Red Sox - 010 001 110 0 - 4 8 2
Orioles - 200 100 010 1 - 5 9 0
Lackey (7-10-3-2-3, 111) beat the Birds last Saturday, while Hernandez (5-4-3-3-1, 97) took a ND at Fenway on Sunday.Scutaro, SS
Pedroia, 2B
Martinez, C
Youkilis, 1B
Drew, RF
Ortiz, DH
Beltre, 3B
Hermida, LF
McDonald, CF
during the marathon Boston-Toronto game, and the hosts were opining on the causes for Josh Beckett's struggles so far in 2010 - notably in that 13-12 game, where he gave up 8 runs in just 3 innings pitched. Bobby Valentine suggested that Beckett has three quality pitches - a mid 90s fastball, a curve, and a change-up - but that he's fallen in love with a mediocre cutter and that's hurting him. Not one to take claims made by people on TV at face value, I thought I'd check it out.And what did Moroz find?
[I]t was good for us to get out of Boston, kind of clear our heads a little bit, get on the road here and win that first game of the series. That was a battle back and forth. [It] set the tone, and we were able to come back and win two close games.Dustin Pedroia: "We run-prevented the [heck] of them."
This isn't really a review.The afternoon grew so glowering that in the sixth inning the arc lights were turned on - always a wan sight in the daytime, like the burning headlights of a funeral procession. Aided by the gloom, Fisher was slicing through the Sox rookies, and Williams did not come to bat in the seventh. He was second up in the eighth. This was almost certainly his last time to come to the plate in Fenway Park, and instead of merely cheering, as we had at his three previous appearances, we stood, all of us, and applauded. I had never before heard pure applause in a ballpark. No calling, no whistling, just an ocean of handclaps, minute after minute, burst after burst, crowding and running together in continuous succession like the pushes of surf at the edge of the sand. It was a somber and considered tumult. There was not a boo in it. It seemed to renew itself out of a shifting set of memories as the Kid, the Marine, the veteran of feuds and failures and injuries, the friend of children, and the enduring old pro evolved down the bright tunnel of twenty-two summers toward this moment. At last, the umpire signaled for Fisher to pitch; with the other players, he had been frozen in position. Only Williams had moved during the ovation, switching his bat impatiently, ignoring everything except his cherished task. Fisher wound up, and the applause sank into a hush.
Red Sox - 000 001 100 - 2 8 0Lester (7-1-0-2-11, 119) and Darnell McDonald (doubled and scored the first run, drove in the second one with a single) led Boston (11-11) to a three-game sweep of the Blue Jays.
Blue Jays - 000 000 000 - 0 2 0
Lester and Cecil faced each other back on August 20, 2009; Boston won 8-1.Scutaro, SS
Pedroia, 2B
Martinez, DH
Youkilis, 1B
Drew, RF
Varitek, C
Beltre, 3B
Hall, LF
McDonald, CF
Red Sox - 010 000 010 - 2 7 1Buchholz (8-7-1-2-4, career-high 117 pitches) with a perfect ninth for the save from Ramon Ramirez. It was a hell of a performance from HH -- "gutsy" was the word everyone was using -- since it was known before the game began that Daniel Bard, Hideki Okajima, and Jonathan Papelbon were all unavailable.
Blue Jays - 100 000 000 - 1 7 0
Bullpen move: Fabio Castro up, Scott Atchison down.Scutaro, SS
Pedroia, 2B
Martinez, C
Youkilis, 1B
Drew, RF
Ortiz, DH
Beltre, 3B
Hermida, LF
McDonald, CF
Since 1920 (excluding 1940-1951, for which we do not have detailed box scores), this was just the 13th game in which both starting pitchers went no more than 3 innings and allowed at least 7 earned runs ...Last night's announced crowd of 13,847 was the smallest crowd to watch the Red Sox play a game anywhere (non-exhibition) since May 20, 2004 (12,401 in Tampa Bay).
If you add in allowing at least 8 hits, the #2 game between the Rangers and Angels [September 19, 2008] is the only other one in addition to yesterday's that qualifies. ...
The Red Sox are the first team this year to boast five different players with at least 3 hits in the same game ...
Beckett: 3-9-8-3-3, 83 - 21 BFFor Eveland, it was a typical outing against the Red Sox. Before tonight, he had allowed 22 hits and 8 walks in 9.1 innings over three starts. Now it's 30 hits and 11 walks -- 41 baserunners! -- in 12.1 innings.
