Let’s start looking at things logically, shall we?
Josh Beckett gave up just a little too much last night in the Bronx. The Sox are hoping Curt Schilling won’t give up quite enough tonight so the team can avoid a sweep.
The Sox still have a significant lead in the AL East. As long as they win tonight they should be in fine shape heading into the final month, with a full slate of cupcakes (read: Tampa Bay and Baltimore) ahead of them. If you don’t believe it, just look at the way Tampa and the Orioles have been playing since Baltimore took the interim tag off Dave Trembley a little more than two weeks ago. Dismal, I know.
Still, that hardly explains the last two nights. Dice-K? Punch to the gut. The best pitcher in the bigs … at least by record in 2007, Josh Beckett? Punch to the gut.
Schilling? Maybe Curt can come through?
The Sox had better hope so. Let’s be clear about something: The Sox leaving town with a seven \-game lead in the American League East is perfectly safe. The Sox leaving the Bronx with a five-game lead is too close for comfort, because A) it would signify the fact that the Yankees had swept the Sox and B) that would leave an underlying concern that the Yankees could do it again later this year, when three games might prove to be the difference.
Do we think it’s going to happen? Quite frankly, no. Boston has hit Yankees ace Chin Ming Wang surprisingly well this year. And while Schilling is likely to let in three, maybe four runs on isolated homers, that’s usually his upper threshold, one which tends to get lower when the game gets bigger.
He may know that Boston fans are a bit peeved about his comments that he’d welcome a move to Tampa Bay, but Curt Schilling could take an enormous step toward redemption with a win tonight.
And really, that’s what tonight’s game should come down to: This is another chance for Big Schill to prove how invaluable he is to the Sox. This is another chance for Curt to prove that he’s absolutely indispensable. This is another chance for Schilling to be Schilling and have Boston fans cheer him for it.
This is a chance for post-Tampa redemption. Good luck Schill. We didn’t think we’d need it.
Curt Schilling was out of the spotlight. His team was finding a way to win for two straight days, pushing across enough runs against the woeful Tampa Bay Devil Rays to cruise after surviving a four-game series against the AL West leading Los Angeles Angels. Of course, Schilling was part of that earlier survival, winning his start while teammate and prospective Cy Young candidate Josh Beckett lost his.
Curt Schilling was doing a good job of staying in the background … then someone asked him a question again. Does anyone have some duct tape to shut the guy up?
In short, there was no need to bring attention to himself. But like he has so many times, Schilling couldn’t help himself.
Instead, here’s what Schilling said on his weekly radio appearance on WEEI, via the Globe’s Gordon Edes:
“They asked me about it,” Schilling said of his appearance on WEEI. “It’s not a big deal.
“It’s one of those situations you’d certainly have to look at. Knowing that I’m probably going to spend one more year playing, if circumstances happen and things happen and they made some moves that were positive, I’d love nothing more than to finish my career working on a pitching staff where I know that there are young guys that are going to be positively impacted by me being around [after] I was gone. I enjoy that. I love working and talking and being around young pitchers.”
Schilling also mentioned that he used to have a home in the area and would welcome a return.
“I love Tampa, I love the area, I love everything about it,” he said. “I loved living down there.”
How’s that for a wild turn of events? Schilling is willing to go pitch for Tampa, a place which clearly could use him? When can Tampa not use an ace starter, right? The answer to that question, of course, is never.
But there’s a bigger question here: why did Schilling have to say anything at all. He didn’t, and the only reason he did was in the interest of selfish campaigning for a future job, likely all to give himself more leverage in negotiations with the Sox. Just think about what Schill was really saying in that quote: 1) I’m willing to go play for a team that’s not a contender, so forget about the nonsense that I won’t jump for a rich payday on a losing team, 2) I’m willing to go pitch for another team in the division, 3) I’m not at all wedded to the idea of staying with the Sox at any lowball cost.
Of course, item No. 3 could be a total smokescreen, and it’s entirely possible that Schilling staged this whole farce thinking that Theo Epstein will blush and then be more likely to sit down with him sooner rather than later. Everyone knows Schilling would love nothing more than to end in a Red Sox uniform. To go out a winner on a winning team. To pad his stats in Boston to make a Cooperstown case and then put on a hat with a B at induction ceremonies.
