Red Sox Reality Check

The Sox travel to Camden Yards and need to continue the beatdown of the 'have-nots' of the AL East. 1. Bird brain. The Sox have put themselves in a hole early, and have the reality that only two playoff spots can (forever) come out of the AL East. My 'fear the Rays' mantra from the preseason has come to fruition with a 16-5 start. It's still early but the Sox need to keep winning series while they figure out how to get more offensive output. 2. A Win in April. The Sox have had a winning record in April almost without failure.  John Lackey has a chance to continue that 'tradition' leading off the rotation in Baltimore. Lackey will try to extend the quality start string of Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester. Buchholz is tenth in the AL in ERA at 2.19. 3. Catcher in the Wry. Rumors fly about the Sox seeking catching help, but the reality is that Victor Martinez's bat will stay in the lineup. Another (non-Varitek) bat displaces both David Ortiz and Mike Low...

Good news travels far...and the Sox have made some progress with a three-game sweep over the Jays. 1. Fortune .500 . After a miserable 4-9 start, the Sox have regained the .500 mark (Dirt Dogs' making a fortune and playing .500) with a 7-2 recovery, playing better baseball to boot. The Sox leapfrog Toronto and stand three games behind the Yankees. As I said before the season, fear the Rays. 2. Form fitting . Jon Lester notched his first win of the season with seven innings of one-hit baseball. Sure he wasn't exactly economical with pitches (110 in 6 innings, 119 overall), but he got the job done and shutout the Jays for seven innings. Also, as he did so often down the stretch last year, he had double digit strikeouts. 3. Cleanup crew . For the third consecutive night, the Sox got a clean save from the bullpen...with a Ramon Ramirez save sandwiched between a pair of Jonathan Papelbon saves. More than anything else, we need to wait for a bigger sample to see exactly what id...

Trouble in River City, as the Sox go on the road. 1. Fab Four . It's a long season, and the Sox will need contributions from Varitek, Ortiz, Wakefield, and Lowell (VOWLs). After all, you can't spell victory, success, or championship without vowels. So far, Varitek has to get the Ponce de Leon Award, although the sustainability remains unclear. 2. Tick, tick .  David Ortiz's slow start, in the CONTEXT of a Red Sox sub .500 start, has earned him platoon status. It's hard to impossible not to see it that way. Unfortunately for Ortiz, it will be harder for him to regain his stroke from the bench. 3. Rotation . Josh Beckett may be the 'ace' but it was more paste than ace tonight as the Sox lead 13-9 in the sixth and Beckett is long gone. Wakefield steams while only John Lackey has produced anything approaches consistency and quality starts are rarer than hen's teeth. 4. Turnaround Tuesday ? The Sox now have a couple of hitters over .300 with Pedroia and Y...

The Red Sox continued their homestand with the relief that the Orioles have provided recently. 1.  The Hub of the Universe .. With the NFL Draft, the Celtics and Bruins in playoff tilts, and the Sox at Fenway, fans had to fight off "clicker finger". Suddenly everyone's a Bruins fan and once again people can name half a dozen B's, even if they can't spell the names. The Patriots added some big, tough athletes, and Paul Pierce drained a jumper at the buzzer to send Miami home on the short end. But the Sox pushed across a run in the eight courtesy of Orioles' wildness and Jonathan Papelbon had a shaky save leaving a pair of runners aboard. 2.  What you didn't see . Sometimes a baseball game has an obvious highlight play, odd occurrence (e.g. a balk), or controversial umpiring call. But tonight the Sox went through a complete game without having a strikeout inflicted by the Birds. About the only other 'abnormal' sight was the Orioles' alternate c...

