Sox Draw First Blood vs Yankees

June 7, 2017 Leave a Comment

It has been a long time since the Red Sox and Yankees played a game like Tuesday’s.

The Red Sox/Yankees rivalry, more of historical interest lately than a practical reality, is front and center again. The Sox arrived in the Bronx just two games back from the Bombers, who have had at least a share of first place in the division for 35 of the last 40 days.

In this electric atmosphere, Boston took on a tough New York team and came out on top. Despite the Sox’ 5-1 lead at one point in the game, the Yankees never felt out of it. And for good reason. At least right now, every batter in this Yankees line up is a threat to go deep. And yet, Boston’s pitchers managed to keep the wolves at bay for a 5-4 win.

Sox Pound 3 Home Runs

Sox starter Drew Pomeranz came away with a win to improve to 6-3 on the season, but it took him a career-high 123 pitches to get through the requisite 5.0 IP. Again and again, Yankees batters drew full counts. Yankees front man Masahiro Tanaka was more efficient, throwing just 62 pitches but giving up five earned runs, including three Boston home runs from Mitch Moreland (his seventh of the season), Hanley Ramírez (eighth), and Andrew Benintendi (eighth). Tanaka was out of the game after 5.0 IP, too.

From there, the Yankees were shored up by 3.1 excellent innings of relief by Chad Green, who allowed no hits or walks and struck out five.

For the Sox it was a parade of relievers: Robby Scott, Joe Kelly, Matt Barnes. Scott and Barnes each allowed a run. With a one-run lead in the eighth, John Farrell returned to the well once again, asking Craig Kimbrel for yet another four-out save.

Kimbrel should have gotten out of the inning cleanly but Matt Holliday came around the score when Didi Gregorius struck out on a wild pitch. It was the first inherited runner Kimbrel has allowed to score all season.

Despite throwing 17 pitches to get out of the previous inning, Kimbrel brought his usual electric stuff to the bottom of the ninth. Brett Gardner, Gary Sánchez, and Aaron Judge each went down swinging.

Red Sox pitchers held the Yankees to 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position on Tuesday.

Kelly Dismisses Judge

Kelly’s one memorable inning of work won’t quickly be forgotten. He stared down the major’s home run leader and presumptive Rookie of the Year, Aaron Judge, who had already singled, walked, and doubled in the game. Kelly dismissed Judge, striking him out with a pitch that initially registered between 103 and 104 miles per hour but was later adjusted down to 102.2, matching another Kelly pitch for the highest velocity tracked by Statcast in the majors this season.

The Boston Globe‘s Alex Speier has an excellent pitch-by-pitch recount of the at-bat.

The Red Sox threw 204 pitches last night, the ninth-most in any nine-inning game this season. It was the most pitches by the Sox since 207 pitches on April 24, 2014, also against the Yankees.

Swihart still a work in progress

March 27, 2017 2 Comments

Red Sox Spring Training at home and on the road.

Red Sox JetBlue Park (left) and
Sox take on Yankees at their home, Steinbrenner Field.

Despite a long love affair with the game, this was my first experience with March baseball and it was certainly worth the trip. Under bright blue skies and comfortable temperatures, your correspondent took in Red Sox games at home at JetBlue Park, and in enemy territory at the Yankee’s springtime home.

JetBlue in Fort Myers, Florida, is just six seasons old this year and features dimensions similar to Fenway. It’s a beautiful park. But, to be fair, just as lovely is the much older George M. Steinbrenner field in Tampa, which is now in its 22nd season. The parks have similar official capacities, but Steinbrenner seems bigger, as do its wider more comfortable seats. Both parks are run by a veritable army of (mostly older and very friendly) staffers who do a magnificent job directing parking and managing concessions.

The spring experience is a treat for baseball fans. While it’s fun to see Rick Porcello or Dustin Pedroia, there’s joy, too, in assessing the up and comers like Sam Travis and Marco Hernandez. Seats are relatively inexpensive and though you’ll need some patience getting in and out of the stadium, the $10 fee was money well spent for what turned out to be a well-oiled parking machine.

You can find additional pictures from the trip over on the RSNStats Instagram page. While you’re there, click the Follow Button for future updates.