But look at the situation from Epstein’s perspective. Why would he need an aging Schilling again next year? Just check out the prospective starting rotation without him next spring: Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz. That quintet would be largely dependent on Wakefield not retiring, but it seems like the guy is going to pitch until he’s damn well 50 years old, so we’re not betting on him taking a leave of absence.
It’s likely that nest season’s Red Sox rotation will belong more to young hurlers like Jon Lester than it will an aging Schilling.
Instead of paying a whopping $12-14 mill for another year of Schilling, Epstein - ever the shrewd financial negotiator - could re-ink a swing man like Julian Tavarez that could start of work out of the pen, keeping a man ready to move into a starting roll at the first sign of injury. Kyle Snyder might work even better. Then there’s the additional pitching prospects quickly working their way through the ranks. Rookie Nick Hagadone looks sensational in A and could be ready for a Buchholz type appearance by the end of next season. And that’s not mentioning players like Justin Masterson, perhaps the quickest rising arm in the Sox system, or Daniel Bard, the former North Carolina star who may finally be getting himself on track.
So Epstein and the Sox don’t really need Schilling. Would he be a nice luxury? Absolutely. Is he a necessity? Not at all.
That just serves to make Schilling’s comments Tuesday, well, all the more self-serving. It’s frustrating to watch a guy who would be a team’s playoff ace, on a team that is all but certainly headed for October, campaign for a future job somewhere else. It has to be hard for his teammates to watch.
Then again, they’re more than used to this crap by now. Senator Schilling has spoken, and in doing so, he may have moved closer to switching party allegiance.
Anyone else know what to make of yesterday’s split doubleheader?
How often is it that you have two 15-game winners pitching on the same day, in the same ballpark, and neither one gets a win? I mean really, can somebody get Elias on that one? And how often is it that you have one catcher go 17 of 18 innings in a double-dip? It’d be one thing to go two innings in the first and then catch the second. But having Jason Varitek catch 17 of 18 frames? Not exactly the workload that the Sox wanted to see coming down the stretch for an aging catcher, to be sure.
Somehow the goatee and crapped out hat were more intimidating, and effective, on the West Coast.
Still, as reassuring as Clay Buchholz’s outing in the opener was, and as nice as it was to see Jacoby Ellsbury back patrolling the outfield, the biggest concern - and yes, it’s now a very legitimate concern - was the performance of Eric Gagne in the nightcap. So far he’s, how do we put this lightly, well, he’s sucked.
It’s almost as if moving into the Eastern Time Zone has ruined Gagne’s stuff, isn’t it? Suddenly fastballs that were zipping by batters in Texas and Los Angeles are suddenly slower in thicker humidity. Or like his sinker won’t sink near the water. Or, hell who cares. It’s just not working.
Let’s be clear: Last night was precisely the type of situation that made the Sox go out and get Gagne. Jonathan Papelbon and Hideki Okajima were both unavailable after extended work in the opener. Manny Delcarmen had already had a bad inning, a troubling familiar sight after the Gagne acquisition, perhaps pushed along in part by his lack of use. That made Gagne the logical, and practically the only, option out of the pen to close things out.
Three runs later he’d blown another game. That’s three games he’s responsible for in the loss column. Three games that have all been directly opposed by Yankee wins. Three games in the pennant chase.
Okie got the job done in the opener. In the nightcap? Well, let’s not talk any more about that.
Let’s just say that Gagne is running out of chances to redeem himself. The hockey fan is starting to look more like a 19 year-old rookie finesse-scoring forward than a bruising, enforcing veteran on the backline. After all, that’s what he was supposed to be for this Red Sox team when he came aboard.
It’s just not happening. And that, in itself, is a becoming a bigger and bigger problem as the team down in the Bronx gets closer and closer in the rear-view mirror.
Allright, now it’s time to cut out the question marks and crap. It’s time to win Josh.
Now you need to pitch the way the Red Sox thought you would when the shipped one of the game’s most highly touted shortstop prospects - now reigning NL rookie of the year Hanley Ramirez - and a pitcher to Florida to get you and albatross contract (which luckily turned out to represent Mike Lowell).
Now Boston needs you to pitch with control and an edge, to pitch with dominance in the midst of pressure-packed baseball in the middle of a pennant race.