The Red Sox, desperately seeking quality starts, send Clay Buchholz to the hill tonight. 1. Cycle repair?  In Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , he has an exhaustive treatise on the meaning of quality. Quality starts in baseball parlance have clear definition: six or more innings with three or fewer earned runs allowed. As I recall, only five percent of quality starts have that 'minimum' standard, and the composite E.R.A. of pitchers in quality starts is under two in those efforts. How bad is it? Well, the Sox are a distant last in quality starts, with only half as many as the top trio of Oakland, Seattle, and Toronto. __________________________________________ 2. Center cut . The Sox rely on leadoff hitter Jacoby Ellsbury to ignite the offense. Well, with Ellsbury diagnosed today with fractured ribs, there's no telling when he can return. The above ARE NOT CT scan images of Ellsbury, but they could have been, with 3-dimensional reconstruction po...

The Red Sox look to build on their one game winning streak, tonight, and they'll have to go into extra frames to do so. 1. Screaming bye . Darnell McDonald prevented the Fenway fateful from going home screaming "bye" with an eighth inning homer and walk-off wall-scraper in the ninth to win it. Tonight, the Cincinnati Kid added another homer to double his career output (4) with a pair of Sox taters. Big Mac also threw out a runner at the plate earlier. 2. The Pitch is Back . Quit your pitching; son of a pitch, the Sox starting pitching continues to struggle with quality starts seen less often than peregrine falcons. An unlucky seven runs (six earned) in seven innings from Josh Beckett. 3. Overdrew . J.D. Drew tripled his season RBI total with a grand slam, and Jason Varitek, who came in hitting a ton, got mean reversion tonight with the Golden Sombrero (four strikeouts). Meanwhile, the Sox have curtailed the Rangers' running game (nine last night), holding the Te...

The Sox face the Texas Rangers at quasi-full strength. The Rangers historically have enjoyed a lot of power but haven't had much pitching.  1. Chronicles of Reddick . With Jacoby Ellsbury and Mike Cameron hurting, the Sox disable both and call up journeyman Darnell McDonald and Josh Reddick. They do have something in common, as both have a total of two career major league home runs. Reddick had his moments including a home run against the Yankees and he hit an 'athletic' .169 last season. Let's hope that a change energizes the Sox.** 2. Speed Demons . Last season the Rangers showed some athleticism of their own, running wild against the Sox at times. At in the knuckleball factor, and we have to hope Wakefield can keep Texas off the bases. Early on Wakefield's ball has a lot of movement, and the Sox need a new attitude. 3. Frank-epstein's monster . The Sox haven't played well, but they have shown a lot of accountability this season, the nature of th...

Let's not insult anybody's intelligence, but falling six games behind in two weeks and playing poorly surprises most Red Sox fans. There's talk of pushing the panic button, releasing veterans, and bringing up 'suspects'. Let's get real in macroeconomic sense. 1. Maas Appeal . There's always the 'catch lightning in a bottle' dream, but where's that dream coming from...Darnell McDonald? In 1990 Kevin Maas burst upon the scene in New York, hitting 21 homers in 300 at bats, surely the next Roger Maris. He was runner up for Rookie of the Year. The next season he hit 23, with an OPS of .723 with 128. Do you really believe that Josh Reddick is the next Kevin Maas. That is helpful exactly how? 2. Patriot Games . The Sox offense, producing a pair of runs on a Jeremy Hermida homer today, and the team is now producing less than four runs per game. Suddenly, we've become the Kansas City Red Sox. But, no, the Royals scored 686 runs last year, so even...

Although we all recognize that the baseball season is a marathon, we might wonder how far back you can fall in a marathon and still recover. We have the dismal memories of the '64 Phillies, the '78 Red Sox, and the multiple recent collapses of the Mets. But at the same time, how many of us can even contemplate a collapse of biblical proportions by the 2010 Yankees? So, eleven games into the season, the Sox trail a pair of division leaders by four games, victims of self-destruction as much as anything else. __________________________________________________________ 1. Hard knocks . The Sox offense, averaging 5 runs a game after seven games, has fallen to just 4.1 after eleven. Among regulars, only Dustin Pedroia is hitting over .300, and J.D. Drew and David Ortiz both are well below the Mendoza Line. 2. Ray Ban . Jon Lester goes to work for the Sox today, trying to break out of his early season doldrums. Lester struck out the side in the first. Naturally, it started pouri...