Eveland: 3-8-7-3-3, 82 - 20 BF
Red Sox - 21 12 38 43 21 36 20 11 11 - 213154 pitches in those two innings! 33 batters, 15 runs, 12 hits.
Blue Jays - 14 19 39 34 15 19 10 25 11 - 186
Round about the fourth or fifth inning, the drunk guy a section away from us was yelling "Fortier! Fortier!" Maybe he was just babbling -- earlier, after bumping into my arm during a bottleneck in the aisle (I was on the end of the row), he had referred to me twice as Pedroia. I don't know why. It wasn't until maybe the 7th or 8th time he yelled it out that I realized he was referring to Scott Atchison -- #48!A Pujols 1.105
M Ramirez 1.006
K Youkilis .956
J Mauer .950
A Rodriguez .948
Red Sox - 104 314 000 - 13 18 0That was an entertaining evening ... and all wrapped up in a crisp 4:03!
Blue Jays - 006 211 020 - 12 16 0
I'm fairly certain that Marco Scutaro is now playing the role last filled by Eric Hinske -- the ex-Blue Jays player now in Boston who gets booed like crazy in Toronto, his mere appearance setting off a cascade of displeasure all out of sensible proportion and completely devoid of humour. (At least the days of hearing ever-so-witty comments about Manny's hair are behind me ...)Scutaro, SS
Pedroia, 2B
Youkilis, 1B
Lowell, 3B
Drew, RF
Varitek, C
Beltre, 3B
Hall, LF
McDonald, CF
[Charles Tavis had] been on design teams for stadia and civic centers and grandstands and micological-looking superdomes. He'd admit up-front that he'd been a far better team-player engineer than out there up-front stage-center in the architectural limelight. He'd apologize profusely when you had no idea what that sentence meant and say maybe the obfuscation had been unconsciously deliberate, out of some kind of embarrassment over his first and last limelighted architectural supervision, up in Ontario, before the rise of O.N.A.N.ite Interdependence, when he'd designed the Toronto Blue Jays' novel and much-ballyhooed SkyDome ballpark-and-hotel complex. Because Tavis had been the one to take the lion's share of the heat when it turned out that Blue Jays' spectators in the stands, many of them innocent children wearing caps and pounding their little fists into the gloves they'd brought with hopes of nothing more exotic than a speared foul ball, that spectators at a distressing number of different points all along both foul-lines could see right into the windows of guests having various and sometimes exotic sex in the hotel bedrooms over the center-field wall. The bulk of the call for Tavis's rolling head had come, he'd tell you, when the cameraman in charge of the SkyDome's Instant-Replay-Video Scoreboard, disgruntled or professionally suicidal or both, started training his camera on the bedrooms windows and routing the resultant multi-limbed coital images up onto the 75-meter Scoreboard screen, etc. Sometimes in slow motion and with multiple replays, etc. Tavis will admit his reluctance to talk about it, still, after all this time.
What are your thoughts on going to the bullpen?Francona:
"I don't have any."
Are you concerned at all about the transition to relief pitching?
"No."
[T]his is not us turning him into a reliever. This is us putting him in the bullpen until he starts again. ... [W]e feel for various reasons, he's the guy that can handle this.Wakefield's last regular season relief appearance? June 9, 2004, against the Padres.
Orioles - 010 000 300 3 - 7 14 0More crappy performances by several members of the bullpen: Hideki Okajima, Scott Atchison and Scott Schoeneweis were the culprits today.
Red Sox - 000 004 000 2 - 6 13 1
Lineup:
IP H R ER BB SO ERA WHIP
Hernandez 17.1 20 10 9 7 13 4.67 1.618
Wakefield 18.1 23 14 13 7 11 6.38 1.636
Scutaro, SS
Pedroia, 2B
Martinez, C
Youkilis, 1B
Ortiz, DH
Drew, RF
Beltre, 3B
Hermida, LF
Van Every, CF
redsahx
Repeating myself somewhat from another thread, but I think what we've been seeing is Papelbon adjusting his approach for the long haul. As impressive as he was from 06-08, it's not realistic to expect him to be able to look that dominant and blow away hitter after hitter year after year without his arm falling off. He can still reach back for something extra if he needs it, but I'm guessing he's determined that he needs to find more ways to get guys out in order to last.
mabrowndog
Found this Baseball Prospectus chart interesting. Heading into tonight's game, the hitters Papelbon had faced so far this season had compiled the highest weighted aggregate OPS in the American League for 2010.