Because now this is a pennant race.
It’s hard to fathom just how much additional pressure has landed on the shoulders of Beckett and co. since the All-Star break, with the Yankees shaving half of the team’s divisional lead off into the trash can. It’s hard to imagine what has to be going through his head as he takes the mound this afternoon, coming off a solid outing after a pair of frustrating losses. It’s hard to imagine what the big power ball righty was feeling as he watched the bullpen deteriorate into, well, Baltimore’s bullpen, in last night’s loss at Camden Yards.
But there’s a bottom line here, too: It doesn’t matter what he was feeling. All that matters is that he wins. After all, that’s what he was brought to Boston to do, especially in games like these.
Can we call it a race now? Hideki Okajima has been spectacular, but he and his bullpen mates have been some of the only bright spots of late.
Boston currently leads New York by six games. Only six games. That’ll still be true tonight when the Red Sox roll into Camden Yards (for the epic “Take Back the Yard night” as previously noted here) and when the Yankees open in Cleveland. Six games may seem like a lot, but it somehow it’s a full-blown crisis when a team had a 14 1/2 game lead two months earlier.
The point has been made before, and it’ll be made again: If Sox fans were offered a six-game lead over the division on Aug. 10 at the start of the season, they’d take it every time. It’s a valid point. Touche. Still, that doesn’t address some of the larger issues that have come into play while the Boston lead has slowly been whittled away.
Let’s look at the tape, shall we?
1) The Red Sox hitters have been - at best - consistently inconsistent. The best batters for average have all missed a parcel of games, with Big Papi struggling through knee and shoulder aches, Kevin Youkilis battling a first-half hand injury and mighty mite Dustin Pedroia fighting through a major early season slump. That’s not to mention Mike Lowell’s finger injury, which may or may not be sapping his power after the All-Star break.
2) While Manny Ramirez’s bat has awakened considerably in the second half, he and Ortiz’s power numbers continue to be down significantly from previous seasons. A further renaissance down the stretch may be needed to hold off the pinstripes.
3) The starting pitching, long considered the hallmark of this team’s success, is suddenly as streaky as any other rotation in the league. With the exception of Josh Beckett’s continued dominance (even two of his losses have come in heroic efforts), the staff has been up and down. Dice-K mixes brilliant one-run games with five-run, four-inning stinkers. One night Tim Wakefield is tossing un-hittable ball, the next night he looks like a batting practice pitcher. Curt Schilling is coming off one of the longer DL stints in his career, and Jon Lester has shown plenty of courage but not much location.
Despite never-ending hair distractions of red-tinted dreadlocks and a new team barber named LMontro, Manny has started to look like he’s being himself again.
On paper, that looks like an awful lot of concerns, and plenty of weaknesses for the Yankees to exploit. Luckily, there’s plenty of factors in Boston’s corner, as well.
1) The most dominant bullpen in baseball, period. So far, the weakest link since the trade deadline deal - excluding the suddenly lightly used Mike Timlin - has been Eric Gagne himself. But there seems to be little question among Red Sox staff that when the former Dodgers closer gets more comfortable with his surroundings, and his new role, he’ll thrive as he has in the past. As for Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon, the duo continue to be downright unhittable.
2) Despite the inconsistencies, the Boston lineup has continued to score runs. Sure, they haven’t come at the most dramatic times (with only one walk-off win, clutch hitting could clearly be on the enumerated list of shortcomings above), but the hits and runs keep coming, which is a good sign down the stretch.
3) When you get to mid-August and September, it’s all about the schedule. Luckily for the ‘07 Sox, the schedule couldn’t be much kinder. From here out, Boston plays only three games on the road against a team with a record above .500 (against the Yankees in September). Even better, so long as they do what they’re supposed to, the Sox have 12 games left with Tampa Bay. Yes, that Tampa Bay. That’s easier on the palate than a nice Vanilla milkshake in the middle of the summer.
4) As kind as the schedule makers were to the Sox, they were equally tough on the Yanks. Just look at New York’s upcoming slate of games, starting tonight at the Jake: Three at Cleveland, three against the O’s at the Stadium, then - wait for it - a brutal nine game stretch of three against the struggling Tigers at the Stadium, three in Anaheim, four in Detroit and finally three back at home against the Sox. That look like fun to anyone? Didn’t think so.
