The Boston Red Sox Day Off

In honor of the late, great John Hughes: "Billy Traber, you're my hero." As much as yesterday was bad piled on terrible piled on really effing craptastic, at least we don't have to go into tonight with a devastated bullpen.

Of course, that may not matter so much, because winning the game of baseball requires scoring runs, and right now, that does not seem to be Boston's specialty. They can get men on base - Chamberlain gave up seven walks, for crying out loud, and didn't have a 1-2-3 inning all night - but scoring them seems to be another matter. To put it another way, the telling numbers for the Boston offense last night were not the eight hits, twelve walks (twelve!), or six runs, but the fifteen men left on base and the .143 (3 for 21) batting average with runners in scoring position. In the end, I had to turn the game off before it was over, because as it turns out, the only thing more frustrating than watching your team get shut down by superior pitching is to watch them squander scoring opportunities like a compulsive gambler burning through his kid's college fund.

As for Smoltz, I'm sympathetic to the pleas for his removal from the rotation, but who, exactly, is going to pitch in his place? The only non-used starter on the 40 man roster who seems remotely qualified is Michael Bowden, who's pitching well in Pawtucket, but isn't exactly tearing things up in a way that suggests he'd be an instant hit in the majors. Paul Byrd seems a more likely successor, but 38-year-old pitchers who haven't thrown all year can't just dive right into professional competition. By trading away Masterson and relying on Smoltz to pull through, the Sox have made their bed - let's just hope that if that bed is as full of broken glass as it seems, it doesn't cut us too much.

Pitching: It's a Problem, But it Could be Worse

Crap in a hat. A few years ago, I have run screaming for the hills - or the ridge in Prospect Park; I'm in Brooklyn, after all - at the idea of facing the Yankees in the Bronx down a key member of the line up. Now I'm just slightly nervous. Shocking the Yanks at home seems like a possibility - particularly after the embarrassments the Bombers have suffered at the hands of the Sox this year - and I'm sticking to my optimism unless something bad happens this evening. In the meantime, let's talk pitching.

There's a sense of panic in the press about the state of the back 3/5ths rotation, with quotes like "a 2-5 record and 7.74 ERA in its past three trips through the rotation" being bandied about like they're signs of the Apocalypse. If there's another Boston Massacre this weekend those fears could - could - be justified, but right now they're just short sighted, for a few reasons:

1. The problem isn't Penny (or even Buchholz, who's had one terrible start, one shortened start, and two quality starts) so much as it is Smoltz. Penny's started 21 games this season; he's given up five runs or more four times, and he's had two starts where he's pitched less than five innings. Remembering that he's both an experiment on the cheap and a fourth or fifth starter, I can't see any reason to complain about what he's brought to the table this year. Last night was just a poorly-timed deviation from the pattern. Smoltz, on the other hand, has only given up less than five runs on two out of his seven starts, and those were against the AAAA teams in KC and Baltimore. Unlike Penny, he's also had almost no run support, so his bad days look that much worse.
   
   
2. Experiments or no, imagine how bad things would be if the Sox hadn't signed Penny and Smoltz now that injuries have put us in our time of need: we'd been looking at 2006 all over again, with the corresponding overexposure of young talent unprepared for the big stage. I'd much rather have veterans like Penny and Smoltz out on the mound than watch the Sox bring up Bowden a year or two too early or try to convert Bard into a starter mid-year. These guys were hired to be insurance and they're providing it, much like Paul Byrd will be if his climb up from the minors proves successful.
   
   
3. Wakefield and Matsuzaka might not be on the world's fastest healing schedules, but it's likely they'll be back before the season is over. It sucks that they're both out at such a critical time in the season, but I think - and yes, I'm about to concede the title to the East - that the Sox have the ability to hang on long enough to take the Wild Card. Time to step things up, boys. Let's start with taking down Cletus the Hutt tonight.
   

Way To Make Up Some Ground, Guys

Not sure what's worse: that the Sox lost, or that the Yankees lost on the same night and the Sox missed a chance to gain some ground. I'm feeling a bit pessimistic at the moment, what with Wakefield and Matsuzaka on the DL and the consequent thrusting of the Smoltz experiment into the light, so I'm going to go with the blown chance as the greater of two evils.

On further thought, let me revise: the greatest of all evils was that Boston lost on a night when they had rallied to take a nice lead because the Red Scare had a uniformly terrible night and surrendered runs in dribs and drabs, ultimately coughing up the game in an extra inning loss (that most terrible of defeats) because the offense couldn't score a guy from third, all while the Yankees were losing to Tampa Bay, thereby squandering an opportunity to gain a game back in the standings.

