Someone Has Red Sox Voodoo Dolls, And They Are Working

Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuk... is now on the DL. So is Mike Cameron (but he can stay there for the rest of the year).

That's right. The number 4 hitter. Our clean up guy. The most consistent hitter. The "soul" to Pedroia's "heart" of the team--Kevin Youkilis--is on the 15 day disabled list with a torn thumb muscle and may need surgery. The team is seeking a second medical opinion, but if surgery happens, he is done for the year.

Ugh.

There are not words in the English language to capture the angst produced by the sheer volume of injuries experienced in 2010. Incredu-ludi-crous? Someone in Pelham or Patterson or Port St. Lucie has Red Sox voodoo dolls and knows exactly how to use them. There is no other reasonable explanation for the coincidental circumstances here. Two players on the same team have major thumb injuries in the same season? Two players had rib injuries? Two players have had major foot injuries? There are nagging back injuries and obliques and even mononucleosis!

There are mystical, secretive forces at play. Dare I say, evil forces? Yes. Someone has voodoo dolls with knife-sharp pins. Someone... Anyone with information on the location of these dolls should contact the Massachusetts State Police or Joey McIntyre [If you have not seen the brilliant Masshole spoof of Mad Men, you are missing out].

But don't tell that to Mike Lowell. Lowell is the beneficiary of Youkilis' bad-finger fortune and will get the call to play first base. Last night, Lowell hit the first pitch in the Monster seats while he was getting a standing ovation. It was a great moment, and as Remy said on the NESN broadcast, probably the best moment of the year for the team.

Lowell is a fan favorite, and hell, I love the man's history with this team, but I'm not going to say he should have been playing the whole year. I'm not going to jump on that BS bandwagon that forgot how hard it was for him to run down the first baseline last year or the countless game inning double plays he hit last year. His hip injury was severe and the newly discovered thumb injury in early 2010 was enough to keep GMs across baseball away. He was supposed to go to the Rangers. Now, he's playing first base until Youk can make it back. Go get 'em, Mikey!

In the meantime, keep your (no pun intended) fingers crossed for Youk. We will need him down the stretch.

Lowell, a classy guy, had this to say about taking over for the injured Youk:

I think this is not a day for us to be happy. Our best hitter has a serious injury. I don't think that's ever a good thing. I don't get any joy out of getting playing time when someone gets hurt. With Youkilis out of the lineup, you're not a better team. He has been our most consistent hitter and over the last three years he has arguably been one of the best hitters in the league.

One last note, Josh Beckett has been pitching well.

Yes, he hit a few batters last night, but his pitching was solid overall. He gave up only 3 hits, struck out 8 and went 8 innings before he was thrown out in a bench clearing situation for running on the field after Cleveland threw behind Adrian Beltre. I honestly do not think Beckett thre at anyone intentionally last night. That may sound bias, but I am not afraid to call a guy like Beckett out when I see it.

Beckett is coming back to form.

Things Begin to Look Up

Don't look now, but the Sox have finally started to click since I wrote that half-facetious post last Wednesday, beating the Twins twice at Fenway before going back on the road to take two of three from Philly and the first of three from scary-good Tampa Bay. Over those six games the offense has remained efficient if not overwhelmingly scary, converting about 42% of the baserunners into runs while hitting .261/.315/.438 and generally beating their opponents by four or five runs. The pitching has (re)turned into something special, with a marvelous 2.04 ERA and 0.94 WHIP against three teams that lead their respective divisions. For the past week, at least, it's been less about struggling to remain a middling team and proving that the 2010 Sox really can run with the big dogs.

There are individual achievements to celebrate, too. Ellsbury is back in the line up after an absence of about a month and a half, though his OPS of .133 over his first 15 plate appearances indicates he's got some work to do before his stroke reappears. Big Papi has reached base safely in his past nine games and is hitting .408 with 5 home runs and an OPS of 1.363; over the same time period, Kevin Youkilis has five home runs of his own and an OPS of 1.485. I got all kinds of excited seeing them hit back to back last night, just imagining the possibilities. The team is nowhere near close to being able to call things safe - not with the Rays so far ahead, and not with Toronto on a surge of their own - but for the first time since early April these Red Sox feel like a real team.