5) Not only will the Yankees be running that gauntlet at a pivotal time, they’ll also be doing it with a rotation that makes the Sox five look like a quintet of Sandy Koufaxes. The lone consistent pinstriped winner this summer has been Chin Ming-Wang, and he was lit up in his worst career outing last night. Roger Clemens is older than the hills, and could be on the verge of injury with every pitch. Andy Pettitte has been streaky, just look at his games with the Sox. And Mike Mussina has looked absolutely over the hill, which has to make Boston fans smile when they look at his recent contract after last year’s glory run.
So, when you put it all together, is this suddenly a race? You betcha. But are the Sox coming up on the wire with a hard-charger full of energy on the rail? Maybe not. If the Yankees aren’t already running out of mojo, it’s a safe bet that their upcoming stretch will sap much of what they have left. If it doesn’t, then it’ll be time to panic in the Hub.
Believe what you will about superstitions and jinxes, but this can not be good for Red Sox fans anywhere.
Nooooo! Why didn’t someone just stab Terry Francona with a cocktail fork?
Last week I was in New York, walking around with a Red Sox hat while trying not to get jumped. You know, your basic day in the Big Apple. As I walked into a Starbucks, I noticed a new J. Crew catalog.
I didn’t have to look very deep to be horrified.
Right there - smack - on the cover of the August catalog where two young prepsters, geared up to move into a college dormitory (looks like BU kids) straight out of their vintage Land Rover jeep with mountains of books (we all did that, right? Mountains of books? Everyone liberal arts major needs theoretical physics texts from the 18th century!).
That’s not particularly important. I’m not overly defensive of BU. Terriers can fight their own battles. Here’s what freaked me out: Both of the models - one man, one woman - were wearing Red Sox hats.
What’s in a hat? Bad karma, for one.
This can not be good.
When a team has a dominant lead, what it doesn’t need is any bad hoodoo. And how can flaunting a team’s surging popularity - perhaps piqued by a surging divisional lead - help karma?
It can’t. Is there any wonder that the once humongous AL East lead is now, gulp, only five games? Five games! The Sox are within two bad series of a divisional tie! Are you kidding me? Why does this always happen?
One of the reasons it always happens may be because of the type of arrogance perpetuated on the cover of this month’s J. Crew catalog. Let’s just hope Banana Republic doesn’t catch on and have an eclectic hipster in a Sox hat next month.
Let’s start at the beginning: there’s no one more surprised at Tim Wakefield’s success than me.
The Professor is proving his worth, game in, game out.
He’s old. He looks like your uncle, you know, the nice, quiet one who always lets you sneak sneak away with the extra slice of pizza marked for him while he makes a third gin and tonic, then pretends he never noticed it was there. He’s that comfortable now; Tim Wakefield is Red Sox family.
But this year, the 42 year-old celebrated his birthday in style, winning his 13th game by going seven full innings, allowing just three runs. He’s come back from an injury plagued 2006 to earn a tie for most wins in the AL. He has a decision in all 22 of his starts. And, as ESPN analyst and former Boston Globe Red Sox writer Peter Gammons said on Mike Felger’s drive-time show on WAMG-890 AM an hour ago, “He might be the most overlooked great athlete in Boston. In a long time.”
That’s an understatement. Sox fans take Wakefield for granted. In fact, they even bemoan going to his starts, because there’s no sizzle there. There’s no sex appeal to winning ugly, 7-4 games with a pitcher whose fastball - what was that 83 mph thing? - is slower than the closer Jonathan Papelbon’s change up.
But that’s also what makes Wake so great. And it even makes it worth putting up with Doug Mirabelli behind the dish, with his occasional power shows - like yesterday - and boneheaded base-running blunders - like yesterday’s - included.
Doh! Dougie found a unique way to pay tribute to the new Simpsons movie.
In a way, it was incredibly fitting that while the Professor pitched on his birthday, he was also hurling on the anniversary of Bobby Doerr day, and that the ever-classy second-baseman extraordinaire was in attendance at Fenway … for his final game. It also seemed fitting that one of the big offensive stars was a center fielder with a suddenly incredibly sound all-around game, who also had the historic presence of mind to request to wear Jackie Robinson’s number on JR day earlier this year.
