Who’s Calling the Shots?

Or, at least the pitches.

Interesting series of events the last couple days. Maybe it’s just interesting to me, on the outside. But, anyway…

I usually follow Red Sox games using MLB Gameday. It’s just what usually works for me. So, I see the pitch locations pretty easily on the graphics, assuming they’re accurate. During Clay Buchholz’s outing, I noticed something. All the pitches looked pretty good. I actually tweeted that maybe it was just all bad luck. All his pitches seemed to be on the outside corner at the knees. Pitcher’s pitches. The batters just happened to be smacking them for hits. Not sure I could blame him as much as I might have. Maybe they got too much of the plate than they should have, but it wasn’t that bad.

Then John Farrell was on with the EEIdiots yesterday. He said that one of the problems with the pitching staff was that they were pitching away too much. That they needed to use both sides of the plate more. Other teams knew that they Sox were always away, so they were hanging over the plate and driving those balls. Which then made Buchholz’s struggles more sensible. He was throwing beautiful pitches on the corner. The Jays just knew he was going to do that. So, I wondered…if Farrell knew that, why not just tell their catchers to call the pitches inside more often?

What was the hold up?

Was it the pitchers who were resisting? After all, the fools on the Hub were blasting Kelly for not coming inside more with his fastball. And everyone always got on Dice-K’s case for nibbling so much. Was the pitcher in control? Was he shaking the catcher off? Or was he so hesitant to pitch inside that the pitches were drifting outside?

Then I hear that before the game yesterday there was a big pitcher-catcher meeting where they were all told to pitch inside more. Why was the meeting needed? Who needed to be convinced? Or, was it something that Farrell and the coaching staff JUST picked up on yesterday and wanted to get to the whole staff as quickly as possible?

Whatever the reason, Porcello went out following the meeting, and pitched seven innings while only giving up one run. He even manages to limit or eliminate damage when things started to get away from him.  Tazawa and Koji were scoreless.

Is everything now fixed? If so, why wasn’t it fixed before?

Is it Hanigan? Was he used to calling pitches low and away for all the fireballers in Tampa? Is that why Kelly and his 99 mph fastball was doing better than the sinkerballers? Did someone need to smack Hanigan and remind him to call some of them inside every once in a while? Did they need the meeting in order to convince him of that?

Who sets up the gameplan? Isn’t that a group effort between the pitchers, catchers, and coaching staff?

If everything is fixed now, what was broken?

Mama Said There’d be Days Like This

On the bright side, things have to go up from here, right?

Let’s be honest. The rotation isn’t this bad. Oh, sure, they’re pitching like garbage at the moment. But, this isn’t who they are.

When the Red Sox set up their pitching staff, we all joked about the lack of an ace. There were endless discussions about the lack of an ace. Either you were OK with going into the seasons with five #3 pitchers, or not. But, most everyone agreed it was a staff of #3s. Maybe #3/#4s. Right now, they’re pitching like #12s.

But, we have to assume that will change, right? Can we really assume that all five of the Red Sox starters all suddenly forgot how to pitch at once, and will continue to be terrible all season? Does that ever happen?

Right now, the Sox starter’s ERAs are an average of 2.26 runs higher than their career ERA. On average, they’re more than a run higher than their previous worst single season ERA. That can’t continue.

Just like I don’t think Hanley Ramirez will keep up his 70-HR pace all season. I expect him to hit for a lot of power, but not be historically good.  Just like I don’t think David Ortiz will hit .230 all season. I expect a decline, but not for him to be epically bad. Likewise I don’t expect Wade Miley to have an 8.62 ERA all season. I don’t expect Pedro numbers, but he should be at least mediocre.

So, what’s going on? Not sure. It could be a collective slump. Although, I think all the pitchers have had at least one good performance. Even Miley had a scoreless outing. Maybe it’s a curse of small sample size. Joe Kelly gave up three runs in the first inning the other night after a delay disrupted his pregame routine. These things happen over the course of a season. After that, he settled down. But, in a small sample size, it killed him. Without that inning, his ERA drops by almost a run. Porcello had a four run inning. Take that away, and his ERA drops by a run too.

Which, I know, you can’t do. Both those pitchers threw those innings. But, if you’re going to go on and on about the terrible pitching staff, it’s worth noting that the numbers have been skewed. What’s your seeing isn’t really representing their whole body of work.

It also means that there’s reason to believe there’s hope. Kelly and Porcello aren’t as bad as their numbers might indicate. Buchholz has always been a question wrapped in an enigma. But, he’s never been god awful. This is worse than he’s ever been. So, there’s reason to believe there’s some improvement on the way. Sure, he’s might throw eight innings of one run ball one game, and one inning of eight run ball the next game. But, history tells us that he’ll throw more games closer to the former than the latter. As frustrating as that might be at times…like last night. Wade Miley might be a question mark coming to the AL. But, the AL isn’t three times as hard as the NL. A 200 inning guy doesn’t become a 100 inning guy. Again, one of his three starts was masterful. It’s the other two that are the exceptions. Masterson might be the one guy about where he’ll be. He’s working out some things. He was always going to be a project full of questions. But, isn’t a 2-0 record with a 5+ ERA about what we expected? Frankly, isn’t that what we assumed everyone on the staff would be? If everyone just pitched to the level Masterson is currently at, the offense should take it from there.

