Hebeh. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)
After the Red Sox’ first sweep of the season just over a week ago, and a glimmer of hope that perhaps the ship was righting, the Sox have dropped seven in a row.
Porcello took the bump in this one and again was on the wrong side of of the W-L column and has not won a start since May 16. Yikes. This one wasn’t terrible but it still looks like he’s leaving a lot of balls up in the zone, which you would think is a relatively easy thing for a major league pitcher to fix. Maybe just aim lower? I tell my little league catchers to give the pitcher a lower target if he’s leaving balls up in the zone. Anyone know how I can get a hold of Blake and Sandy?
It seems like this team can’t get everything going at the same time. During that stretch a few weeks ago when the starting pitching was great they couldn’t hit. Now that the offense has come around somewhat the pitching has been mediocre at best and the bullpen has been shaky.
Bogaerts, Pedroia, and Holt have been rock solid and Ortiz was hitting .333 over his last five coming into last night’s game, including three homers. But Ramirez is hitting .200 in his last six, and Napoli has dipped back below the Mendoza line. The offense did bang out 10 hits (three by Mookie Betts in his return to the lineup) but they once again Plaxico Burress’d themselves, grounding in the three double plays and going 1-7 with runners in scoring position.
The silver lining here – aside from Mookie looking no worse for the wear after his scary crash – was Xander, who homered, but I unfortunately don’t have any proof of that because for some reason neither the Red Sox nor MLB have it up on their sites. I guess you’ll just have to trust me. He turned around a center-cut 89 MPH fastball and hit it out to dead center. He also made a nice play in the field and continues to improve at short. Earlier in the year I touched on his advanced defensive statistics; how some had improved and some had declined, and I wasn’t quite comfortable enough with advanced defensive stats to use them to back up what I was seeing – he’s gotten a lot better. I’m now happy to report that they’re up across the board so I still don’t have to learn exactly what they mean.
Lefty pretty much covered the doom and gloom thing yesterday, but the Red Sox now sit 11 games under .500 and it’s getting harder to stay optimistic seeing as we are now halfway through June. It’s a little early for this talk, but it’ll be interesting to see if the Sox are buying or selling come July. That’s not a question you should be asking in June of the team with the 4th highest payroll in the league.
Notes:
-Jonny Gomes, nice to see ya.