after play, after play, and the Red Sox just couldn’t get anything going.

Final: 9-2 Oakland.

Notes:

-I wouldn’t be surprised to see more roster changes coming. I’d love to see Eduardo Rodriguez get a start sometime soon. The lefty is sporting a sub-3 ERA and a WHIP under 1 thus far in Pawtucket.

-The Sox are back at it this afternoon at 3:35, as Wade Miley takes the bump against Sonny Gray. That’s a tough draw for Wade as he tries to build on his last start.

-In non-Red Sox news, Giancarlo Stanton hit a ball to the moon. No, really. Watch this clip.

That ball might be in orbit.

I’m tired again. Don’t make me make a real title.

Posted on May 12, 2015 in Game Recap

The most elegant of slides (Ben Margot/AP)

You guys are very lucky that you have the intrepid reporters of Lefty and Righty covering this West Coast trip. You don’t have to stay up late, and you get all the in-depth analysis that you’d expect from someone who watched the game live, like:

Porcello was okay. He certainly wasn’t lights out, but with a WHIP of 2.00 over 5 innings, you might expect to see more runs on the board for the A’s. So there was clearly some half-decent situational pitching going on. It was, I will say, pretty tough to watch him just give two consecutive leads right back to Oakland after the offense worked to tie the game up. He was a little too hittable last night, and that’s just going to naturally happen once in a while with a sinker-based repertoire.

The offense was good. They clearly weren’t blowing the doors off Scott Kazmir (who looked pretty good, by the way), but they battled back three separate times after losing the lead. Farrell had them playing some aggressive baseball to drum up runs, with multiple hit-and-runs being put on, including the Sox’ first run of the game on an Ortiz single with Pedroia running from first. The other hit-and-run came as part of three consecutive singles in the top of the 7th, with Swihart scooting one through the right side of the infield to move Bogaerts to third. Betts would then knock in Bogaerts to tie the game for the third time with his second hit of the night and send Blake to third, from where Swihart would score the go-ahead run on a would-be inning-ending double play ball by Pedroia.

Ramirez still looks hurt. I don’t really have much more to say, but he’s jogging around like he’s still hurt and making some questionable decisions at the plate.

Victorino wasn’t good. Contributed a big fat nothing at the plate (two pop-outs, two fly outs) and didn’t come close to running down or cutting off a few balls in the gap. He was lifted for Bradley, Jr. after regulation (Bradley walked in his only plate appearance, but got thrown out on a baserunning error moments later to end the inning. The Red Sox right fielders, everyone!).

The defense was good…for both teams. After Alexi Ogando put runners on 2nd and 3rd with two outs, Mike Napoli completely saved his bacon by snaring a liner to end the inning. What goes around comes around, though: in the top of the 10th, Napoli hit a sharp one himself in the top of the 10th with Pedroia on 2nd, but the second replacement first baseman of the night for Oakland, Mark Canha, kept the game going (for one more inning, anyway).

Panda. 0-4 before this.

Notes:

  • Matt Barnes was solid as the Sox’ second-to-last resort (Steven Wright was the last arm in the pen), and got the win for his trouble.
  • Ortiz hit a double with no outs in the top of the 6th, down one, with Hanley due up. Unfortunately, he was picked off second base pretty quickly. Bad call or no (it was), it wasn’t Papi’s finest baserunning moment.
  • The return of Edward Mujica! He must’ve felt pretty good, setting down Ramirez, Napoli (by strikeout!), and Sandoval in order in the 8th. But we got the win. Suckaaaa.