The Last Night of Spring Training

Anyone else feel that last night's slugging match was the last real Spring Training game and we won't start counting towards the standings until the Sox and Yanks play again tomorrow night? The pitching was generally wretched, the umpiring at first base so bad that I thought we were watching the 2009 playoffs all over again, and that ugly double whatever it was that allowed a New York run to score while the ball was in a player's glove in the infield gave the lie to the vacuum-like defense supposedly under Boston's command. With that supposedly deficient Red Sox offense, I might be forgiven for thinking the night was sunk after the Yankees pulled ahead in the fourth.

Of course, led by Mr. First-Hometown-Triple-Since-1999, the offense beat expectations and fought back twice, giving Youkilis the hero status and a prophet-like status thanks to his Spring Training utterance:

“Hey guys,’’ he shouted out to his teammates that February morning. “Can we score a bunch of runs on Opening Night so we don’t have to hear about this anymore?’’

Clearly the man knows things. We should all listen to him, no matter how crazy he sounds:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Boston Braves!

Because they're so focused on pitching and defense this year, you see. With the Lackey signing, Hermida getting his chance after all, and the acquisition of Beltre and his enormous bat of unimpressiveness, we're excited about the pitching staff, downplaying the holes in the lineup, and talking defense. Like geeky defense, the kind where the papers start talking about how many runs a third baseman like Beltre will save over Lowell:

The move is in line with the Sox’ stated desire to improve their run prevention. Beltre is an above average fielder, earning a 14.3 ultimate zone rating according to fangraphs.com. Contrast that with Lowell’s minus 10.4 UZR (or just ask a scout), and it’s clear the Sox have dramatically upgraded their defense at the position for 2010 and possibly beyond.

All well and good: if you can reduce the performance of players to an equation and determine that Beltre's stronger glove and weaker bat will generate more runs than Lowell's weaker glove and stronger bat, and balance in the cost of choosing Beltre over Youkilis when the only alternate is Casey Kotchman, the decision makes some sort of sense. Everything comes down to runs eventually, so if your defense-heavy team saves more runs than it gives up by being light in the offense department, you win ball games and don't look like an idiot for not trying to compete with the Yankees.

Except there's one problem: the Yankees were already pretty good in one category (pitching) and even better in another (offense) last year and they won the World Series. This year they might actually be a bit better - I'm thinking about the Granderson acquisition here in particular - and Boston's response is to jettison offense and hope the results come out in the wash. It might work, but I think as interesting as this Boston team seems for the new decade, we've got another summer of second place running to look forward to.

Kevin Youkilis, A Man Afire

Jackie MacMullen's profile on Youkilis - or maybe more on Youkilis's intensity - is a great read, but is anyone surprised at all that:

• Boston fans love Youkilis for being the guy who made good by working hard and beating the odds. I'd say that's probably going to be the case no matter where Youkilis played, because it's a part of the American national myth: we love self-reliance and work ethic and we love the underdog. Put them together and you get some sort of living legend with an awesome beard.
  
  
• Pedroia doesn't think Youkilis should change a thing. If you took Kevin Youkilis, shrunk him down a few inches, and gave him a complex from people either underestimating him for his height or seeing him like the second coming of David Eckstein, you'd have Dustin Pedroia. On a side note: how lucky are we to have a left side of the infield that's so committed they don't understand why people think they're a little crazy and really good at their jobs?
  
  
• Some of the other players find Youkilis a bit much. I can understand that: his intensity is a lot of fun to watch and makes me love him as a player, but I'm trying to imagine a co-worker who blew up at himself in public every time he missed a minor deadline and I can imagine it would make things pretty uncomfortable.
  

Nervous About the Playoffs

I suspect many of you are asking yourselves right now: 'Has there ever been a 95-win team that seemed more of a long shot coming into the playoffs?' Maybe it's some combination of finishing second to a 103 game-winning Yankee team, the severely lackadaisical turn the team seemed to take after losing those first two games to the Royals, and how many of Boston's positions seemed to be filled by a combination of tape, glue, and odd luck, but going into this ALDS - whenever it starts - I'm more nervous about Boston's chances against Anaheim than I've been in the past - and that's not just because the Angels have so much to prove. I mean, if you'd told me in April that Boston's solid group of options in the field and on the mound would be rife with injuries and missing major pieces by mid-season, or that Francona would be juggling a combination of Lowell, Youkilis, Varitek, and Martinez across three positions by August to keep Lowell and Varitek in playing shape for October, I would have been quite surprised.