I think that puts things about right.

Smoltz Gets Win; Masterson Losing Steam

John Smoltz got his first win with the Red Sox last night against the Kansas City Royals, and did so by only giving up one run over 5 innings. He left in the fifth inning with an 8 run lead.

Though Smoltz was given generous calls on the outside corner at times, he did have his sick slider and split finger fastball working. As Eckersley loves to say, he was throwing cheese-- the kind of gouda that garnered him 7 Ks over 5 innings.

He may have the best slider I have ever seen. Smoltz's slider drops and disappears out of a hitter's zone like a well finessed drop shot in tennis. And he can place it inside or outside if need be. It's an amazing out pitch, but he throws in whenever he feels like it.

But the story today, and one that has brewing since Smoltz's start in Baltimore, is that the bullpen is starting to fade, struggle and give up runs.

Someone in that pen is, in my estimation, looking at a potential demotion to Triple-A if they don't get back to form--and it very well could be Justin Masterson. Perhaps the All Star break will negate all this speculation.

With Clay Bucholz sitting there waiting to face major league pitching again, he seems like a possible candidate to become a long reliever. Again, this is my best guess, but if I were a GM (HA!) he would be someone on my demotion list (though when Lowell comes back, there will obviously be moves taking place like Bates going back to Portland).

Masterson is not fooling hitters lately, and his supposed-to-be sinking pitches are up. He was charged for 5 runs in the Baltimore debacle and 5 runs last night with a 8 run lead (with 4 hits, one which was a HR). To be a tad more fair, Delcarmen and Okajima were brought in to clean up Masterson's mess, and couldn't do it.

Luckily, Daniel Bard was able to stop the bleeding and the offense continued to pounce on weak Kansas City relief pitching to get the win. But it was a totally whacked game.

Masterson's ERA is now at 4.98 with a whip of 1.43. Nahmally, I wouldn't sweat these numbers for a middle reliever, but since he's become more of long reliever and has appeared in 65 innings, those numbers are not good. If you think I'm being too hard on the kid, look at it this way: Masterson has been a factor in two blown games recently (KC Thursday night--2 runs, blows save; Baltimore on June 30--5 runs; and almost gave up the whole enchilada last night).

Consider this: Last year he pitched 88 innings and gave up 68 hits, 31 earned runs (ERA 3.16), 40 walks, with a BAA of only 2.16. Solid numbers.

This year, in 65 innings has already given up 36 earned runs, 23 walks and now has a BAA of .288.

Sorry, Son, but you ain't Masterin' much lately. I know scapegoating one guy isn't a great thing, but I won't lie: I don't trust the kid. Something about Tampa Bay and the playoffs last year might still be at play.

The guy who came in to keep the Royals quiet in the ninth? Saito. And he went one-two-three. Whew.

Disco Denni
One of the best parts of the night had nothing to do with baseball at all. It was a side by side image of Dennis Eckersley next to Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees on the NESN broadcast, with Eck calling himself 'Disco Denni' and talking about how Reggie Jackson got him and Mike Torres in to Studio 54 back in the day.

Orioles Historic Comeback; Red Sox Pen Has Awful Night on the Road

You can't argue with the rallying that the Baltimore Orioles did last night at Camden Yards, but from a Red Sox perspective, the bullpen was crap-tastic last night.

I keep hearing this repeatedly over and over in my head: Ten runs over 2 innings. Ten runs over 2 innings.

Was it the rain delay? The big lead in the 4th inning? Heads not in the game? Beat up on the O's so many times you think they suck? So many psychological factors at play that you have to wonder where these guys heads were. But then you have to remember that for most of this season, this pen has been one of the best the Red Sox have ever had.

Let it go? Yes. Watch it closely? Well, close enough--that's what we do here for fun. The 10 runs over the 7th and 8th innings were tough to swallow, but you could feel it slipping away with every hit the Orioles offense made (13 hits in 2 innings for 10 runs--Ouch!).

Right now, pre-All-Star break, the Sox bullpen has the best ERA in the league at 3.24. Leading the league in the bullpen and playing in the AL East is no joke.

Here's some additional perspective on the pen:

• Red Sox rank 19th in innings pitched (with 228) [Thank you, starters]
• Red Sox rank 20th in walks [They throw strikes, gets outs]
• The Orioles rank first in innings pitched with 267.1 innings pitched
• The Orioles have a BAA (Batting Average Against) of .272.