Collectively the 38 batters had put up a .275/.362/.457/.819 overall line. Paps has held them to .133/.316/.233/.549, and he's done it while working under a 1.864 average leverage index, the 12th highest among 92 AL relievers. So yeah, I'm going to cut him a little bit of slack on the 8:5 K/BB ratio.
paulftodd
The thing is, it's not the good hitters (based on 2009 stats) that are getting to him. Against those who had an OPS under 800 last year, they have a 689 OPS in 21 PA with 3K and 4 BB (assuming my calculations are correct). ... In any event, the OPS 800+ guys from last year have an 083 BA, so maybe that's his strategy, getting the bad hitters out has become boring for him ... He is kind of like the Dice-K of closers at this point, getting the job done, but not looking very good doing it.
Sprowl
Here is Papelbon's movement chart from the closer's latest volatile performance [Saturday night]. None of his offspeed pitches, slider or sinker, really dropped relative to gravity, yet the two sinkers did get swinging strikes -- mostly due to their location off the outside corner and inside below the knees, respectively. I also thought that the subjective impression of the slider was positive: it seemed to float, then dive, although the movement figures don't reflect that impression. Papelbon's fastball in 2010 has been unimpressive -- the first three Orioles looked for high fastballs early in the count, got them, and hit them -- but his breaking pitches have been good, even when thrown for strikes. An old cliche has it that the hardest pitch to hit is a major-league slider, not because of the absolute movement but because the illusion of a floating or darting pitch is the hardest for the hitter's brain to process effectively in time to translate it into hand-eye co-ordination. I would expect Papelbon to experiment more with the slider and splitter as it becomes apparent that he doesn't have his old velocity, and that good location, while important, isn't enough by itself when the hitters have a good scouting report, especially one that says: gear up for the high fastball early in the count.
Orioles - 020 001 003 - 6 17 0Another game that was a bit more difficult than it ought to have been. A pair of three-run homers -- Marco Scutaro and Kevin Youkilis -- gave the Sox a 7-3 lead in the seventh, but Ramon Ramirez and Jonathan Papelbon nearly tossed it away.
Red Sox - 000 010 60x - 7 9 1
In addition to their horrible 2-15 start to 2010, the Orioles are 1-14 at Fenway Park dating back to July 2008. ... However, lefty Matusz has been the winning pitcher in both of their victories.Scutaro, SS
Pedroia, 2B
Martinez, DH
Youkilis, 1B
Lowell, 3B
Varitek, C
Hall, RF
Hermida, LF
McDonald, CF
Orioles - 000 000 210 - 3 9 2David Ortiz hit his first home run of the year, Adrian Beltre drew a bases-loaded walk (his second BB of the night!) to bring in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning, and Jonathan Papelbon struck out Julio Lugo with two men on for the final out of the game.
Red Sox - 011 010 01x - 4 6 0
Scutaro, SS
Drew, RF
Pedroia, 2B
Youkilis, 1B
Martinez, C
Ortiz, DH
Beltre, 3B
Hermida, LF
Reddick, CF
Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden was highly annoyed when, after Robinson Cano fouled a pitch off in the sixth inning yesterday, Alex Rodriguez cut across the diamond and stomped on the pitching mound (or maybe dragged his foot across Braden's foot's landing spot, though this clip doesn't show that) as he returned to first base.When Daisuke Matsuzaka returns to the Red Sox starting rotation next week, it will be Tim Wakefield - and not, as widely speculated, Clay Buchholz - who will be bumped to accommodate him.In three starts, Wakefield has a 6.38 ERA, having allowed 23 hits and seven walks in 18.1 innings.
The Red Sox announced Thursday afternoon that Matsuzaka, who completed his rehab assignment for Pawtucket Wednesday night, would rejoin the rotation sometime next week. ...
Wakefield hasn't pitched in relief for any stretch since 2004 and last worked out of the bullpen full-time in 2002. ...
Francona also dismissed a suggestion that the team might opt for a six-man rotation ...
Rangers - 000 000 300 - 3 7 0Buchholz (6.2-6-3-1-10, 114) had allowed only three baserunners through the first six innings, but was hit hard to start the seventh. Two doubles and a single in the span of nine pitches put two Texas runs on the board. The 10 strikeouts was a career high.
