The Boston Red Sox split a doubleheader against the Toronto Blue Jays today.  Dustin Pedroia jacked a home run, and knuckleballer Daniel Webster put up a good showing in his Sox debut.

But, that’s not what I was thinking about today.  See, I got my hands on a copy of Baseball Prospectus today.  BP loves Xander Bogaerts, but sees him long-term as a third baseman.  This revelation got me thinking about Boston’s perennial shortstop problem.  Why can’t Boston make a shortstop stick?  The shortstop position in Boston is a black hole, a vortex, the MLB job where job security goes to die.

Mike Aviles, one of many

Scene: it’s early 2004, Nomar Garciaparra’s the Boston shortstop, and despite persistent Magglio Ordonez trade rumors, everything’s groovy – everything, that is, except for the team’s not having won the World Series in 86 years.  But, the fans like their team, they love their shortstop, they have faith.

Then, the doldrums set in, Derek Jeter runs headlong into the stands in New York, and Nomar gets traded in a trade-deadline deal to Chicago.  The Sox win the World Series, but without their star shortstop.

Since then, we’ve seen a bevy of shortstops come and go, but none of them seem to quite fit.  Let me just clear my throat a second here: Orlando Cabrera; Edgar Renteria (hey, let’s trade Hanley Ramirez while we’re at it, he’ll never amount to anything); Alex Gonzalez; Alex Cora; Julio Lugo; Jed Lowrie; Nick Green (?); Marco Scutaro; Mike Aviles; and, the flavor of the month, Stephen Drew, with Jose Iglesias, a man who simply CANNOT HIT, close behind.

The heck?  What is happening here?  It’s just weird that none of these players could stick in Boston.  I don’t know if it’s something about the pressure of playing in Boston, I don’t know if it’s something about ridiculous contracts given out to mediocre shortstops (looking at you, Lugo), I don’t know if there’s some kind of divot at the edge of the grass that makes it impossible to field routine grounders.  But for whatever reason, the Sox can’t make a shortstop stick.  It’s weird, it’s disconcerting, and I don’t like it.

Dustin Pedroia wants a consistent double-play partner.  He doesn’t even have to say so for me to know it’s true.  Give Dustin what he wants – a shortstop that will last more than one year, earn a reasonable paycheck, and maybe fling himself headlong into the stands at Yankee Stadium once or twice.

I mean…

Granted, the Red Sox didn’t exactly put their best lineup on the field yesterday.  Dustin Pedroia sat out with what was later reported to be a fractured finger (he won’t go on the DL, since there’s only two games left), and Jacoby Ellsbury also didn’t make an appearance.  I’m not making excuses for the Red Sox, but let’s be honest: when Ryan Lavarnway (currently batting somewhere in the .160s) is your fifth hitter, and three-hitter Cody Ross is the biggest threat in your batting order, you’ve gone off the reservation somehow.

Regardless of whether the Sox were either flopping around in the bottom of the fishing boat, or just giving their exciting up-and-comers a chance to play, last night’s game against the Yankees was the most one-sided rivalry game I’ve seen in a long time.  Clay Buchholz imploded in the second inning, giving up eight runs in a nine-run frame that decided the game early and sent a disinterested fan base packing for yet another depressing night.

Robinson Cano started the second-inning barrage off for New York, launching a solo home run to center field.  Buchholz got Mark Teixeria to strike out, but the unflappable Nick Swisher glanced a double off of center field with one out.  Curtis Granderson scored Swisher by hitting a home run of his own, and then Russell Martin promptly hit another home run, making the score 4-0.

Undaunted, Buchholz announced himself with authority by walking Eric Chavez and Derek Jeter, and loaded the bases via an Ichiro Suzuki single.  Alex Rodriguez sacrificed Chavez home for the second out, before Cano used his second at-bat of the inning to double home Jeter and Suzuki.

With the score 7-0 with two outs, Bobby Valentine had finally seen enough.  Alfredo Aceves replaced Buchholz.  Aceves faced Teixeira first, and Teixeira (of course) hit the Yankees’ fourth home run of the inning, scoring Cano and leaving the score at 9-0.  Swisher followed up with another double, but Aceves finally got Granderson to ground out to first to end the inning.