And it was fitting that the Professor was relieved by an erudite Japanese pitcher who throws without looking at the plate, relying on his touch for the ball and feel for the game. And that that pitcher was relieved by a new addition whose coke-bottle glasses and milk jug physique make him look more like someone working behind the counter of a Barnes and Noble at the Harry Potter launch than in the Fenway bullpen.
It all seemed fitting. It all was fitting. And it all proves just how important - and damn good - Wakefield has been all year. Here’s hoping he keeps it up. If he does, I’ll even swallow my pride and start the Cy Young campaign myself.
At times he’s been a superstar. At times he’s been mediocre. But no matter what, Daisuke Matsuzaka has been interesting.
The Kaibutsu has had plenty of hype, and he’s reached it in a lot of different categories, good and bad.
For a pitcher who entered with enough hype to nauseate two different countries, Dice-K has a lot to live up to. At times he’s done it. He dazzled in a complete game shutout of Detroit. His mastery of San Francisco and Barry Bonds at Fenway was nearly as entrancing.
But for all the positives and gains, there have been the shaky starts. The four-run nightmare innings. The moments when his butt waggle and comforting nod at Jason Varitek can’t bridge what seems to be a much larger misunderstanding between his hand and a baseball that still feels a little too large.
His record speaks to his new reality. Matsuzaka is 12-6. That’s a .666 winning percentage for those of you keeping track at home, and he pulls a decision in most games he starts because, well, he tends to keep chucking pitches out there when he starts. Despite claims of concern from agent Scott Boras and what might be construed (and definitely has been construed in the Japanese media) as minor coddling from Terry Francona and pitching coach John Farrell, he still seems to reach the mound expecting to hit 100 pitches and then keep firing every time he’s on the mound.
So far the adjustment to a five-man rotation hasn’t really been a huge speedbump. The adjustments in off-day workouts were rocky, but since have made him look almost over-prepared. He seems to be reaching a comfort level. The question becomes whether that’s comforting because of his success in overcoming the cultural and physical baseball differences between the U.S. and Japan, or whether that’s a concern, because his current incarnation isn’t quite Nolan Ryan meets Greg Maddux, as he has envisioned himself.
You think you can handle the pressure? You think you can handle the hype? You think you can handle this idiot parodying your existence? Welcome to the world of Dice-K my friend.
Today, Matsuzaka gets a one-time American wunderkind: former Mets uber-prospect Scott Kazmir. Kazmir has had a hit-and-miss season at the Trop, but he has one very consistent career truth: He owns the Red Sox. Today, he’ll try and own Matsuzaka, too.
That means that today will be a good chance for Dice-K to show just how comfortable he is. It’s a chance to show he can dazzle his way down the stretch.
It’s a chance to show that he will be an ace when his team needs him. Here goes nothing.
Kason Gabbard, it’s time we start calling you by your earned title: Red Sox fifth starter.
Right now, the only thing Kason Gabbard doesn’t have going for him is his hair.
Sure, it’s just a start (all puns intended). But being named a permanent fifth starter - not just a Schilling fill in - is quite an accomplishment for a guy whose name the manager (cough, Terry Francona, cough) didn’t even know at spring training a year ago. For a guy from Florida who was so shy when he got called up a year ago he would hardly talk to his own catcher (cough, Jason Varitek, cough) let alone guys who only hit curveballs. A guy who was known more for the first reaction he elicited from Big Papi - “hey, that guy looks just like the Dude from American Pie”, rather than known by David Ortiz himself.
Not anymore.
After today’s dominant performance, another game of 7 or more innings, allowing 1 run or fewer (it’s debatable whether today’s should have been allowed or not as well), Gabbard is pitching like an ace, let alone a spot starter. He’s made a potential Gabbard-less rotation seem almost inconceivable. In short, he’s made himself an essential.
He’s done it by being almost perfect. He’s 4-0 on the season, had the one bad outing in Seattle - really it was one really bad inning - and has never lost at Fenway (he was 1-0 there last September). And since putting himself on a “never allowed to shake off ‘Tek” rule after he allowed a homer to the Rangers on a pitch he changed, Gabbard has been absolutely sensational. So sensational, in fact, that he seems to have emerged as a stopper.