The Red Sox face divisional rival Tampa and come away on the short end of the stick.  1. Fan-tastic . The fans attending Friday's game caught a break because they didn't have to watch the nightmarish end of the front end of the completed game Saturday, extended because of a rain-forced end. So, if you went Friday, you get a zero, not a loss.  2. Bogar that joint . Third base coach Tim Bogar tried to score Kevin Youkilis from first on an extra-base hit WITH NONE OUT. How'd that work out? Not...well, if never make the first out or the last out at third base is a baseball truism, then making the first out at home doesn't sit really well with Sox fans either. Do we have another Dale Sveum in the making.  3. Drought in April . The Sox loaded the bases with nobody out in the 11th, only to have David Ortiz ground into a force out at the plate and Adrian Beltre grounded into a double play to snuff the aborted rally. The Sox offense seems to have hit the wall or the c...

The Red Sox returned home looking to chill the Tampa Bay Rays, who come in at 6-3, two games ahead of the Sox. Josh Beckett looks to ice the potent visitor lineup, with help from the ambient conditions. 1. The Deep . Back in the day, Jacqueline Bissett was known for her 'chilling' performance in the deep. With Jacoby Ellsbury out with a chest contusion and Mike Cameron sidelined by nephrolithiasis (kidney stones), I feel right at home reporting on the Sox. This gives Sox reserves Jeremy Hermida, a.k.a. Designated Hermida (by Boston Dirt Dogs) and Bill Hall some face time. 2. Wading In . Boston faces more than its share of Wades this weekend, with Ray hurler Wade Davis and Miami Heat guard Dwayne Wade. So far, the former has looked pretty sharp with a 96 mph heater in tow. In addition to their 1-2 of James Shields and Matt Garza, the Rays will rely on mature performances from youngsters Davis and Jeff Niemann. 3. Chill factor . I don't have as many rules as NCIS' J...

The Red Sox closed out a 3-3 road trip with an 8-0 whitewash by the Twins. The Bostons (4-5) return home for a series with the Rays, with Josh Beckett up next. Tim Wakefield was cuffed around for five runs and ten hits in five and a third innings. 1. No, no . The Sox produced no runs and no defense, allowing three errors. Scott Schoeneweis, another contender in the "Joe Nelson is Better" and Daisuke Matsuzaka Redemption Tour saw his ERA balloon to 7.36. 2. Plus minus . The Red Sox come home in second to last place (sounds better than fourth). Looking inside the numbers, we can see the Orioles Kiddie Korps pitching staff is getting spanked, and the Red Sox "best starting pitching in baseball" hasn't exactly gotten its sea legs, with the Sox underwater in the plus-minus ratings. The run differential column usually doesn't lie, with the most balanced teams having the big advantages. The best team so far? San Francisco? Huh! 3. Selection show? Were the...

The Red Sox played their eighth game of the season and came away the victors with John Lackey's first Red Sox win. 1. Quality time . One of the more underrated statistics in baseball is the quality start. Research has shown that quality starts result in victory almost seventy percent of the time. If that holds true, then we'd expect the victory leaders and 'best' pitchers in baseball to produce quality starts. The top five QS leaders in the AL from 2009 included Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke, the always tough Roy Halladay, King Felix Hernandez, and the Sox' Jon Lester. Lester started slowly last year as well. 2. Batman Returns . Dustin Pedroia smashed his fourth homer of the season, which according to NESN, took him 81 games last season, and 331 at bats versus 31 this season. Pedroia, Cal Ripken, and Ryan Howard have something in common...all won Rookie of the Year and were MVPs the next season. After 8 games, Pedroia has 10 RBI and is slugging 1.228. Eight...

David Ortiz, still Big Papi .