The Sox didn’t really get any kind of offensive rally going.  They scored a couple of baserunners here and there, care a well-executed Jarrod Saltalamacchia sac fly and a Daniel Nava home run; but there was really nothing happening at all at the plate.

With the win, coupled with Baltimore’s loss to Tampa, the Yankees took sole possession of first place with two games to play.  The Red Sox’ best-case scenario now is to play spoiler for either the Yankees or the Orioles, as both teams continue to battle for the division title.  That’s literally about all that Red Sox fans can look forward to – an exciting game 162 that means nothing for the Sox, but could potentially affect another team’s postseason. Blah.

Here’ a link to last night’s box score, courtesy of the Red Sox.  Tonight’s game 161 pits Jon Lester (9-14, 4.94 ERA) against David Phelps (4-4, 3.34 ERA).  Phelps replaces the beleaguered Ivan Nova in a start that will probably decide Phelps’ prominence on the Yankees’ postseason roster.

After all that – the offseason drama, the dirty laundry, the vows to do better, the stacked lineup – the Red Sox are officially a mediocre team.  They’re back at .500 heading into the All-Star break after losing to the New York Yankees again last night, 7-3.  With the loss, the Sox dropped three of four to New York, and head into the furlough at 43-43.

Last night, Jon Lester took yet another tough loss, dropping his record to 5-6 on the season.  He allowed two runs in the first inning, via a Mark Teixeira double that scored Derek Jeter, and a double-play ball gone wrong to Sox third baseman Mauro Gomez.  For the fourth time in four games, the Red Sox let the Yankees take an early lead in the first inning.

The Sox scored in the bottom of the first, when upstart and most popular man in Boston Pedro Ciriaco singled, stole second (the throw was on time, but Jeter missed the tag), and scored when Jeter dropped a popup.  PS – Jeter was off last night.  The muffed Ciriaco steal, the dropped pop fly, a few muffed plays at short – I don’t think he’s hurt, but it was just weird to see him off his game like that.

» Continue reading “Red Sox Limp Into Break After Dropping Finale To Yankees”

Well Red Sox Nation, yesterday was quite a busy day! Round two of the weekend battle with the NY Yankees took place yesterday afternoon — making up a rainout in April. I’m probably not the only one who wished this game got rained out again.

It was hot and muggy and it appeared to throw Red Sox starter, Franklin Morales, off his game. Similar to Friday night’s first inning, the Yankees jumped out to a quick lead putting up four runs on back-to-back homeruns by Nick Swisher (a 3-run shot) and Andruw Jones.

I looked at my husband (who is a Yankees fan) and said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if the Sox scored four in the bottom of the first?”

He chuckled and said, “Ah…no.” Party pooper.
» Continue reading “Red Sox: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”

So, here’s a thought experiment for you: when your starting pitcher, your number two pitcher – let’s call him, say, Josh Beckett – gives up five runs to the Yankees in the top of the first inning what are the chances of then witnessing any kind of close, fun, enjoyable baseball game?

Josh Beckett (Amanda Laws)

Turns out, if you’re talking about a Red Sox-Yankees game, the chances are pretty good.  The Red Sox stormed back against an equally ineffective Hiroki Kuroda in the bottom of the first, and tied the game at five.  A wild first inning kicked off the last series before the All-Star break: Beckett gave up two singles and then hit Alex Rodriguez to load the bases, before walking Derek Jeter home on a Robinson Cano walk, allowing a two-run single to Mark Teixeira, and giving up sacrifice fly balls to Nick Swisher and Eric Chavez.

Phew.  Exhausting!  Good thing Kuroda had a similarly tough time getting outs in the first inning.  He gave up a leadoff double to Daniel Nava, moved him on a wild pitch, and let him score on a Ryan Kalish sacrifice fly.  A David Ortiz single, a Yankee throwing error, and an Adrian Gonzalez double brought the score to 5-2, before Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit his 17th home run of the year to right field, tying the game and marking a new career high.

The first inning took almost 45 minutes, which, well, let’s just say visions of a seven-hour game were running through my head.  This was a Red Sox-Yankees game, after all.