Actually, I suppose I wouldn't have been surprised about either Lowell or Varitek: they're a combined age of 10,000 years old and have one good hip between the two of them. But the rest was a surprise.

Adding to my feelings of uncertainty is a little fun with small sample sizes: for whatever reason, it's taken 95 or more wins to get to the playoffs this decade. Boston has six 95+ win teams since the 2000 season. Two of those teams won it all; three teams met the agony of defeat, including two edge-of-the-seat ALCS losses; and one team is still in the process of writing its own history. Here's where it gets a little odd: the teams that won it all had more than 95 wins. The teams that did not had 95 wins.

See how I've already psyched myself out? I'm drawing patterns from meaningless data. I may not feel better until the Sox have exacted another sweep from the Angels.

Keeping the Faith

What a night: Lowell gets his 1,500 hit and gets tossed a few innings later for making a legimate complaint about the shape and angle of the strike zone.  Youkilis gets run over at first stretching out to make a tough play, crawls across the field towards home, and slams his glove down in frustration (right before Pedroia runs over looking like he's about to prevent a homicide) while hearts of Red Sox fans everywhere stop for a moment as the spectre of a DL trip raises his head - and it turns out he's ok.  Beckett gets through six and two-thirds without a hit and ends the night splitting five runs with the usually deadly Daniel Bard.  And Papi...

Here's the thing: I've developed a measure of fatalism about Papi that has led me to watch every one of Ortiz's at-bats as if it were his last.  Doing so last night, I'm not sure which made me happier: seeing him hit that double off of the weak-as-water Nate Robertson as part of the six-run eighth inning, or smash the 420-foot out earlier in the game.  The double looks better in the box score of course, but the long out had all of the elements of a classic Ortiz long bomb that just happened to fall in the wrong part of a very big ball park.  In other words: I'm still nowhere closer to giving up on Ortiz in 2009.

Kevin Youkilis, Meet the DL. Try Not to Stay Too Long

On one hand, Kevin Youkilis on the DL is one of those "oh crap," moments, because of how he's been hitting/carrying the offense for so much of the early season.

On the other hand, that same offense seems to have recovered enough to win games and make wild comebacks, the team is 5 and 2 since Youkilis hurt himself, and it's only May. If he's going to get hurt anyway (and don't you love the self-convincing logic that goes along with a statement like that), it might as well be right now. In any case, rest up, buddy. We want to see your fierce pitcher-eating beard back in the field as soon as possible.

The Beard Wins All

A quick survey of Twitter's redsox tag a few minutes after the game ended reveals the power of a rallying cry: a good half of the hundreds of Tweets (including my own submission) had some variation of "Yoooooouk!"

I was thinking earlier today about how while baseball has a rep as a slow, boring game that can't compete with timed sports for consistently-sized doses of action, it does have one major action-oriented advantage: until the last out is recorded, it's impossible to predict who will win. There are qualifications, of course: baseball blowouts occasionally swing the other way, a football team may have an untimely fumble or a coach who can't manage the clock, but you're still far more likely to see a team dribble or kneel out the game's allotted time than you will see a closer get three tension-free outs.

Really, when you come right down to it, I think baseball has the advantage in excitement for tight wins: watching the clock tick down in the hands of experienced managers bleeds the tension out slowly. Victory comes with less risk and thus less of a endorphin-flooding reward. In baseball, however, every pitch is a risk, every out a hard-fought battle for survival that may mean nothing or everything in the next few minutes. The anticipation hangs on endlessly, because there's truly no way of knowing how things will end. Will the next batter bring the break the game needs to finish, or will he go down in defeat with the others? You watch and hope and wait, and sometimes, like Kevin Youkilis did tonight, the batter comes through and we get to go home happy.

Time to Hit the Offensive Panic Button?

So, here's my first post, and it's not gonna be pretty, Red Sox junkies.

My Week 1 assessment: The offense--despite Youk's hot bat--is brutal.
Is it too early to panic? Probably, but let's talk next week.