Based on past performance and sample sizes… is that so far-fetched?

Alex Rodriguez Live

With Alex Rodrigues in the news lately as he chases down Willie Mays and his 660 career home runs, I wondered. How did ARod do in games I’ve attended? Well, actually, I guess it would be games I’ve attended so far. After all, I might get to see him play again at some point.

I figured his career would be an interesting one. He’s been playing for a while, and I’ve had the chance to see him play for three different teams. It should make for an interesting cross section.

So, how did he do?

About as well as you’d expect a player who regularly took PEDs to do.

I got to see ARod play in twelve games. (Again, I scored twelve games he played in. I might have seen him in a couple I didn’t score for one reason or another.) Those games led to 40 at-bats.

In those 40 at-bats, he had thirteen hits, leading to a robust 0.325 batting average. Of those thirteen hits, three of them cleared the wall. That gives him a 0.650 slugging percentage. Yikes. He reached base at a 0.460 clip while I was in the stands. Do the math, and you have a guy with a 1.110 OPS. Yup. He did well while I was around.

In fact, extrapolate those numbers out for a full season of 660 AB, and you’re looking at an MVP caliber season. And then some. His slash line would be .325/50/116. He would have scored 231 runs in this mythical season. I suppose on the plus side, he would strike out 264 times while “only” walking 165 times.

Maybe he should pay to have me travel with him. I seem to bring him good luck.

Damn.

Honestly, What do You Expect?

Because, it sure seems to be a lot.

Maybe we should just all calm down, just a bit.

Or, maybe a whole bunch!

What’s amazing to me as I watch the Sox this year, and read all the twitter reaction, is that people aren’t usually very happy. It’s almost like everyone expects everything to go perfect all the time every time. Why is that? Is it the football mentality that’s taken over the region? People have started to think that every game in baseball is as important as in football? Newsflash, it’s not. In fact, try considering ten games in baseball the same as a football game. That make you feel better?

Or, is it the Bill Belichick “execution” manta that has everyone all confused? Do we think that just because you practice execution, you should execute every chance you get? It doesn’t work like that either.

Because, that’s what I’m hearing. One night, the Sox lose 2-1, and I hear constant complaining about when this great offense is going to show up. Of course, they seem to forget that they scored five runs the night before. Or, after Panda grounds out…when is he going to get a hit? Ignoring the double he got in the previous at bat. Hanley doesn’t hustle! Except, apparently, when he scores from first on a single to the pitcher.

They’re not advancing the runner! Until there’s a groundout, and then it’s They can’t get a hit with RISP! Then they get a hit, and it’s They only scored one!

Do people just enjoy complaining?

Because, otherwise, I have to wonder what they expect. IT’s the way the numbers work. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. At best, about 30% of the time you’re up with runners on, you’ll get a hit. The other 70% is an out, just as you’d expect. Put together a string of 30% and you score lots of runs. Break them out a bit, and you score fewer.  You just have to hope that those times you score fewer are combined with games where the pitching allows fewer. That happened in the first couple weeks. Not so much this last week.

Which is what it comes down to. Some of it is luck. You allowed runs matching up well with your scored runs game by game. You just have to have those comparisons end up with your favor. Which should happen a lot for the Sox this year. Like it already has.

After all, they’re still in first place.

From the Pedro Binder

2001 Fleer Platinum

Once again, Fleer is using the Platinum brand to remind us of days gone by. In this case, just in case you missed the reference, they tell you that they’re celebrating a 20^th Anniversary. That’s the give-away clue that the design is honoring the 1981 Fleer effort.

And, actually, they do a pretty good job of it.

I like the design. Maybe it’s because it is so much simpler than most anything else Fleer had going on. Maybe it’s the slight campy feel to it. Like a nice comfort food.

Or, maybe, it’s because in its simplicity, it managed to give me everything I look for in a card design. Other companies take note. The color scheme is matched to the Red Sox colors. That’s a nice improvement over the 1981 originals. Pedro’s name is written right there on the bottom, easy to read without any sort of foil coating. Just the name. Imagine. Below that is Pedro’s position. Again, easy to read. The team name is there, with the baseball adding just enough whimsy. All of that information is tucked out of the way on the bottom of the card, allowing plenty of space for the picture. Just like they were doing 20 years before. Wonder why they decided to mess it all up in between.

No idea if the posed action shot is supposed to be homage, or not. But, it’s fine. What’s not fine? Can you guess?

Look at the size of the Fleer logo! It’s almost as big as Pedro’s name. Even though they tried to stick it in the corner, like Baby, it wasn’t having any of that. It forced its way out and right into the way. Thank goodness it was just over blue sky. If it actually covered any of the Pedro image, I might have lost it.

But, even that can’t detract from the overall feel of the card. Some might think that 1981 Fleer isn’t the type of set you keep bringing back. But, in this case Fleer improved upon the design, while keeping true to the original.

Well done.