» Continue reading “Red Sox Drop A Wild One, And, The Teixeira-Padilla Chronicles”

Dear Red Sox: stop whining.  It’s embarassing, it’s not helping you win games, and it’s outing you all as coddled superstars who can’t imagine any other reason (mediocre pitching?  lackluster hitting?) why they might be playing horrible baseball right now.

The Red Sox lost again, falling to the Miami Marlins 4-1 on Monday night.  Josh Beckett had a rocky first inning, but recovered well.  The offense (once again) couldn’t pick up the pitching staff, and the Red Sox bats went quietly.  The Sox have lost four in a row, and they’re three games under .500.  The worst part, though, the part that leaves the nasty impression, is Kevin Youkilis arguing balls and strikes with the home plate umpire after striking out on a foul tip, one day after manager Bobby Valentine blew a gasket before getting ejected in the series finale against the Nationals.

Valentine spent a lot of time this week insinuating that the umpires aren’t that great.  He framed it more diplomatically than that, telling ESPN:

“I think they’re very well trained, and I think they’re very good at what they do. I think it’s almost impossible to do what they do, so why do we ask them to do the impossible? If in fact you can’t see the ball the last five feet, and now pitchers are throwing pitches that are moving in that zone, cutting and splitting and moving in the zone, your eye can’t see what’s happening.

“They’re humans. We’re asking humans to do a feat a human can’t do.”

But, his point was made – Valentine doesn’t think the current stable of MLB umpires – or human beings in general – can properly call a ball a ball and a strike a strike.  The only exceptions to this fundamental failing of the human condition appear to be Valentine himself, and his players – they can tell a ball from a strike to the point where they’re comfortable telling professional, trained umpires that they’re wrong.

Bobby’s solution?  Looking at his ESPN quotes, it appears to be robots.  Or, the internet.  Or maybe some kind of underground lair in Europe?:

“I don’t know how the Internet works. How about a fax? How about putting a thing in a machine and it showing up in Europe? If they can do that, they can figure out how to call a strike and a ball. Are you kidding me? That isn’t tough. It’s whether or not they want to do it.”

In all seriousness,Valentine advocates for some kind of computerized strike zone.  This isn’t unrealistic: MLB Gameday and pretty much every television broadcast can and do superimpose the strike zone’s rectangle over the plate, allowing fans to judge the calls mercilessly.  It’s not like MLB can’t computerize or automate or transmogrify or do something techie to judge the strike zone more consistently.

But should they?  Valentine isn’t much of a fan of the human factor, but truth is, that’s baseball.  That’s part of the game.  Rookie pitchers don’t get the same calls that established Cy Young winners get.  Derek Jeter probably gets more favorable calls than Bryce Harper.  Is that fair?  Maybe, maybe not.  Is that the way the game is?  Yes.  Does that add to the never-ending analysis, second-guessing, drama that draws fans?  Definitely.

Not only that, but if the Red Sox start blaming the umpires for their losses, then the umpires – who are, after all, just human – will start to hold that against the Red Sox, if they don’t already.  I was a catcher in college.  Every catcher knows that your first job is to manage the pitching staff and call a smart game.  Every catcher also knows that your second job is to develop a rapport with the home plate umpire, and get him or her to trust your eye for the strike zone almost as much as they trust their own.  I bet Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Kelly Shoppach know this, and I bet they wince every time Valentine pops his head out of the dugout or Youk starts whining after being called out ON A FOUL TIP (not even a strike looking).  The Red Sox are not helping their own cause.

Anyway.  Here’s a link to last night’s unf-air box score, courtesy of the Red Sox.  The Sox take on the Marlins (and the umpires) again tonight.  Clay Buchholz (6-2, 5.77 ERA) will try to replicate his last few strong showings against Mark Buehrle (5-6, 3.49 ERA).

Sometimes, a fan is lucky enough to attend one of those baseball games that stick with you over time, the memories etched indelibly into your mind.  We’re lucky enough to randomly have bleacher seats for a Tuesday afternoon getaway where a no-name pitcher throws a perfect game.  Or, we find ourselves standing and applauding for a three-home run night that came out of nowhere.  Or, we see a play unfold that, even though it might take all of five seconds from start to finish, will leave us shaking our heads at each other and marking up our scorecards with asteriks and stars and made-up language to suit our own memories.