Really, who would have thought that for two turns through the rotation, the duel aces of the Red Sox would be Josh Beckett (no surprise) and Kason Gabbard (what the &$#*!!).
So maybe it’s time for someone to start warming up the Pawtucket Express - or maybe the faux DL Express - for Julian Tavarez or the suddenly struggling Javi Lopez (who finally looked solid again this afternoon). When Schilling comes back, one of them has got to go. The Sox can’t lose a start by this Gabbard guy. And boy, is that saying something.
OK, let’s start at the beginning. The Kansas City Royals used to be a great team. Then, after the decline and retirement of George Brett and co., they were a classy organization that was nearly universally respected. It was only a matter of time before they bounced back and put together a contender, or so the logic went. They crested and fell as a middling team, then fell hard.
Not only does Allard Baird have an annoyingly British name, he even looks obnoxiously smarmy, doesn’t he?
Then things really turned bad: They hired Allard Baird. Yes, the man currently esconsced in the Red Sox front office was once the wunderkind who would save Kansas City. Instead, he attached the entire populace of baseball fans in the city to a rock, dragged it to the banks of Missouri River and made sure it would never come up again.
Let’s look at Baird’s tale of the tape, shall we? In five seasons, his Royals teams compiled exactly one winning record. That was turned in by the 2003 Royals, who went 83-79 after breaking out to one of the best records in baseball through April and May, setting the stage for one of the great collapses in recent history. It also set the stage for Baird to talk first baseman Mike Sweeney, at the time one of the best hitters in baseball, into staying put in Kansas City, convincing him that unlike the trades of Johnny Damon and other budding stars in the past, these Royals were going to hold on to their flush cards.
Sorry Mike, turns out Allard was just pulling your leg my man.
That’s because the two years after 2003 were unabetted disasters in the city of, uh, midwestern slaughterhouses I guess? The Royals lost more than 100 games in both 2004 (58-104) and 2005 (56-106), even cycling through three general managers in the course of the 2005 season. 2006 was even worse. In ‘04 they traded away one of the best players in the game, center fielder Carlos Beltran, for young position players, and still failed to sign any decent starting pitching.
Perhaps the 2005 run of managerial roulette came in part because Baird could hear the music. Or the bells. At the end of the 2006 season, they tolled for him.
Here’s how the Kansas City Star’s post mortem felt about Baird:
The organization’s primary failure under Baird was in its inability to draft and develop high-quality players in recent years. The current 25-man roster has only two players — outfielders David DeJesus and Shane Costa — who were drafted in Baird’s six seasons.
Further, several recent lineups mocked the very idea that the club is engaged in a rebuilding plan. The Royals started five players Tuesday against Oakland who were 30 years or older.
While Baird and his staff succeeded in uncovering some real bargains on the free-agent fringe, they proved far less successful in obtaining top value when forced by financial considerations to trade players such as Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran and Jermaine Dye.
It was the Beltran trade — on June 24, 2004 — that marked the latest full-scale effort to rebuild their roster. The Royals received catcher John Buck, third baseman Mark Teahen and pitcher Mike Wood in return.
They are also 99-206 since that point.
Yeah, not exactly a ringing endorsement, huh? Sent his walking papers, the 44 year-old Baird somehow resurfaced at the ready of Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein in the middle of last season. At the time he served as a special assistant to the General Manager, though that title quickly changed to Assistant General Manager at the end of the season. Another nice acquisition by the Sox front office, right? Well, let’s examine his influence so far.
Baird’s boy Runelvys couldn’t stick despite the incredible name AND El Guapo similarities.
Here’s the players Baird has had the biggest influence in bringing to the Red Sox: Joel Pineiro and Runelvys Hernandez. One was such an unequivocable bust, he couldn’t even stick it out with the team’s minor league arms. The other was signed explicitly to be the Boston closer, but is now toiling to find a spot that sticks in middle relief. Here’s Nick Cafardo’s story on Baird’s influence in the Pineiro chase from the Globe. I think we’re noticing a trend here, are we not?
So, the question remains: How can the Red Sox keep making a case to give Baird any power whatsoever? And why, for God’s sake, was he given any power to begin with? It’s a true mystery, and one to which we may never truly have good answers. Now Sox fans just have to hope they’re not trying to answer them another year from now.