It's no wonder the Orioles are in last place and will continue to be there. But given the amount these teams see each other in a season, it's no wonder an offense can click and rally occasionally. Nice comeback for a consistently losing Orioles team.

But poor John Smoltz. He pitched well enough--1 earned run--to get a win in Baltimore, but that was erased after a hour plus rain delay in which he was removed from the game, and pitching was turned over to Justin Masterson--who started out quite nicely, then lost it.

But he wasn't alone.

The offense did more than it's share last night to seal what should have been a fairly easy win. But the pitching from Masterson and Okajima last night in particular was just plain bad. Masterson was getting knocked around, then left a hanging slider over the middle of the plate, and the game's momentum was in full swing mode.

Even Papelbon, who you knew Francona did not want to have to use, got knocked around a little. All it takes in only timely hit to lose a game, and the Orioles seized it. Papelbon put it this way after the game:

“The good thing is the group of guys we have down there in the bullpen all can take this pretty well,’’ Papelbon said. “And understand that, hey, this is going to happen, but it’s not going to happen very often - and move on. We’re all professionals down there. You won’t see anybody hanging their head tomorrow, that’s for sure.’’

Congrats, O's. Now go back to being in last place.

Speculating on the Brad Penny Possibilities

For a baseball fan, there are few things finer than speculating on possibilities. The game's heavy focus on strategy makes it a natural generator of debate, particularly when possibilities are in play: when a team has options for different configurations that might help or hurt the team's fortunes, even the most casual fan has an option they favor. Thus with the Red Sox, who have a wealth of starting pitchers that would make Croesus's baseball equivalent jealous, and for once find themselves in position of strength in the mid-season trading market. The possibilities are two-fold:

1. Brad Penny has proven himself to be a wildly successful gamble whose value increases with every start. Do the Sox trade him - and if so, to whom, and for what - or do they choose to ride his success to the post-season and possibly beyond?
2. John Smoltz, Clay Buchholz, and Dice-K Matsuzaka are competing for a rotation spot. For now, the Sox are opting for a six man unit, but for the sake of their pitchers' rhythms, they'll have to make a decision one way or another before too much times goes by. Who should get the job?

What makes Boston's position even more enviable is that the Sox don't have to make a decision quite yet: they have the time to see Smoltz become a known quantity and if he doesn't work out, keep Penny for the rest of the season or trade him and fall back on Buchholz. If Smoltz proves himself up to his usual standards, they can trade Penny and pitch Buchholz, or keep Buchholz in the wings and hold on to Penny.

My thoughts: wait and see on Smoltz and trade Penny no matter what - but only after Smoltz has had time to establish himself. Unless Penny somehow goes off the deep end between now and the trading deadline, his value will remain high among contending teams desperate for good pitching and the Sox might be able to get a solid catching prospect in return. In addition, a trade will give Boston some value on an expiring contract for a pitcher who will command a lot more money on the market this winter. Waiting until Smoltz proves himself just increases the options in case of a worst case scenario. Either way, they should still DL Dice-K until he's really healthy before putting him back in the mix.

Matsuzaka to the Bullpen? No Way, Dice-K

Both the Providence Journal and the Boston Herald have opinion pieces today calling for the Sox to demote Dice-K to the bullpen to make way in the rotation for John Smoltz. The Herald is a little heavier on the rhetoric - perhaps someone can explain to me how, in an environment where newspapers are failing left and right and the markets are flooded with available journalists, a guy who compares the results of Terry Francona's rotation decisions with what's going on in Iran still has a job - but the sentiment is the same: Matsuzaka is having, to put it kindly, an off year, and because he can't go to the minors or on the trading block, he should go into the bullpen and become the baseball equivalent of the guy who cleans up after strip club patrons. Both writers concede that Dice-K is an unknown quantity as a reliever, but sporting the symptoms of a severe case of the "what have you done for me lately" fever that Sox writers and fans are all too apt to experience, feel the club is better served by having Matsuzaka exiled.

While I agree that Dice-K is having a craptastic first half and shouldn't be taking the ball every fifth day, I think moving him to the bullpen to serve as an example for any pitcher who even thinks of screwing up shows an astonishing lack of forethought. Anyone who's a fan of this move does realize that we're stuck with Matsuzaka for another three years, right? If we throw him into the 'pen and he never gets a chance to recover the magic touch that made him a strong addition to the rotation in the last two years, those three years are a complete waste.