National Anthem (credit: Amanda Laws)

Yesterday, Stacy and I were both lucky enough to get to a game that we knew going in would be historic – a Red Sox-Yankees game that fell on the 100th anniversary of the opening of Fenway Park.  We were both there well before gametime (we found each other in the stands to say hi, and we have the picture to prove it!), and we both watched what was probably one of the best tributes to baseball – and to the power of sport – that I’ve ever seen.

First things first: I got to Fenway early enough to sneak my way into the fancy box seats against the third baseline, where I caught the tail end of the Yankees’ batting practice.  Now, I’ve lived in Boston for years, and I cover the Red Sox for Aerys.  But I’ll be the first person to tell you that I grew up in New York, and my Yankees bloodline runs pretty deep.  So, I’m always a little bit starstruck when I get within 500 feet of any Yankee, let alone Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez.

And oh hey, look, it’s Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez:

credit: Amanda Laws

I have to say, I hardly ever get to a game in time to see batting practice.  But I’m always glad when I do.  It’s like a home run derby without the silly rules and overdone hype.  And, I’m always blown away by how massive the players are in person.  Alex Rodriguez is, up close, really, really tall and really, really jacked.  It’s just kind of insane how athletic these players are.  It’s also kind of insane how easily they flip batting practice pitches out of the stadium.  It’s as casual to them as it would be for us to swat a fly.

credit: Amanda Laws

Soon after batting practice ended, the pregame ceremony began.  We noticed that there were, oh, something like 200 people standing in the garage in the center field wall.  The PA announcer launched into a Field of Dreams soliloquy, and soon it all became clear: those 200 people crammed into the garage were all old Red Sox players, coaches, and managers, and they walked out onto the field in “if you build it, they will come” style, taking their old positions.  The ceremony took a long time – the Sox properly and correctly gave each player, whether bit part, role player, Hall of Famer, or living legend, their due.

credit: Amanda Laws

The crowd loved it.  A friend of mine who works a good mile away texted me to ask what all the cheering was about.  By far, the biggest cheers were for recently-ousted manager Terry Francona, members of the 2004 and 2007 teams, and for the old greats.  My experience was enhanced by the old men sitting directly behind me, who screamed out the name of every player they recognized in pitch perfect Boston accents (“Billy Bucknah!  No-mah Gah-cia-parrah!  Cahl-ton Fisk!”).

credit: Amanda Laws

Once all the alums were on the field, the current Red Sox joined them for the rest of the ceremony.  This was the crowd’s first chance to see the 1912 version of the uniforms (the Sox wore their pullovers for batting practice), and I thought they were really cool.  Bright white uniforms with “Red Sox” on the front in red writing, without numbers.  White hats with no logos.  And, to a man, the players wore white socks with red stripes, socks pulled up.

The Yankees wore gray road uniforms with a slightly different, but recognizable interlocked NY logo on the left chest.  No numbers on the back, gray hats with navy brims.  And, I thought the coolest part was the Yankees’ socks – also pulled up, navy and dark red stripes.  I think it’s really, really special that the Yankees wore throwback uniforms for this game.  They hardly ever (and never in my lifetime) have strayed from their regular uniform, except for the odd patriotic hat on July 4th or something.  The rivalry goes back a long way, but so does the shared history between the two teams, and I think the Yankees did a lot to help the Red Sox respect the centennial milestone.

When everyone was in place, renowned conductor John Williams conducted the Boston Pops in his Fanfare to Fenway, followed by Pops conductor Keith Lockhart (the guy who dominates your television during the July 4th fireworks) giving us the National Anthem.

credit: Amanda Laws

After that, things got a little rowdy – at least, as rowdy as things can get during a family-friendly event sponsored by Welch’s sparkling white grape juice drink (TM).  Kevin Millar and Pedro Martinez – who sounded as if they might have already been celebrating a bit beforehand – clambered up on top of the Sox dugout and led the entire ensemble in a birthday toast.  The toast supposedly broke the Guinness world record for number of people (obviously, it was a packed house yesterday), but I thought the highlight was when Millar implored everyone to “Cowboy Up” again, and when he rambled on for a little too long and then said “this is getting awkward now… please stop filming me.”  The grape juice drink itself was not the finest I’ve ever had, by a long shot – but when Kevin Millar tells you to drink, you drink.