Eric is the usual stat junkie, but let's just roll over some of the difficult, beard-scratching facts that we must face after 8 games (nearly 5% of the season):

• Red Sox are ranked 24 out of 30 in Batting Average at .237
• With an On Base Percentage of .318, Slugging of .388
• Red Sox are ranked 27 out of 30 in Runs Batted In (27)
• Red Sox are ranked 1 out of 30 in Ground Outs (97) and Assisted Outs (97)
• Red Sox are scoring an average of 3.63 runs per game

Right now, we're 4 games back with 2 meager wins. Ouch. We should be playing in Petco wearing camo uniforms with this kind of lackluster performance. Ironically, the Padres are ranked slightly better than the Sox right now in offense. Put that rotten scrod in your fish taco, AL East lovers.

Can you blame it on the scheduling (home for 3 games, then road games across with timezone shifting in Anaheim and Oakland)? The WBC? Is Mike Lowell's hip a liability? Will Drew return to first-half 2008 form? Can Ellsbury be a real lead off guy? Is it just me, or does Ortiz's timing look way off?

I was at Fenway for the home opener last Tuesday and Beckett was in post-season form (I'm talking the 2007 post season domination, not the shaky 2008 oblique strain challenge). It was awesome, and I expect (pray for) more of that this year.

Pedroia hit a nice bomb over the Monster. Tek (Tek!) had a dinger batting left-handed and it went past Pesky's pole. Things were April gray, the tight wooden seats in right field were damp with New England moisture and exicted anticipation. And the Sox played like the kind of playoff contending team the experts were predicting. Solid pitching, timely hitting.

Since then, I've watched way too many guys left on base. The timely hitting seems to be circling Fenway stalls looking for Remdawgs (no longer called that by the way, now called Monster Dawgs-- here's why).

While I'd like to be able to stay calm and give myself the "it's a marathon, not a sprint" pep talk, 4 games back in this division is none too comforting right now. It makes it harder though seeing how real the Rays are again, and the potential for that team in the Bronx to pitch its way in to the playoffs. Meanwhile, Adam Lind in Toronto along with Adam Jones and Nick Markakis in B-More have started to really light things up. Can those teams contend? I don't think they have the pitching, but still, this first week makes you reevaluate all of your assumptions.

I have to stop the madness, take a breath and remember that every offense goes through slumps. I just didn't expect it to be so freaking soon.

Let's go Wake!

On the Plus Side...

...Kevin Youkilis is absolutely destroying the ball right now: .625/.647/.750 in his first 16 at-bats. I'm going to enjoy this streak while it lasts, even though I wish the rest of the team was hitting even half as well.

No Shortstop Competition? No Problem!

Hey, so looks like Lowrie wins the competition because he's got better tendons...somewhere Robin is sighing in relief. Actually, I don't think this tough break for Lugo is the end of the fight for the starting job; Lugo's injury not withstanding, he certainly didn't sound like he'd back down from the fight, even if it means he has to prove himself after the season starts. Whether or not he gets the chance probably depends entirely on Lowrie: if he establishes himself from the get go in Kevin Youkilis in 2006 style, Lugo will find himself out in the cold faster than you can say "J.T. Snow." If he struggles...well, I guess the precendent there would be Dustin Pedroia, but I think if Theo was as high on Lowrie as he was on Pedroia, Lugo wouldn't be on the team.

In any case, I'm not worried. Lugo has a reason to come back strong and Lowrie is tearing the cover off the ball in Spring Training and setting himself up for a nice start next month. Let the competition continue, I say; we win no matter what.

Do the Sox Have Better Chemistry Than the Yanks?

Shotgun Spratling of The Blue Workhorse recently shot me an email to alert me to the site's preview of the 2009 Red Sox. As far as conclusions go, it's not too surprising: our team is good, our team has some question marks, if our team overcomes their question marks, they'll probably beccome the best of the best for this year. What did jump out at me was the lede from the second paragraph of the preview: "The Red Sox have better chemistry than the Yankees do and that allows them to play well together."

Whether or not you believe chemistry has an impact on team performance is a contentious issue, but not one that I'm going to address here apart from saying that a congenial workplace is usually a more enjoyable place to get work done and that can lead to better performance. That said, even outside of the world of statheads and traditionalists, people who study management haven't come to a complete agreement about the relationship between chemistry and productivity. However, even if you do happen to believe that players who work together well win more ball games, you have to question whether or not Blue Workhorses's statement is still true in 2009.