So, rather than bullpenning him, how about putting him on the DL? Pitchers - even pitchers with as many innings on their arms as Dice-K has - don't completely fall apart at age 28 unless they're hurt...and conveniently enough, Matsuzaka has already been on the DL this year. If he never fully recovered, it might very well be at the root of his pitching problems.

Is Brad Penny Trade Bait?

Bob Ryan and Chad Finn may be on to something.

They contend, Ryan actually predicts, that Brad Penny will no longer be a member of the Red Sox come the trade deadline in late July.

Brad Penny has been a decent starter as of late, and we all know what teams need for the second half of the season: Innings-eating quality pitching. With Bowden, Buchholz and 'ole man Smoltzy in the waiting, the depth we've all heard about in Red Sox pitching should start seeing life with the big league team in June.

[By the way, Buchholz came extremely close to a perfect game in Pawtucket]

Look at some Penny fun facts:

• 3 Wins in his last 5 starts against strong offensive teams: Tampa, Toronto and Twins
• In those 5 starts, he's walked a total of 6 batters, none against the Twins on the road
• Only 1 home run given up over that stretch
• Penny hasn't given up more than 4 runs in any of those 5 starts
• His ERA has dropped from 7.61 to 5.96
• He had 8 K's against Tampa, 7 against Twinkies

And the not so fun Penny facts:

• Opponents hitting .302 against him for the season
• An 11.2 Hits Per 9 inning in 2009 (a career worst)
• A career era of 4.12 while pitching almost entirely in the NL
• Has a recent-shoulder history that would have many GMs nervous
• Has a belly that says "Beer is a food group"
• He's 31

The thing that Ryan and Finn don't really discuss what they might get for Penny, but the point of trade bait is a valid one and something you could see the Sox doing, especially as the move to get younger (aside from the freak Smoltz) takes hold. The Sox would probably need to package him up with some young player they are willing to part with (no one really comes to mind immediately, but we know the Sox have a coveted farm system).

Lord knows many of us would love to see Lugo go in a trade, so perhaps Penny might be part of that kind of package with a youngster. I pray.

I could easily see Penny being baited back to the NL West where the streaking Padres (not naked priests, you sickos, the 10 Ws in a row) could look to make a move against the Dodgers, or even the New York Mets who need more reliable starting pitching with all their recent offensive DL moves (Delgado, Cora, and today, Reyes and Church). The Mets are going to need pitching help soon.

The Padres make sense to me because they seem to love to trade former guys who played for the Dodgers like Maddux who was wearing those retarded camo uniforms one day, then in those crisp, white Dodger unis the next. Time to stick it back to the Dodgers, whale vagina town?

We're not used to seeing guys be traded at the deadline in the same division here in the AL East. That's nuts, especially in the same season.

The big questions remain on how Bucholz will react to coming back to the big league team, not to mention how Bowden will perform (and how much he will be used as a starter) and if Smoltz can be Smoltzesque in the AL against offensive powerhouses like the Rays and Yankees.

While Penny might seem excellent trade discussion fodder, it's not a bad thing to have 4 starting options if anyone should need to go on the DL between now and July 31 (or after). We've seen Beckett blisters boil up before, and I'm not convinced yet that Dice-K is at full strength after his recent medicore outing.

One thing is for sure: Penny will not be packaged with top tier talent for anyone.

The Sick Man and the Old Man Come to Boston

You can keep your Mark Teixeiras and your C. C. Sabathias and your A. J. Burnetts (seriously, though: that guy will mess up your team), because we've got results where it really counts: The Rocket from Woonsocket, coming to Boston to be the fourth outfielder/minor medical case. And look! Baldelli is excited to be here:

"I would be just fine playing there," he said in an interview with the Journal last November. "I don't have strong feelings one way or another about playing there."

Ok, that was a little out of context. I was going to a clever OPS+ comparison between Boston's 2008 utility crew and Baldelli to compare their relative value, but I see that Rocco only played 28 games, lagging far behind the contributions of The Mayor and Alex Cora. He did match Kotsay's output, though...ok, so Kotsay played 22 games in Boston after the trading deadline, finishing the year with an OPS+ of 65 and proving that he really is not a very good second-half player. Baldelli played 28 games all year, but his OPS+ was a more respectable 113. I think we can call that an upgrade.

And we've got John Smoltz, too, biatches. Sure, he's 41, he's coming back from shoulder surgery and he's never pitched in the AL, but his ERA+ hasn't dropped below 127 since 1994, so he's got a long, long (long) streak of good pitching coming into 2009. Plus, it's not like the Sox can ever have too much pitching coming into a new season...