Now, some more news and notes for Red Sox fans:

ESPN has an interesting look at the rags-to-riches life of former Sox top prospect Yoan Moncada, who is now with the White Sox following Boston’s trade for Chris Sale. There’s more the story, but it’s hard to bypass anecdotes like Moncada’s quest for Twinkies (he’s known to have gone through 85 a week) or his love of customized sportscars (he tried to order ten at once, complete with monogrammed logos). “New family, new language, new friends, new life, new rules,” Moncada says. “I knew I wanted to come here to play baseball, but I never thought about dealing with all of this.”
Despite solid offensive production at Spring Training, the Red Sox have optioned Blake Swihart back to Triple-A Pawtucket. The Boston Globe‘s Alex Speier talked with the club’s bullpen coach and catching instructor, Dana LeVangie, who says Swihart can benefit from the examples of Jorge Posada and Jason Varitek. They both came to the big leagues with stronger batting than defensive skills, but over time successfully shifted that balance.
Two catchers that were with the Red Sox in 2016 found their way to the Phillies in the off-season. Bryan Holaday and Ryan Hanigan won’t be with Philadelphia in 2017, however. Holaday exercised his opt-out clause after being told he won’t make the Opening Day roster according to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki reports that Hanigan was released by the club.
Another one-time, short-time Red Sox player, James Loney, was let go by the Rangers on Monday. Texas had signed Loney in the off-season after he spent 2016 with the Mets. The Houston native was 23-for-100 (.230) with two home runs in 30 games with Boston in 2012.
And finally, a third Sox alum, reliever Matt Albers, got his walking papers this past week from the Nationals. Albers was 6-4, 3.81 ERA over 96 appearances in two Red Sox seasons of 2011-12. Since then Albers has appeared with the Diamondbacks, Indians, Astros, and White Sox.
Still no word on what off-field role, if any, David Ortiz will play with the Sox this season. His number retirement ceremony, however, is locked in for June 23rd.
Whereas once a simple dog and a beer sufficed, that time is no more. New to the Fenway menu in 2017 is a “Lobster Poutine Stak,” consisting of french fries covered in lobster meat, cheese curds, bisque, chives and, presumably accompanied by a cardiac paddle. Admittedly, the new sandwiches, a Lobster Melt and a Surf & Turf Kebab, look pretty tasty.

Worst part for Panda in 2016? “Everything”

February 23, 2017 Leave a Comment

You won’t have Balkin’ Bob Davidson to kick around in 2017. The veteran umpire was one of four major league officials hanging it up after last season, a list that includes three crew chiefs: John Hirschbeck, Jim Joyce, and Tim Welke.

Hirschbeck and Welke are part of the only two brother umpiring tandems in history. Mark Hirschbeck was an MLB Umpire from 1988-2003, and Bill Welke is an active umpire with more than 17 years of experience.

Say what you like about Davidson, but his 28-year-career was littered with colorful escapades. Said to have had a career ejection rate that was double the norm, Davidson even ejected a fan last season for heckling him. Balding and often sweaty and disheveled on the field, Davidson sometimes looked more like a man suited to yelling, “Get off my lawn!” than calling balls and strikes.

Umpires - Bob Davidson, John Hirschbeck, Jim Reynolds

Umpires Bob Davidson, John Hirschbeck, and Jim Reynolds in 2013 flickr photo by Keith Allison shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license

The four retirees make room for four new full-time MLB umpires, each of whom have paid their dues in the minor leagues and with substantial, though occasional, appearances at the big league level: Adam Hamari (age 33), Pat Hoberg (30), Gabe Morales (32) and Carlos Torres (38).

Working your way up to full-time big league status is no small thing. Full-time slots are hard to come by and the competition for them is fierce. Umpire Harami, for example, has waited 10 years in the minors while making a staggering 485 appearances as a call-up official at the MLB level.

For a sense of what an umpire’s life is like, I recommend As They See ‘Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires. It’s written by New York Times reporter Bruce Weber, who went through the full training regimen and worked some minor league games himself. The book is a fascinating account of what can be a lonely, hard life without much compensation unless you can make it to The Show. The book is also available through iTunes.

The three retired crew chiefs also means promotions for three veteran umpires to crew chief status: Paul Emmel (17.5 years of MLB service), Mike Everitt (18 years) and Sam Holbrook (16.5 years).

Now, onto some stories of particular interest to Red Sox fans:

The annual spring exhibition game between the Sox and Northeastern Huskies is in the books with Boston winning 9-6. Six of the Sox runs came on two three-run home runs, one by newcomer Mitch Moreland and the other by key prospect Sam Travis. The first official game of the Sox’ Grapefruit League schedule is Friday against the Mets. Henry Owens will start for the Sox, the game will be on WEEI radio.
For the first time in 17 season, one-time Red Sox pitcher Jake Peavy is home in Alabama right now, not at spring training. Peavy has been going through a tough time. His ERA reached a single-season career-high of 5.54 in 2016 over 31 appearances. Beyond that, though, Peavy was one of 45 investors (including other pro athletes) unwittingly caught up in an investment scam, a Ponzi scheme that he says cost him millions of dollars. Perhaps worst of all, Katie, his wife of 15 years, filed for divorce last October. Peavy says his full-time attention is now focused on his four sons, aged 2½ to 15. Peavy is open about his struggles and his hope to get back to the game soon. “It’s like I tell people, ‘I don’t play baseball. I’m a baseball player.’ It’s who I am,” he tells Jerry Crasnick of ESPN. Definitely worth a read.
What was the worst part, the lowest moment last season for Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval? “Everything,” he says. “Every moment.”
The Yankees aren’t the team they used to be. Some familiar faces, like Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, and Brian McCann, are gone from this year’s lineup. One face that hopes to be around for a while, though, is the manager, Joe Girardi, 52, who is entering his final contract year in 2017, his 10th year overall as the Yankees’ skipper. New York’s general manager, Brian Cashman, is also in the final year of his current deal.
In a separate article, Manager Girardi offers up some innovative thoughts to speed the game. Girardi says communications devices between the dugout and players would reduce reliance on signs relayed from manager to coach to catcher. “I think you could speed the game up a lot that way,” Girardi tells the New York Post. “The thing about signs is that signs take time and it slows [the game] down,” Girardi said.
It’s not much, but MLB and the Players’ Union agreed that intentional walks won’t require four pitches any more. Instead, in the name of a faster game, the bench can just signal for an IBB to the home plate umpire. The change is official for the 2017 season. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred considers pace of play initiatives critical, but other proposed speed-ups were rejected by the union. Realistically, eliminating the pitches associated with an intentional walk seems a ridiculously small step. There were, after all, 932 free passes doled out in 2016, about one every 2.6 games, which hardly seems much of a time saver. Red Sox pitchers issued 16 IBB in 2016, the fourth fewest in baseball. The last quaint four-pitch IBB in Boston history belongs to Brad Ziegler on September 23 and issued to the Rays Corey Dickerson.
Count Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin among those who don’t think baseball needs speeding up. Talking to reporters about the change in intentional walks Martin sarcastically pondered changes after home runs, “When a guy hits a home run, to speed up the game should he just walk to the dugout?” Martin asked. “At what point do we just keep the game, the game?”

Aftermath: Odds Favor Red Sox

December 7, 2016 1 Comment

A day after the blockbuster deal that brought him to Boston, Chris Sale, calling the Red Sox “one of the greatest baseball franchises ever,” expressed his excitement to be joining a bonafide, perennial playoff contender.

At the annual Winter Meetings on Tuesday, Red Sox baseball president Dave Dombrowski dealt four prospects, including the highly-regarded Yoan Moncada, to the White Sox for Sale, one of baseball’s premier players. It was the biggest of three deals Dombrowski completed in one day, including acquiring Mitch Moreland and Tyler Thornburg.

The moves improved the Red Sox’ 2017 World Series odds from 9/1 to 11/2, second only to the Cubs, who at 15/4 currently have the best odds of repeating their big October win. Oddsmakers rank the Nationals, Indians, and Astros after Chicago-NL and Boston.

Here are some other news and notes for Red Sox fans:

Sale has spent all seven of his big league seasons in the AL Central with the White Sox, but he does have a record in the East, including a lifetime 1.44 ERA at the Rays Tropicana Field (four starts), a 1.80 ERA at both the Blue Jays Rogers Centre and Yankee Stadium (three and four GS, respectively), a 2.49 ERA at Oriole Park at Camden Yards (4 GS), and a 3.63 ERA at Fenway (three GS). The Washington Post deftly explores why pitching at home could be Sale’s Achilles Heel.
One thing Sale will find different in Boston are the attendance levels and corresponding energy in the ballpark. Last season the White Sox drew an average crowd of fewer than 22,000 fans, ranking them 26th of the 30 major league teams for home support.
Dombrowski told the Providence Journal‘s Brian MacPherson he “wouldn’t want to keep bothering” David Ortiz about cancelling his retirement after Papi’s comments about Sale raised some eyebrows. “My boy sale to Btown? You guys got me thinking,” Ortiz wrote on Instagram shortly after the news broke Tuesday. David was likely just joking, Dombrowski says, adding “if he really had sincere interest, that he would call.” In any case, any return from the voluntary retired list would require Papi to sit out the first 60 days of the season.
In the aftermath of Tuesday’s Red Sox moves, Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman was calling the Sox “the Golden State Warriors of baseball.” Cashman says the Bombers were never seriously pursuing Sale, despite the club’s need for starting pitching. “It is not a deal that we should be doing at this moment in time,” Cashman said, noting the club is not in a position to give up its top prospects.
Speaking of the New York club, the Yankees will retire Derek Jeter‘s No. 2 in a ceremony on Mother’s Day, May 14. Jeter’s will be the 21st number retired in franchise history, the most retired numbers in baseball. With Jeter’s, the first ten numbers will no longer be available to future Yankees. The others are 1. Billy Martin, 3. Babe Ruth, 4. Lou Gehrig, 5. Joe DiMaggio, 6. Joe Torre, 7. Mickey Mantle, 8. Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey, 9. Roger Maris, and 10. Phil Rizzuto.