In 2003 and 2004, the Sox rode their reputation as a group of fast and loose ballplayers into the annals of Winning Teams With Great Chemistry. The reputation is still there - or so it seems, if a sports blog is including it as part of a team preview - but the steady attrition of players from those teams to other ball clubs makes that judgment feel superficial. Think about it: if you were to name the loosest guys on the Sox, who would you pick beyond Ortiz and Papelbon. Youkilis and Pedroia are more crazy than loose, Lugo/Lowrie is a non-entity, Lowell is laid back, and everyone else - if they've established a presence at all - seems to prefer to let their bat or their glove do the talking. It's not a bad thing, but in terms of measurement I don't think this team has better chemistry than the workmanlike Yankees...I think it's about the same.

Don't Look Now...

...but I think the Sox just got played. Hard. In fact, if Sean McAdam's article in the Herald is to be believed, Boras shopped Boston's final offer to New York just to see if he could get a little more value, playing for time by fudging details about Teixeira's need to think a little more before he made a decision. In the end, Boras' powers of persuasion and Cashman's recent desire to be a one-man economic prop made the difference, and now the Sox end up looking like the desparate dude at the bar running up a skyhigh tab buying the hottest woman in the bar drinks all night, only to find out she's been using him to keep her friends in booze before she leaves with the guy with the better lines.

So the front office ends up looking a little stupid, but frankly, I'm relieved (well, partially relieved. I would have preferred to see Teixeira go to the Nationals and play hell with the NL East next year, but that was probably just a Boras-manufactured pipe dream anyway). As I said before, having Teixeira's bat in the lineup would have been great, but seeing either Lowell or Youkilis replaced by the merc-of-the-month would kill just a little more of this team's soul. The 2009 Red Sox might not hit as hard without Teixeira, and they'll certainly face more of a challenge from New York, but I feel like they'll have just a little more soul.

No Deliverance

ALCS Game 6: Final Score: Boston Red Sox 4, Tampa Bay Rays 2

Followed my love from coast to coast/Chased by demons, chasing ghosts/And when I wound up facing the sea/Heard the waves crashing, laughing at me
Tonight was the prove it game: the game where the Rays could shut the door, kill the momentum, make Boston's fourth straight setup to an ALCS comeback (since '86 and going strong!) a dream and nothing more. The Rays had "Big Game James" Shields, unlucky - and unlikely - victim of Game 1, raring back to send his team to their first World Series berth and cap the penultimate chapter of a truly unlikely season. The Sox had Beckett; Beckett the martyr to the unknown drag, Beckett the now uncertain post-season hero, his record of kick awesome postseason starts tarnished by this year's October activities. Boston had the momentum, but Tampa Bay had the odds.

I waded into that icy black/I saw there was no, no coming back/No deliverance
At first, it seemed as if the very fates were conspiring against Boston: a problem in Atlanta kept the TBS off the air just long enough for B. J. Upton to go big long style on a Beckett fastball, putting the already uncertain denizens of Professor Thom's (including yours truly) into a tizzy of desperate anticipation: what sort of Beckett would we be getting tonight?

Ducked my head under, started to drift/Let the tide take me and down I went/I saw great wonders shunned from above/I saw blind monsters twisted in love/No deliverance
Fortunately, the Sox seemed to have (finally) anticipated Beckett's potential malaise on the mound: his fastball speed dropped a good five miles an hour after Upton's home run and the man with the fireball arm suddenly became a junkballer, throwing curveballs and cutters and low-90s fastballs with just enough bite on them to keep the Rays low on the board through five. It wasn't the prettiest performance and it was certainly far from the dominance that brought Beckett to Boston, but it the job done.

