White Sox - 001 100 000 - 2 5 1 Red Sox - 101 311 00x - 7 15 0A team effort, with seven of the nine Boston batters collecting at least two hits.
Peavy: 7-5-2-1-4, 109.
It was the 11th consecutive game in which the Red Sox allowed three or fewer runs. Since August 19, opponents have scored: 0, 3, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2 runs. That's the best Sox streak since another 11-gamer on April 12-25, 1988. Opponents have also been held to eight hits or fewer in each of the last 11 games.
Ellsbury, CFClay Buchholz is hoping for a September 10 return to the Red Sox rotation. That would come during a much-anticipated three-game series against the second-place Rays.
Victorino, RF
Pedroia, 2B
Ortiz, DH
Napoli, 1B
Gomes, LF
Middlebrooks, 3B
Ross, C
Bogaerts, SS
Alex Speier: Do 2013 Red Sox have enough star power to win?
Can anybody explain this idea that you can have a team "built to win" in the regular season that will somehow, inevitably, fail in the playoffs? Does that make any sense?
ReplyDeleteThere are teams that power their way through the regular season, scoring a lot of runs but giving up a lot of runs, too. But they often consistently lose close games, and they don't have enough pitching to get through October, when they're facing the best pitching.
ReplyDeleteIs that what you mean?
Or is it some stupid cliche making the rounds?
It's this thing alluded to in the Speier article (and you'll see more of it in the comments, if you can bear to read them) that a team has to have Big Stars to really contend in the postseason...we wouldn't be able to take Detroit in a playoff series because we don't have a Max and Miggy of our own.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it.
Yikes. How do you all read that shite?
ReplyDeleteYikes. How do you all read that shite?
ReplyDeleteMorbid curiosity.
That's all a bit of a simplification of what Speier is writing. And far from shite, it is actually a very good piece.
ReplyDeleteHe does a great job of describing what this team is and how it is built. (And he fully understands and admits the "superficial" nature of MVP and CY awards and where players fall in the rankings.)
"The 2013 Red Sox, to date, have been a repudiation of the star-centric model upon which the failures of 2011 and 2012 were constructed. ... The lineup is predicated on its one-through-nine depth instead of the hope of elite contributions from a few ... The starting staff ... now runs deep in what would be characterized as a wealth of quality mid-rotation starters ... The offense is a team that seemingly features an assembly line of players ... Indeed, the Sox are not merely a one-through-nine team but more accurately a one-through-13 offense, with the feel of the lineup changing little whether role players like Carp and Jonny Gomes start or come off the bench to impact the late innings. ...
In that sense, the team is a rather fascinating experiment, a case study in the relevance (or lack thereof) of superficial standards in constructing a winner. Can depth trump star power?
The next two months will help to answer that question. The Red Sox will be looking to go their own way, rather than to follow the traditional model of an October force."
Deep depth, baby! That's our key!
Sorry, right - I didn't mean to imply that was what Speier was saying (you gotta have Star Power to win in the playoffs) - it's something he notes that some people believe (making them skeptical about the team, as well as it has done), and there are some people in the comments bloviating along those lines as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for clarifying. I never click on any of those links. For better or worse, I watch baseball in a media vacuum.
ReplyDelete