The Sox take the day off, as Minnesota recovers from their opening day frolic in the warm sunshine of victory, instead of the sterility of the Metrodome. 1. Offensive action . Although the Sox 'new way' revolves around pitching and defense, the offense hasn't been too shabby. The Sox have been averaging five runs a game in the first seven games of the season, and second in OPS, behind the Yankees. 2. "It takes a village." The old African proverb says it takes a village to raise a child, but that one child can destroy the village.  The early struggles of David Ortiz create a major headache for skipper Terry Francona and the Sox management. An unhappy, unproductive player can bring down the village. Mike Lowell has shown remarkable dignity and put on a tolerant public face so far; in the uber-competitive AL East, the Red Sox can't afford to get off to a start like last year's Rays. The Sox have several alternative DH candidates including Lowell, Jeremy...

The Red Sox did the charitable thing and offered up little resistance as the Twins opened up their new ballpark with a victory. 1. Who let the dogs out?  I must have been hallucinating, but it sure looked like a Spanky and Our Gang looking dog in a box seat behind home plate. Maybe I wasn't hallucinating. ______________________________________________________________ 2. Swing batter, batter . David Ortiz had an RBI double today, as he continues to head up the "short list" on the DH watch. Ortiz halved his strikeout total today, going down twice. The bad news is that Big Papi has fanned in fifty percent of his official at bats. The good news is that he hasn't done anything like Ben Roethlisberger who is an embarrassment to the NFL and the Steelers. 3. Great Scott . Scott Atchison had a wonderful story this spring training, as he made the Sox out of camp, and looks to contribute mightily to the Sox pen. Unfortunately, Mister Atchison hasn't been exactly Denni...

The Red Sox mistreated Royals' Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke last night, but escaped with far more than a victory. 1. Game of Inches . I used to play in an adult baseball league, but one reason I walked away was the danger to a pitcher from aluminum bats. Last night, Josh Beckett narrowly avoided serious injury when a line drive ticked off his occiput. We've seen the worst of head injuries (Bryce Florie) and recall others like Mike Mussina taking one point blank. 2. OPS Makes News . Sox fans have lamented the lack of power from the offense, but last night's oversized effort (five homers) corrects the statistical imbalance. Jason Varitek had a pair of taters from the left side, and Youkilis, Pedroia, and Hermida also went yard. Obviously, the sample size is going to be small, so too much emphasis on the stats this early gets reduced. At the end of the day, it's not the offense or the defense, but the win-loss record that gets the headlines. The Wall Street equi...

One of Richard Pryor's famous lines goes, "who are you going to believe...your lying eyes or your beloved husband. And that's how Red Sox performance over the first six days of the baseball season confronts Red Sox Nation. We received the promise of pitching and defense, and so far the reality hasn't come anywhere close to the hype. 1. Welcome back . The Red Sox can't call tonight a "must" win, because they run into Zack Greinke. Calling the fifth game of any baseball season the be all, end all, makes as much sense as viewing the next 300 yards of a marathon the determining factor between victory and defeat. Mike Lowell (the retiring guy), Jason Varitek, and Jeremy Hermida find their way into the lineup, and I'm guessing that Adrian Beltre doesn't feel that bad about missing Greinke. 2. Farm stand . Daisuke Matsuzaka threw five scoreless innings today for the PawSox. Speculation has it that the Japanese legend has another couple of starts befo...

Red Sox announcer Ned Martin's famous expletive was "mercy!" 1. Tonight the Kansas City Royals honored Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke with an over-the-top presentation...if we've ever seen one. Greinke had a reenactment of his trophy presentation, and separate presentations of Taylor-Made golf clubs, a Cy Young ring, a framed Kaufman Stadium home plate, framed uniform gear and a scoresheet, framed pitching rubber, and congratulations from everyone who ever did anything in Kansas City except Frank White. And he got a kiss from his trophy wife. Hey, congrats to a guy who had a hard road to success. 2. The Sox have their road "softball uniforms" on tonight with the blue uniform top and the old-fashioned red lettering. MLB is always about the marketing, with everything from the St. Patty's day green hats to the nouveau-fan styled pink hats. Let us not forget the caps with the paired stockings. It might get scary...you never know what kind of person...