Even after all this, a good two and a half hours after I went through the turnstile on Yawkey Way, there was still a game to play.  A Yankees game, no less.

On April 20, 1912, the Boston Red Sox, who were a beast of a team at the time, staged a comeback rally to beat the mediocre New York Highlanders, 7-6 in 11 innings.  I guess the baseball gods couldn’t allow that much poetry to unfold in a single day, though, as history didn’t repeat itself.  The Yankees beat the Red Sox, 6-2, in a pretty thorough drubbing.  Derek Jeter led off the game with a pop fly to second base that Dustin Pedroia lost in the sun and dropped.  Jeter came around to score, and the Yankees never looked back.  Clay Buchholz went a full six innings, and walked Curtis Granderson to start the seventh, before Bobby Valentine (who was booed lustily every time he popped his head out of the dugout amid chants of “we want Tito”) pulled him.  Buchholz allowed six runs, five of them earned.  He gave up solo home runs to Rodriguez, Nick Swisher, and two to Eric Chavez.  The Boston bullpen held New York scoreless from there.

For the Red Sox, David Ortiz and Mike Aviles each pushed runs across the plate.  Aviles scored Cody Ross on a double to right field in the fifth inning, and Ortiz hit a monster solo home run in the second.  Ortiz, fittingly, illustrated one of the quirks of Fenway Park’s dimensions, when his shot bounced off the top of the Green Monster at its center-field corner, and landed back on the field.  The umpires originally ruled the hit a double, but let Ortiz round the bases after reviewing the film.  Boston staged a sort-of rally in

the ninth inning when Jarrod Saltalamacchia singled off of David Robertson to lead off the frame.  But, Joe Girardi squelched that dream quickly, bringing in Mariano Rivera to protect the four-run (read: non-save situation) lead.  Yankees starter Ivan Nova picked up his third win, allowing two runs over six strong innings of work.

Here’s a link to the box score, courtesy of the Red Sox.  The rivals meet up again today for a 4:05 start, when Felix Doubront will toe up with New York’s Freddy Garcia.

Earthquake? No big deal.

Hurricane? Missed us, mainly (although in New England, Vermont and Rhode Island were not as lucky – continued thoughts towards the struggles there).

Boston survived two natural disasters this week.  I also survived them, and was mainly blissfully unaware of them, since I was tanning on a beach in Mexico while the weirdest combination of weather phenomenae to hit the Hub in decades raged.  My coworkers tell me that my office building in downtown Boston shook, and that everyone bought bottled water and canned goods that they didn’t use.

But a third force sweeps into Boston tonight, folks – the Yankees.  Batten down the hatches, everyone, and fill your bathtubs with water while you’re at it.  The teams have leapfrogged each other in a fight for first place all season, and with September around the corner and only six season series games remaining (three at Fenway this week, and then three in New York in late September), this series could prove to be a turning point either way.  The Yankees are without the services of Alex Rodriguez, who is nursing a minor thumb injury, and Derek Jeter is apparently day-to-day after fouling a ball off his right knee in Baltimore (he says he feels good and wants to play, but Jeter always says he feels good and wants to play).  The Sox have Ortiz back from the DL, the friendly confines of Fenway Park to play in, and a stretch of perfect weather to pack the park with (unlike Saturday’s nightcap, which I and only a few dozen other brave souls went to).

CC vs. Lackey, tonight, 7:10 start.  CC’s got the stats, but he hasn’t been able to figure out Boston this year.  Lackey’s coming up strong lately, but I still don’t quite trust the guy.

The Boston Globe published a great slideshow today that looks at some of the smaller details of Fenway Park and the Red Sox – the nuances that go unnoticed when thousands of fans pack into the stands and try to take in the entire spectacle of a game.  Things like the amount of pine tar and resin on Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s batting practice bat.  Things like the way that Jason Varitek paints his nails white so that pitchers can pick out the signs more easily (also, where does one buy white nail polish?  Is this just Wite-Out, as I always kind of suspected?).  Things like the Morse Code going down the middle of the scoreboard on the Green Monster.