Red Sox - 000 000 000 - 0 6 2
Happy 51st Birthday, Terry Francona!Scutaro, SS
Drew, RF
Pedroia, 2B
Youkilis, 1B
Martinez, C
Lowell, DH
Beltre, 3B
McDonald, CF
Hall, LF
Cabin Mirror, author of perhaps the greatest quote in Red Sox history, has retired and is now part of the MLB Network.The dream stays aliveMillar had a 12-year career, three of them with the Red Sox: 2003-05, .813 OPS in 432 games.
Sox avert sweep as Ortiz homer sinks N.Y. in 12th
By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Staff | October 18, 2004
Carlton Fisk in 1975. David Ortiz in 2004. Twelfth inning both times.
Hold on to those tickets for this afternoon's fifth game of the 2004 American League Championship Series. The left-for-dead Red Sox are still breathing.
Down three games to none, and down 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth, the Sox last night rallied to tie the game against indomitable Yankee closer Mariano Rivera. They won it in the 12th inning at 1:22 this morning when Ortiz hit a Paul Quantrill 2-and-1 pitch into the Yankee bullpen to give the Red Sox a 6-4 Game 4 victory at Fenway Park. The game lasted 5 hours, 2 minutes, and many of those who stayed for the finish lingered even longer into the morning.
A lot of Bostonians will be sleepy and late for work today. No problem. New Englanders will be wide-eyed when Pedro Martinez gets the ball at 5:10 for the start of Game 5.
"Don't let us win tonight," Sox first baseman Kevin Millar had warned before Game 4. "This is a big game. They've got to win because if we win we've got Pedro coming back [today] and then Schilling will pitch Game 6 and then you can take that fraud stuff and put it to bed. Don't let the Sox win this game."
They did. This time it was the Yankees who coughed it up. ...
"Our mood was really good going into the game," said Francona. "It always is. This is the time of year when we can rest later. They can rest later."
No rest for New England. Game 5 later today.
I wasn't in a good position to make the throw. He caught me off-guard. That's on me. The throw wasn't all that bad, but if I was able to get behind it, he would have been out or it would have been closer.Scutaro:
I knew the ball wasn't gone, but was kind of deep enough to try to take an extra base. It was one of those plays where it's do or die. ... [I]t's one of those plays where if you make it, everyone's happy. If you don't make it, a lot of people are going to be mad.With two outs, first base was now open, so the Rangers walked Dustin Pedroia intentionally, bringing Kevin Youkilis to the plate.
Those are the little things that I don't think you can see in the box score, ever.The "things that don't show up in the box score" has been a pet peeve of mine for awhile. For one reason, they are doing amazing things with box scores these days. And Scutaro's play *is* measured. And although he got 90 feet closer to home plate, the entire play - because of the increase in outs from one to two - dropped the Red Sox's chances of winning the game from 64.9% to 61.7%.
Rangers - 130 000 300 000 - 7 7 0Kevin Youkilis's two-out double off the wall in left-center scored Marco Scutaro with the winning run in the 12th inning. The hit - Yook's second double of the night - came after Texas walked Dustin Pedroia intentionally.
Red Sox - 014 110 000 001 - 8 9 1
Scutaro, SS
Drew, RF
Pedroia, 2B
Youkilis, 1B
Lowell, DH
Varitek, C
Beltre, 3B
McDonald, CF
Hall, LF
I wanted to be the hero tonight. ... I wanted to be a spark. I didn't think it was going to happen like this.Darnell McDonald (after flying from Rochester to Boston, hiding out in a hotel room, and then not having any time for pre-game BP) became the first player to homer in his first Red Sox at-bat since Orlando Cabrera, on August 1, 2004. He's the first Sock to hit a pinch-hit home run in his first Boston at-bat since Curtis Pride in 1997.
We've been searching for a way to get this crowd involved in some of our games, and out of nowhere we did. I think the change of energy happened with the two-run home run when we finally woke up our crowd. That was a change of energy.Terry Francona said it was a win the team needed "desperately".
Jacoby Ellsbury'd DL trip was made retroactive to April 12, so he would be eligible to play on April 27. He is still having "wrenching pain" and has trouble breathing. "[W]hen I take that deep breath ... when I get my heart rate up, anything like that to really expand the chest. I just get that sharp, sharp pain in there."When the season started, they gave the Red Sox a 42.2 chance of making the playoffs. Before the beginning of the 4-game series vs. the Rays that just ended, they were at 31.8%. After the 4-game sweep they are all the way down to 14.7%.Last night's win puts Boston at 15.1%.
1991 Twins: 4-9 (won division, 95 wins)Oakland started 2-10 and still won 102 games, thanks in part to ending the season on a 29-4 run.