And when I saw her, bathed in light/A host of angels knelt at her side
Meanwhile, "Big Game James" was anything but: four pitches into the second, Youkilis answered Upton's home run with a deep fly of his own, sending the crowd - a mix of diehards, pink hats, and douchebags of various stripes (so help me God, if Professor Thom's falls victim to its own success and I have to watch another game with such a group of poseurs, standing around blocking the view on the screens while they chat amongst themselves, I will be forced to firebomb. There's nothing worse in sports than a bandwagon fan with no substance. I'm pretty sure I was getting dirty looks from one woman in front of me for clapping, for chrissake. You don't like it? Don't go to an effing sports bar!) into extacies and setting up a push that connected firmly to another run scoring drive by Pedroia, Ortiz, and Youkilis in the third. As Shield's pitch count mounted, the Sox started to circle in the water, never quite taking the big bad bite but doing enough damage to keep all of Tampa Bay's relief corps on their toes. Even the Rays' second home run, miraculously knocked in by Jason "Tampa Bay Rays MVP" Bartlett and his magical ability to lean into a pitch, Derek Jeter style, weren't enough to slow Boston down for even a half inning: Bartlett's solo shot quickly found an answer in a two run screamer by El Capitan in the top of the sixth. Okajima and Masterson shut the door; Papelbon delivered electricity in ten pitches and sent the Ray running into the night.

She said "You have forsaken all you believe/Crossed earth and oceans to be with me/I'll be your lover, I'll be your wrack/And now you're never coming back."/No deliverance
So, here we stand:once again contemplating the world a mere step away from the World Series. One good game; one solid Lester outing separates us from sweet comeback number four and a showdown with Philadelphia. Boston has the momentum, has time and experience on its side, has the capacity to make this thing one and done and take the pennant. No deliverance for Tampa Bay, guys. No deliverance.

Princes of the Universe

Presenting! Terry Francona's The Highlander! Watch, as one man from Georgia, supported by a cast with such dashing and daring characters as Youk, Pedey, Big Papi, Bay State (does anyone actually call him Bay State?), Coco, and Rat Boy, fights to keep his dreams of a 2008 World Series berth alive - or at least give the Rays a run for their money - in the face of Terrible Aggression, Rayhawks, female Rayhawks, and B. J. Upton!

With:

• J.D. Drew as Connor McLeod of the Clan McLeod, the Scottish warrior with the bat and excitement response of steel!
  
• David Ortiz as Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, the Spanish swordsman who looks Scottish but is actually, in fact, Dominican.
• Evan Longoria as The Kurgan, the bad guy so bad ass he needs no introduction - nor pitch high in the zone.

Holy crap, what a way to end a game. I will admit without shame that while I headed into tonight with at least some hope of a good showing to brighten what had been an otherwise abysmal stretch of baseball, by the seventh inning I was reduced to praying for a run, making and burning small sacrifices of peanuts and crackerjack on my living room floor in the hopes that the baseball gods might let us live without the indignity of a skunking.

Then came the bottom of the seventh inning. Remember the feeling you had before Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, where you basically declared "$#&% it" and decided to watch just to see how things turned out? That's how I felt when I wrested control of the TV at the start of the bottom of the seventh. Then things started happening. Pedroia comes up with two outs and a man in scoring position and does what almost no other Red Sox has done this series: he knocks him in. Papi comes up: we're all thinking "big spot, big spot, 2004, Mr. Clutch Hit," but we're all thinking about that wrist, too, about that sub-.200 batting average and the deadfish way his hits seem to have these days. And maybe we're thinking about that triple from last night, too, because somehow hard-cursing Grant "Lord" Balfour decides right now would be a perfect time to challenge Big Papi with a fastball in the heart of his ball-crushing zone. And like J. D. Drew last year, the totally improbable happened: easy as pie, Ortiz dropped that ball right into the grandstand and cut the Rays' lead in half.

Bottom of the eighth: we have our runs now. Now I'm starting to get greedy. I want that tie game, I want that win. I want to go back to Tampa and show these Rays why this decade belongs to the Boston Red Sox. I want J. D. Drew to hit a two-run homer. Surprisingly, so does Dan Wheeler, because he gives Drew a pitch about as fat as the one hit by Ortiz and suddenly, we're a run shy of the biggest comeback the Rays have allowed all year. Kotsay doubles on another fat offering and now it's up to Coco: two outs, momentum on the line. His battle with Wheeler is the stuff of legend and hitting instructional videos - ten pitches, fouling fastball after fastball after fastball until he finally got the perfect offering - but his result is what truly mattered: a smash down the right field line that was enough to score Kotsay and tie the game.

Francona, in a move that walks the line between genius and idiocy (and seems like genius because they won), had brought in Papelbon in the seventh and eighth, so he turned to Masterson for the ninth. Masterson, being the fine, upstanding citizen that he is, decides a collective heart attack is what's best for all and proceeds to put men on first and second before finally inducing a double play to escape. The heart of the order is up for the Sox now, but I'm pretty close to panic, with visions of Javier Lopez or - saints preserve us - Mike Timlin coming in to protect the lead in the ninth. All around the country, Red Sox fans jacked up on adrenaline are pleading for the same thing: no extra innings.