Those small details are one reason why baseball resonates with me.  Yes, it’s exciting to go to a game, see big hits, great pitching performances, and watch your team try to put up a notch in the win column.  The home runs, the no-hitters, the score: that’s what we talk about at work the next day, that’s what we read about in the paper (or, if you’re a modern kind of gal like myself, that’s what we blog about on the internet furtively in between bouts of billable work), and that’s what we mention first when someone asks us whether we went to the game last night.  But, the small details are what sticks with us, and those small details are what we pass on to our kids when we teach them the what and the why of baseball.

Confession Number One: My favorite baseball detail is Derek Jeter’s ritual when he steps into the batter’s box.  He sets his feet, stands tall with his bat against his chest, squints, surveys the field, then gets into his stance – and nods at the pitcher when he’s ready, as if to say “thanks for waiting, I’m ready to go.”  And, pitchers accept the nod as a signal, a green light, that it’s ok to go ahead and start their windup (as an aside, I can’t possibly imagine a pitcher ever considering quick-pitching Derek Jeter – he’s earned that respect over the years – but it certainly would be fun to watch some rookie pitcher on his first call-up try).

Confession Number Two: I am 31 years old, but I didn’t get to Fenway Park until I was in my mid-20s.  I didn’t grow up in Boston, and I didn’t move to Boston until I started graduate school.  I was – and in a lot of ways, I still am – used to much bigger stadiums (specifically, one that hosts a team whose name rhymes with “Lanky”).  The stadiums I grew up with have a third tier, where you sit “up in heaven” watching players that looked like ants.  They have parking garages and tunnels that let fans bypass the busy roads and non-existent parking.  Fenway is different.  Fenway grew up with the neighborhood that surrounds it.  If you want to visit Fenway, you have to also visit “The Fenway,” a residential neighborhood full of quiet one-way streets, small convenience stores, and a traffic light system that’s not at all keyed in to the Red Sox traffic schedule.  You need to know, when leaving, that the quickest way out is via Van Ness St., past the Rite-Aid and onto Brookline Ave.  If you work anywhere between Park St. and Kenmore Square, you need to either leave work by five or commit to staying until 7:30 to avoid the fans trying to get to Fenway on the T.  I used to have a Red Sox schedule hanging up on the wall next to my desk, just so I could anticipate the masses of people that would pack onto the Green Line.

When I teach my kids about baseball, I’ll teach them the rules and I’ll teach them how to throw (not like a girl), and I’ll do my best to make them switch-hitters.  But what I don’t think I can teach them – what I think they’ll have to learn themselves – is what it feels like to walk up the steps for a weekend afternoon game and see the outfield for the first time.  How the groundskeepers manage to groom the field so well, so quickly, and so uniformly every time.  What it sounds like when the ball hits off the Monster, and how you never know quite how it’s going to fall.  They’ll have to learn on their own how generations of New Yorkers have told each other to “meet me at the bat,” how to get to the Court Street deli from the subway, and how Yogi Berra will always be a New Yorker, even if he lives in New Jersey.

I’m reading an interesting book right now – “The Beauty of Short Hops,” by Sheldon and Alan Hirsch.  It argues that while sabermetrics is valuable in that it helps fans dissect the game and understand a player’s tendencies, sabermetrics can’t replace luck, chance, or how a ball falls off the Monster.  The authors point out that sabermetrics, taken to its extreme, replaces living, breathing, thinking (or not-thinking) baseball players with sets of statistics, and that sabermetricians befuddle themselves when players deviate from their own statistics.  Bill Buckner, for example, was  very good defensive first baseman.  Dave Roberts should have been caught stealing.  Derek Jeter shouldn’t have been standing on the first base line, ready to flip the ball to home and snag Jeremy Giambi.

I think that’s about right.  There’s another book I’ve thumbed through in the past – “In Praise of Athletic Beauty,” by philosopher Hans Ulrich Gembrecht.  Gembrecht describes the beauty of a shortstop turning a double play, and gives us an explanation for why sports appeals to people as an aesthetic experience, of reaching the unattainable, of seeing the full capacity of the human body.  That’s something that you can’t teach someone, that they have to experience themselves, that they have to see in person on a sunny afternoon at a perfectly-groomed baseball stadium.  We’re all fans of a team – we follow the ups and downs – but more than that, we’re all fans of the game, and of its indelible moments.  Its details.