Guest Column:
In Defense of Craig Kimbrel

September 30, 2016 Leave a Comment

Special to RSNStats.com by Guest Columnist Michael Barrell — I’m likely the only Red Sox fan defending closer Craig Kimbrel at this juncture, but hear me out.

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way. Yes, Wednesday’s loss to the Yankees was one that could/should have been avoided. A walk-off grand slam against a Yankees team that isn’t contending, on a night when not only the American League East crown is at stake but also achieving the best record for home field advantage in the playoffs is just not acceptable. But let’s examine it a little bit further.

flickr photo shared by Keith Allison under a Creative Commons ( BY-SA ) license

The situation was a 3-0 lead going into the bottom of the ninth inning, the textbook definition of a save situation on the road. Craig Kimbrel is your guy. He has been all year long, to the tune of 30 saves in 33 tries. Kimbrel missed some time with knee surgery this season, but he came back surprisingly fast from that. Walks have been somewhat of an issue, but home runs allowed weren’t. It was set up how you draw it up and it didn’t work out. Add the hyper-adrenaline of it being a division clinching game and in the ultra-competitive AL East, it had the potential to become exactly what it was.

Kimbrel walked the first three men, throwing only nine of his 21 pitches for strikes. After a visit from the pitching coach, another walk brings in a run and brings out Manager John Farrell to take him out. Now, I was yelling at my TV like the rest of you that Farrell should have been out there one (or even two, if you think like me) batters earlier because it’s a game you needed and Craig was clearly having an off day. He should never have been in the game long enough to throw 29 pitches. That’s just bad managing. But I digress.

Diving deeper, let’s look at Kimbrel’s season up to that point.

Controlling Great Power

When you throw a near 100 MPH fastball, you’re going to have days when you can’t reel it in. There are very few men in the history of Major League Baseball who have thrown that hard who weren’t wild at some point. Nolan Ryan, one of the most celebrated flamethrowers of all time, walked over 100 men eleven times, leading the league seven of those seasons. In two of those years he walked over 200 guys. The point is, flamethrowing pitchers walk guys. I’m sure even Ryan and Aroldis Chapman have walked four in a game before (Editor’s note: Indeed, Ryan walked 4+ batters in one or fewer innings of work eight times in his career, Chapman has done it twice).

One other point that I vociferously argue—and no one seems to agree with me on—is that Kimbrel has had no real consistency behind the plate.

Baseball players are creatures of habit. Pitchers are no different, and neither are catchers. Pitchers have tendencies; catchers have tendencies. When they can’t get in sync, the trust between pitcher and catcher can be lost. The dynamic between a pitcher and a catcher cannot be understated and Craig has had five different catchers to work with this year: Ryan Hanigan, Blake Swihart, Christian Vazquez, Sandy Leon, and Bryan Holaday.

Oh, and before you jump all over me about how guys should be able to throw to any catcher, I offer you the combinations of Josh Beckett and Jason Varitek and Jon Lester and David Ross. Yes, both of those combinations worked together for an entire season without changes and they both won World Series titles.

One more point to consider. Kimbrel has made the fewest relief appearances of his career this season. Granted, some of that is attributed to the fact that he missed time with knee surgery, but it also means that his arm isn’t tired after the long grind of the baseball season. He’s still got the thunder. Kimbrel’s 55 relief appearances this season is a low number, especially considering that most relievers (closers or otherwise) typically find themselves called upon for close to 70 games. Still, Kimbrel is 30-for-33 in 2016 save chances and clearly making the most of his opportunities, limited as they have been. He has also faced the fewest number of batters in a season (outside of his partial debut season), so the numbers are skewed slightly compared to the rest of his career.

So let’s not be so quick to demonize Craig Kimbrel. His season is a result of inconsistencies beyond his control and trying to wield the lightning in his arm.

Remember, it looks so easy when it’s done right and it looks God-awful when it’s done wrong.

Michael Barrell is just a guy with an opinion. You can direct your hate mail to him on Twitter @Michael_Barrell

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