We almost got 'em. Watching Longoria make that grab on the third base line was like watching a ninja eviscerate a kitten: you admire the form, but you don't feel too good about the result. A long night looms...and then the throw sailed wide. Just like that. Youkilis goes to second and we're seeing the third example in as many innings of the type of breaks grabbing we've enjoyed so much in the past four years. Bay walks, Joe Maddon decides to play the odds of a lefty/lefty matchup with Drew despite the history and once again, a battle ensues. Howell can't throw anything but junk and Drew's seeing the ball so well he'll keep fouling off pitch after pitch until he finds the one he wants...until he hits the ball to right field. Until we win. Pandemonium. Dancing in the streets. Princes of the Universe. Go Sox.

Magic Man. Or Men.

ALCS Game 1: Boston Red Sox 2, Tampa Bay Rays 0

That's one, bitches.

Seriously, though: who else but Daisuke "Magic Man" Matsuzaka can flirt with the unbelievable, taking a no-hitter into the seventh, and do it with four walks? I know we've made our share of Houdini jokes about Lester in the past, harking back to a time when the Man Who Would Be Ace had more close scrapes than Billy Joel's driving record, but Dice-K...well, he takes the cake. Especially when he somehow settles down, finds a groove, and pitches seven innings on 115 pitches after walking the bases loaded in the first inning. Hell, seven innings? It feels like the last time Matsuzaka pitched seven innings, people were insisting that adjustable rate mortgages were a good idea (yes, that was a topical economy joke. We're a versatile bunch).

Then there's Youkilis. The mere mortals around him managed a hit; maybe a walk if they were fortunate. Youkilis had three hits in four chances, knocked in one of Boston's runs, and made Carl Crawford look like a fool, all in one night. Truly we live in fortunate times to have the power of Youkilis on our side, powering our way to victory. I suspect that, Samson-like, he gains strength from the magnificent growth of hair on his face.

Finally: the tag team of Masterson and Okajima, masterfully used - and masterfully performing - in the bottom of the eighth, shutting down the final Tampa Bay threat with a flyout/double play combo that hit the spot so well, we're all still tasting the sweet hours later. It's a good win, folks and a good night. Let's get ready to do it all again tomorrow.

Beating the Rays, Or The Evolution of Moneyball

I won't go into series analysis today; the previews across the web have done a fine job giving effective coverage to all angles. Personally, I recommend Paul SF's excellent dissection over at YFSF and Evan Brunell's exploration of key series factors at Fire Brand of the American League, but suffice it to say that all commentary points to another tight ALCS with a good potential for Red Sox victory. Boston in seven games sounds like a good call to me.

No, what inspired me to put fingers to keyboard this morning is an article on The Process, Theo Epstein's term for the Red Sox player development system. As we all know, Boston's heavy investment in its farm system has paid enormous dividends: Ellsbury, Pedroia, Youkilis, Lowrie, Masterson, Delcarmen, and Papelbon are all homegrown and all key components in Boston's championship-level success in the past two years. What intrigues me about the Globe's description of The Process - as necessarily undetailed, beyond the description of a consistent manual of development used by every level of the organization, as it may be - is that we are witnessing the next level of evolution in the scientific process of player development made famous (and infamous) in Moneyball.

Moneyball was all about the use of statistics to determine player value. Its development by Billy Beane was the result of the need to produce results in the straightened circumstances of Oakland A's baseball, but a perfect storm of circumstance lead to its adoption by other number-minded GMs across the sport. In the process, it won approval among the population of statistically-minded fans, popularized a revolution in how people watch and comment on the game, etc. But as Moneyball and more vocal stats organs like Fire Joe Morgan make clear, using statistics to predict future performance explicitly denies the use of any other predictive system. You know, like intangibles. Make up. Whatever black magic it is that scouts use when they look at players in high school and college.