2000 Giants: 4-9 (won division, 97 wins)
2001 A's: 3-10 (wild card, 102 wins)
2007 Phillies: 3-10 (won division, 89 wins)
Rangers - 101 310 000 - 6 8 1It was the worst of games, it was the best of games.
Red Sox - 100 102 021 - 7 13 0
In the 3rd picture, the ball,having hit off the wall, is falling by the "38" under the 2 Outs in NESN's score bar.Reddick is hitting .179/.200/.359 for Pawtucket this year. He played 27 games for the Red Sox in 2009: .169/.210/.339.Scutaro, SS
Drew, RF
Pedroia, 2B
Youkilis, 1B
Martinez, C
Ortiz, DH
Beltre, 3B
Hermida, LF
Reddick, CF
0-for-7: Hermida*: I must stop using the highly inaccurate term "scoring position". So how about Runners At Third and/or Second?
0-for-5: Beltre, Scutaro
0-for-3: Martinez, Youkilis
0-for-2: Hall, Ortiz
0-for-1: Cameron, Drew, Lowell, Pedroia, Varitek
W
LLL
WW
L
W
LLLLL
They have lost six straight games at home for first time since June 1994, their starters' ERA is 5.18, they have a .249 team batting average and a .313 OBP (both 9th best in the AL), they are 11th in runs scored, and they have not had a hit with runners at second and/or third base since last Wednesday (0-for-their-last-32 and 17-for-100 overall).REC ERA OPS RS RAThe 2010 numbers are a bit worse, but you get the point. Just last year, Boston began the season 2-6, then won 11 in a row.
June 19 to July 4, 2004: 4-10 3.98 .781 4.7 5.0
July 6 to July 19, 2007: 3- 8 4.56 .779 4.1 4.8
April 4 to April 19, 2010: 4- 9 4.58 .738 3.8 5.3
It appears likely that Cameron will be out for longer than 15 days. The injury is likely the same one that caused Cameron's groin injury in spring training, which means that it has lingered for more than a month, according to the source. The team wants to make sure that it is fully healed, though there isn't yet a sense of when that might happen, and it is possible that it could eventually require surgery.Meanwhile, Jacoby Ellsbury (who has been out since April 11) has made minimal progress. He is still having discomfort when breathing:
It's one of those things where it's right there in my chest. I can't really do too much. I don't know how long it's going to be.Since the club's estimates of Ellsbury's return have been very wrong and with no other available outfielders, Bill Hall was sent out yesterday to play his first game in center field since 2007. "Coming into the season, center field was probably the last place I thought I'd have to go and play." He did not play CF at all in spring training.
Rays - 105 200 000 - 8 12 0Lackey (3.1-9-8-1-3, 79) allowed 10 of his 19 batters to reach base, and eight of them scored.
Red Sox - 000 000 200 - 2 5 1
Sep. 21-23, 1998: L W L LThey lost the first game in six of the previous eight series, and in the other two, they dropped the second game. So they had never had any realistic shot at a four-game sweep until now.
Apr. 16-19, 1999: W L W W
Jun. 25-28, 2001: L L W W
Jul. 23-25, 2002: L W W L
Sep. 15-18, 2003: L L W L
Aug. 9-12, 2004: W L L L
Aug. 29-Sep. 1, 2005: L L L L
May 25-28, 2006: L L L L
Apr. 16-19, 2010: W W W W
The girl knows how to relax.
Rays - 022 003 000 - 7 7 0Garza (8-4-0-2-5, 115) did not allow a hit until there were two outs in the fifth (and the batter, Adrian Beltre, was a dead duck at second trying stupidly to stretch his hit into a double).
Red Sox - 000 000 001 - 1 5 1
4 GB. As Peter Abraham says, "It's a good time to be a negative fan."Scutaro, SS
Pedroia, 2B
Martinez, DH
Youkilis, 1B
Drew, RF
Beltre, 3B
Hermida, LF
Varitek, C
Cameron, CF
Mets - 000 000 000 000 000 000 11 - 2 9 2
Cardinals - 000 000 000 000 000 000 10 - 1 15 0Joe Mather pinch-hit in the bottom of the 10th inning, and stayed in to play center field, third base, and pitch (he allowed the two Mets runs).
Rays - 400 001 100 - 6 5 0With two outs in the seventh, Scutaro singled, Pedroia homered, Martinez singled, and Youkilis homered -- and it looked like the diehards who stuck around cold, damp Fenway might be rewarded.