Okay, so it's early, but as they say, "a win in April counts as much as a win in September." What's on tap for today's Soxaholics? 1. Win prevention . The opening series didn't exactly showcase the "run prevention" theme from the off-season. In the second game, the front and back end of an eighth inning grounder set up the winning run, walked in. Last night, the bullpen poured gasoline on the fire, turning a six-inning John Lackey shutout into a 3-1 defeat over the final four innings. Jonathan Papelbon took the loss with a hanging fastball to Curtis Granderson. 2. Ortizzle stick . Tough crowd. David Ortiz had the only Sox RBI last night, although generally the offense left a lot to be desired. Last April, Ortiz hit .230 with OPS .623, no homers and 12 RBI. That was then and this is now. Give a guy a break. 3. Reign delay . Once upon a time, a game could be played in less than two hours. The Red Sox and Yankees would be hard pressed to play a si...

It's still only into the third game of the season, and what's hot and what's not? 1. Run prevention . From the Red Sox perspective, the eighth inning collapse with a defensive lapse on both ends from short to first allowed the winning run to go to third base, ultimately scoring on a walk. Unless the Amica Pitch Zone has suddenly changed, it has morphed into the Amica "bitch zone" as home plate has become a pie plate, with no corners. The last thing the fans need is an ultra-tight strike zone with the Red Sox-Yankees staging their annual marathons. Last night's game went on for ever about four hours. Meanwhile Derek Jeter reinforced his reputation as great on popups and liners, and weak in other areas. 2. Expletives repeated . How much rope will the Sox give David Ortiz, he of the RBI single tonight? I'm not prepared to write off Big Papi based on two games...or two weeks. Maybe Papi had some bad words for the paparazzi media. Big @#$%ing deal. 3. ...

The Red Sox face the Yankees in Game 2 of the season and look for their first 'quality start' of the season. 1. Defensive misplays and errors (DME). Jacoby Ellsbury scored the first Sox run after reaching on a looper that was up forever (Marcus Thames?) and went to third on a stolen base and throwing error (Jorge Posada). In other words, he reached on questionable defense and advanced and scored on poor defense. Time will tell whether it impacts the outcome. Conversely, a three hopper almost to the hole gets turned into a DP by Scutaro, Pedroia, and Posada, who runs...like a catcher. 2. Beckett extension. Josh Beckett took a "hometown discount" on his extension? Beckett's a terrific talent and we're delighted the Sox extended his contract. But as for the 'discount', fuggedaboutit. Sure, we could have hyperinflation with the credit circus calliope playing 24/7, but with the uncertainty of pitchers' health, players should be kissing the mound the...

x My broadcasting partner, Ralph Labella, and I have about a hundred years of experience playing, watching, coaching, and more recently broadcasting sports. Yeah, that makes us old. We believe in preparation, knowing the game, and respecting the game. Just because somebody says something is 'SO', doesn't make it true. And dogma come from the Greek 'dok', to seem good, not to be good. Photographic evidence that we really 'do' have our own local cable show...just above zero on the 'share'. Observations on the Sox media: Great to have "The Commissioner", Peter Gammons on the NESN team. Gammons gets fried nationally for being a homer, but I'm not sure that's fair.  Jerry Remy looks good, but not as effervescent as in the days of pumping hot dogs, scoresheets, and his website.  Jim Rice dominates in the clothing department. Don Orsillo does a great job; I still miss Sean McDonough. I'm as guilty as the next guy of using ...

