The Official 2011 Boston Red Sox Thread

Oh I absolutely agree with that but it's annoying to me that the schedules aren't balanced. For example: why should the Yankees get to play the Mets 6 times just because they're rivals, while the other AL East teams won't play the Mets even once this year? I just don't like the scheduling aspect of interleague play. I would be fine with it if they just fixed that part of it.

 

The Red Sox and Braves were rivals but once the Expos became the Nationals, the Orioles became their rival and somehow the Phillies became the Red Sox and the Braves matched up with the Blue Jays. It makes no sense. I mean besides Yankees/Mets, Angels/Dodgers, Cubs/White Sox, Giants/A's, Cardinals/Royals, Astros/Rangers, Marlins/Rays, Reds/Indians and possibly Orioles/Nationals trying to find a natural rival for the remaining teams would be tough and forced.

 

Half a game out of first!

 

Not to turn this into yet another Crawford debate but in a nut shell he's been pretty unlucky this year. His BABIP this year is .254, his career BABIP is .329. His line drive rate, fly ball rate and ground ball rate are pretty close to his career averages. The only thing off is his K rate (slightly higher than his career numbers ) and BB rate (lower) which could be contributed to that he has faced a lot of LHPs and he doesn't fair well against them to begin with (this we knew coming into the year).

So basically the only thing based on advance stats that are really off is the .075 points off his BABIP. He's simply not getting those balls finding holes, instead they're finding gloves. If you believe in the law of averages or you are what the back of your baseball card says he's going to go on a run soon.

Don't get me wrong he's looked lost at the plate a lot this year but case in point on luck, I was at the game on Saturday and he hit 2 balls that easily could have been base hits if not for a diving play by the 2B and a great jump on a line drive by the RFer. I realize one game, such a small sample size, but if a few of those balls had fallen in each week he doesn't look so bad right now.

 

Two games out of 3 where the Sox should have won the game to get into 1st place but the bullpen blows it. I'm now somewhat worried about Bard, not sure if it's just overuse or he's just missing his spots but that was a bad loss. I really thought they were going to pull it off against Perez in the 9th too. It's too bad that Crawford hit that ball that hard because if he doesn't square up on it, it would have been a run scoring FC.

 

As a non-Cleveland fan, obviously, I can say that I'm extremely happy this team is doing so well, especially Justin Masterson. I think a lot of their players, especially the pitching, have been playing over their heads while a lot of guys are underachieving, like Choo and Santana. I'm rooting hard for them to win the Central, it would be a great story for the city and baseball if they did.

 

I actually think Cleveland has a pretty good core group with Choo (who I think is the most underrated player in baseball), Santana, Cabrera, Brantley, LaPorta, White and hopefully a healthy Sizemore/Hafner. Like you said with Chisenhall and Kipnis waiting in the minors to come up, probably in the 2nd half of the year, there's a lot to be excited about.

Even if they come back to earth and not make the playoffs, hopefully they continue to play well all during the year (like the Padres did last year) so they get more fans to come out to the ballpark and watch/support the team. I know Cleveland is one of the cities that was hit extremely hard with the recession so this would be a nice story for the city.

Plus it's the Indians who wouldn't want to root for them if they didn't already root for another team in the AL Central?

Yeah anytime you let Varitek not only throw 2 base runners out but hit a HR you know you're not having a good night.

 

I wish the Sox would save some of those runs but it is impressive that so far this year the Sox have held their own against some of the better pitching in baseball, even beating up some of them.

It is very nice seeing Crawford getting hot. Personally I think Francona should leave him in the 6th spot, put Lowrie in the 7th and bat Drew 8th, which I think he will do once JD is over his minor injury.

 

I'm much more concerned about Rich Hill's injury than Matsuzaka at this point since Hill didn't look good after throwing that pitch to Dunn. He's been solid since he was brought up too.

As for Matsuzaka, he wants the surgery while the team wants him to rehab it. On one hand if he got the surgery it almost guarantees Sox fans never have to see him pitch again in a Sox uniform but on the other the Sox lose SP depth which is never good (no matter how good/bad Matsuzaka is).

 

The team doesn't want him to get the surgery because he doesn't have a tear and they think with rest/rehab the ligaments will heal. But you're right the team isn't going to resign him so they might as well try to get anything they can out of him while he's under contract.

This situation is kind of like Curt Schilling injury situation in 2008 where Schilling wanted surgery and the Sox said no rehab it and he ended up needing the surgery after all.

 

Every report up to yesterday said the MRI just showed only a sprain. On May 29th Terry Francona told the media that Matsuzaka said he was feeling better daily. I haven't seen any report on what Yocum saw though.

 

The team will announce it once they officially decide to go on board with it. Right now word is there won't be an official announcement until tomorrow as the team, doctors and Matsuzaka are still talking.

 

I'm almost positive the team has the final say as they're the ones paying the player's salary and will pay for the surgery. And I believe there's language in all contracts the team has the final say.

Yeah it didn't look good. It's really too bad as Hill really fought hard to come back as a pretty solid pitcher for the Sox this year. He was their only effective LHP out of the pen so this one hurts more than Matsuzaka does as they don't have great in house replacements. The only LHPers that could get his spot would be Morales (when he comes off the DL), Andrew Miller, Okajima or Felix Doubront. I'd guess Okajima will be called up until the Sox feel Miller is ready.

 

I guess you can cross off Okajima's name for coming up to fill in for Rich Hill. He gave an interview to a reporter last night saying he'd rather pitch in Triple A until another team trades for him instead of picking in Boston. Well again without Okajima this team probably doesn't win the 2007 WS but is he serious with those comments? Memo to Okajima, no one wanted you last year at the trade deadline, no one wanted you during the winter and when the Red Sox DFA'ed you a few weeks ago any of the 29 other teams could have picked you up for the league minimum but they all passed on you. So yeah enjoy Triple A now.

 

By the way one surprise/interesting name to look at to replace Rich Hill is LHP Tommy Hottovy. A former SP converted to RP and changed his arm slot in 27 IP between Double A and Triple A he's given up 0 hits to LHH with a 28 to 5 K/BB rate.

 

Nah, Seattle's GM was never a part of the Red Sox front office.... (yes that was sarcasm).

 

Nice win last night although Lester and Papelbon continue to struggle lately. Nice to see Bard starting to pitch better and seriously Albers has saved this bullpen this year, especially with Jenks being either hurt or just bad when he's not.

This was a game the Sox needed to take as the pitching match ups the next two days aren't looking great, although Thursday's game should be a real good one with Beckett/Sabathia.

 

Well the goat certainly should be Freddy Garcia who couldn't even get out of the 2nd inning and was just throwing batting practice out there.