Red Sox - 000 010 400 - 5 11 2
Rays - 001 000 000 002 - 3 5 1The Red Sox loaded the bases in the bottom of the 11th on two singles and an infield error, but could not score (Ortiz FC/3-2, Beltre GIDP/5-3).
Red Sox - 000 010 000 000 - 1 5 1
I think I've thrown enough pitches at this point to be ready to pitch in the big leagues. ... I'm confident. ... I feel ready. Beyond that point, I really have to leave the decision up to the powers that be.And the PTB have given no updated timetable for his return.
Cameron not going home with team being checked for cause of abdominal pain Checking for appendicit[is]And J.D. Drew's neck has been bothering him recently.
Ellsbury also to see doctor in Boston Friday can't take deep breath without sharp pain
Sox facing possibility of two outfielders headed to DL
Adrian Beltre has not walked in his last 69 plate appearances -- his final 35 trips to the plate for Seattle in 2009 and all 34 of his PAs this year.Red Sox - 000 000 000 - 0 6 3Liriano (7-4-0-2-8, 96) had a fantastic slider the Sox batters could not lay off and Wakefield and Scott Schoeneweis melted in the middle innings.
Twins - 010 032 20x - 8 15 0
[People] have no idea how badly you're struggling mentally, and how bad you try to do your stuff. ... So when people come out and start to try to bury your ass, it hurts.Jacoby Ellsbury will also not play today. Terry Francona says
the soreness is getting a little more centrally isolated, which is good. He's still having a little trouble rotating. ... As much as we love having him out there, it's not a good thing to go too quick.Ortiz has had a terrible start to the season, but J.D. Drew (.167/.259/.292) and Victor Martinez (.229/.270/.400) are not much better. Martinez's slugging is helped out by having three doubles and a dong among his eight hits. OPS+-wise, only Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis are truly above average.
W-L RS RA PA H 2B HR BB AVG OBP SLG TBBoof Bonser will have his shoulder examined on Friday.
Yankees 5-3 46 36 328 78 20 9 42 .278 .376 .459 129
Red Sox 4-4 41 37 312 78 23 10 25 .281 .344 .478 133
Well that is excellent news. Because if Congress has nothing better to do than worry about ballplayers dipping tobacco, every person must have a job, all diseases are cured, every homeless person is off the streets and we're not waging war anywhere in the world.Henry Waxman (D-CA):
We don't let baseball players go stand out there in the field and drink beer.For me, seeing Youkilis go over by the foul line and take a long pull off a tall boy in a brown bag would be pretty cool.
Red Sox - 110 010 030 - 6 10 0Jeremy Hermida's three-run, opposite-field double off Jesse Crain with two outs in the eighth was big hit of the day.
Twins - 002 000 010 - 3 9 0
1901 Oriole Park, Baltimore Lost 10-6Casey Kelly (2-3-1-1-2, 45) made his AA debut on Monday; the run was unearned. ... Boof Bonser allowed nine runs in two innings for Pawtucket last night; in two starts, he has allowed 16 baserunners in 6.1 innings.
1909 Shibe Park, Philadelphia Lost 8-1
1911 Griffith Stadium, Washington Lost 8-5
1923 Yankee Stadium, New York Lost 4-1
2010 Target Field, Minneapolis Lost 5-2
The pitches at Fenway Park don't just come from the mound.Really?
Ads surround the ballfield, causing some to long for the days when they could watch a game without being bombarded by signs. ...
Many Sox fans recall a time when the only sign at Fenway Park was the Jimmy Fund billboard in right field. They say the proliferation of ads has turned the park back into a commercial zone. ...
Don't pay attention to that crap. I'm fine. If I'd have been raking, they wouldn't be saying that.After not playing on Saturday, Ortiz struck out four times on Sunday, although he was ahead in the count every time up, including 3-0 and 3-1. He fanned two more times yesterday. In 24 plate appearances, Ortiz is hitting .136 and has 10 strikeouts in his last four games.
for the most part he's getting himself in decent hitters' counts. He just needs to start taking advantage of it. ... When you're a little unsure of the strike zone and have a fear of recognizing the pitches you tend to get a lot of check swings. ... There are some mechanical issues we're still trying to iron out. I think when you are working on things mechanically, your focus isn't 100 percent on the pitches. ... [R]ight now he's probably 70-30 focused.Also: Opponents have stolen 12 bases in 13 attempts against the Red Sox, including 11 of 12 against Victor Martinez.