The Red Sox kicked off the season delivering a veritable "bleep you" from the mouth of a five-year Internet star. The victory is only part of the soap opera that the Red Sox may become. 1. Today the Red Sox announced signing an extension to opening night pitcher Josh Beckett. The right-hander  led the Red Sox in victories last season with seventeen. By signing Beckett, the Sox have locked up their "big three" (Beckett, Lester, Lackey) through 2014, giving them flexibility in both the development and the potential trading of additional pieces down the line. 2. "Make new friends, but keep the old." The newbies, Adrian Beltre (AB), Mike Cameron, and Marco Scutaro combined for 5 for 9 offensively, scoring a pair and driving in three. Beltre also closed out the game with a solid play going to his left to nip Curtis Granderson. How many people asked whether Mike Lowell could have reached that ball? 3. Speaking of Lowell, he clearly garnered the lion's...

Let's take our cuts and see what happens. 1. "You're never as good as you look when you win or as bad as you look when you lose." One game doesn't make a season, but you know that Sox fans will overreact to whatever happens tonight . The corollary has always remained, "momentum only lasts as long as the next day's starting pitcher."  2. Sellouts are forever. Will there be empty seats (not unsold tickets) as ticket brokers have to unload tickets as face value? I believe I read that overall major league attendance fell off six percent last year during the recession that spread to professional sports.  3. Victor Martinez hasn't had a full season with the Red Sox. The past three seasons in April, V-Mart has been .347/.410/.511/.921 . Jason Varitek the past three Aprils has been .254/.332/.456/.788. How much will Varitek play and will it be mostly against LHP as his three years splits are .821 versus .687 for left and right-handed pitching....

Keywords: Red Sox Nation, Red Sox roster, American League East, Red Sox preview The Florida portion of Spring Training rests comfortably in the rearview mirror, with LESS than the usual quota of the good , the too   bad , and the ugly . Let's take our hacks. 1 . The feel good story of the spring comes from Scott Atchison, from Japan with love. Atchison won a job and along the way, his two-year old daughter with a rare congenital disease gets specialty treatment. Let's hope that every child with an illness has the opportunity to get special treatment . 2 . What percentage of baseball excellence does pitching and defense constitute? Well, Yogi Berra might tell us that ninety percent of baseball is half mental. Certainly, Sox fans expect somewhere around fifty wins from the Big Three of Beckett, Lester, and Lackey. Last year they combined (off the top of my head) for forty-three wins, and it doesn't get any easier in the uber-tough AL East. 3 . Either the Red Sox or th...

Five Things. 1. The Red Sox didn't replace Jason Bay's offense in the off-season, but they did attempt to overhaul the team defensively . With all respect due John Dewan's Fielding Bible, ESPN.com reviews what the Red Sox attempted...a quantum leap in run prevention . Jeremy Lundblad breaks down the Sox attempt to scuttle the 2009 defensive breakdown. 2. Tim Kurkjian has his all-time Red Sox team . Mine? C - Fisk 1B - Foxx 2B - Doerr (Pedroia has far too short a track record, impressive as it may be) SS - Joe Cronin (Nomar not going to Cooperstown) 3B - Boggs OF - Williams OF - Speaker (16 finishes in the top ten in slugging and OPS) OF - Yaz P -  Cy Young, another era, but a three year span with 93 wins P -  Clemens...warts and all P -  Martinez...five year spell with incredible, unbelieveable adjusted ERA+  better than Koufax's five year spell 3. " Crime against humanity ." I was picking up a few goodies at the grocery, when the manager s...

Most of us, boys and girls, play baseball as children, follow baseball, and think we have an 'understanding' of the game. We know when to take a pitch, when to think about the hit and run, when a pitcher is tiring, and of course, when to try to score the runner from second on a single. So when the GM, manager, coach, fill in the blank 'screws up', we howl in protest. "Wow, they really botched the Lowell trade" or "how can they keep this guy"? Do we know what we don't know? We're caught between "In Theo We Trust" and "I know what I see," and struggle to choose between believing and seeing. Baseball writers have incredible access, but not exclusivity when it comes to the power of observation. Old men labor under the prejudices of lengthy observation (if you watch baseball for fifty years, you think you've seen it all, from Mike Kekich to Albert Belle) and young writers suffer delusions of adequacy, not having the ex...