We all know that Epstein is a Beane disciple from back in the day. But here's where the evolution comes in: when Theo talks about the club's pre-draft evaluation of player make up:

"We sit down and brainstorm about what we're looking for, which attributes we think make a major league player successful, and then we question our own assumptions," Epstein says. "OK, we think we want players who are tough and gritty. Well, what does that really mean? Can you actually see that in a 17-year-old, in a 21-year-old? Does it look different when he's 17 than when he's 25? We think we want players who are intense and baseball-centric, who are focused on the game. Well, what about players who are too intense and too focused? Do they put too much pressure on themselves?"

In essence, applying science (through sports psychology) to the profiles of players whose statistics attract organization attention, adding a layer of filtering to the selection of players that Boston hopes will do well in the big leagues. Taking the idea even further - since I'm sure the Rays, with their own intensive focus on player development, have a process similar to that of Boston - this ALCS might well be a demonstration of the powers of science in player selection. Given the parity between the two clubs and the expectation of a long, fun series, seeing this type of science in play has to be a good thing for fans of the sport.

Send Me An Angel

ALDS Game 1: Boston Red Sox 4, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 1

Ahhh feel that? That’s October baseball. Playoff baseball. The leaves are turning and the dirtdogs are barking. It’s my favorite time of the year.

Before I get into the meat of the game log and not to rub it in, but that’s 10 postseason wins in a row against the Angels of wherever they claim to be from. The Red Sox just have their number. I know they have the best record in the AL, but I LOVE to seeing them in the first round.

Tonight was almost all about Jon Lester. I know everyone has gushed like pink hat wearing tweens about the guy… but he deserves it. He is a freak of nature. He can’t be beaten by base runners, pitch counts or cancer. I am pretty sure he is the government’s answer for Chuck Norris if Chuck ever goes “bad”. I mean it! Norris goes rogue and the president presses a big red button and deploys Jon Lester.

He pitched 7 innings of guts and glory with no earned runs and a belly full of bees. It would have been a SCORELESS 7 if not for Jed Lowrie and his awful Tony Graffanino imitation. That dumb error led to the only Angel run and almost got me calling Jed “Rat Boy” for the rest of the playoffs. He looks like his last job was teaching 4 turtles ninja skills. The only blunder that topped that was the bad running by Vlad in the 8th. Only a dummy tries to take 3rd on Youks arm.

On the offensive side of things, the injuries really took their toll on the Sox lineup. J.D. Drew and Mike Lowell were both too injured to play in this game. That didn’t stop them from STARTING… but they were sure as hell hurt. Lowell can barely run. Papi is also a shell of himself and if it wasn’t for the insurance RBI in the 9th he would have been another 0-fer.

The GOOD news was coming from Bay and Jacoby. The Sox got on the board thanks to a MAMMOTH 2 run blast from our Canadian friend. He almost looked excited about it too. As for Jacoby, this kid is another type of player in the postseason. He was on base all night. Stealing bases, hitting doubles and taking 3 bases on missed catches… there was nothing he didn’t do tonight… and that includes making amazing catches in center (he FLEW out there). He is like Apache Chief and when the playoffs roll around, you know he is screaming INYUK-CHUK!

With the 3 run lead, the ball went to Papelbon and the Paps delivered. He struck out the side to end any drama. He used his fastball (overpowering) and even found his splitter to get a big K. Soooooooo tasty! This was just a fantastic win that would be even sweeter if it wasn’t after 2 in the morning. So let’s wrap this up and let me get some shut eye so I can dream of the Angels and the rally monkey they can’t get off their back.

In Between Days Playoffs Thoughts

It's time for the loading and the blessing of the vines, high priest Josh Beckett presiding.  I hear he plans to turn the Texas hitters into the body and the blood.

A friend of mine sent me the following message on Facebook this morning: "I am totally feeling a Sox repeat, I don't know why, just am."  At the risk of a jinx, at the moment, so am I.  The reason is simple: key players (Lowell, Beckett, Youkilis, Casey) got hurt all at once and the team managed to keep winning.  The Sox are 11 for their last 15 (going back to the series in Baltimore starting August 18).  They've won all six of the series they played during that stretch.  They've made up 2 games on the Rays.  They're at a season high 24 games over .500.  They're doing all of these great things...and they're starting so many replacements from AAA they didn't make any splashy September call ups.  It seem to me - even with the lighter schedule they've had in the past few weeks - that ff Boston can win while rehabbing a good portion of their best parts, their chances for post-season glory seem much, much brighter.