American League Favorite (or Most Feared Team) Red Sox 16 Rangers 7 Blue Jays 2 National League Favorite (or Most Feared Team) Cubs 13 Dodgers 10 Nationals 2 World Series Winner Cubs 7 Red Sox 6 Dodgers 4 Rangers 4Five reasons the Red Sox will win
1. What a lineup: The Red Sox have scored an incredible 83 more runs than the next-best offense in the American League (Cleveland). While the Blue Jays had a similar run-scoring gap last year, only one other AL team in the past 80 years has managed to put up a 100-run gap between itself and the pack -- and you need to go back all the way to the 1950 Red Sox to find that one. ...
2. Their strength is greater than any other team's strength: ... Against pitchers who average a strikeout per inning or better, the Sox lead the major leagues in average, on-base percentage, slugging and OPS. Against pitchers defined as "power pitchers," Boston's OPS (.798) is 65 points higher than the next-best team. But the Red Sox are also first in OPS against "finesse" pitchers (.848). And they went into the weekend as the only team in the past five years with an OPS of .800 or better against both left-handed and right-handed pitching. ...
3. Their rotation is better than you think: ... Clay Buchholz and Eduardo Rodriguez have made 11 starts between them since Sept. 1. They've allowed two runs or fewer in eight of those starts. ...
4. Their bullpen is hot: ... Since the beginning of September, the Red Sox pen ranks second in the AL in ERA (1.81), and first in opponent average (.198) and strikeout rate (10.4 K/9). ...
5. Papi Power: Every once in awhile in sports, the script writes itself. So there's just something about the way the stars keep lining up for David Ortiz's retirement tour that feels as if there could be one more incredible chapter to come.
October 4, 2016
Stark: Why The Red Sox Will Win The World Series
ESPN's Jayson Stark asked 25 baseball executives to pick each league's pennant winner and the World Series winner.
ESPN: 23 of 31 Experts Pick Red Sox To Win Pennant
ESPN has posted the postseason predictions of its 31 experts.
26 of 31 (84%) pick the Red Sox to defeat Cleveland in the ALDS.
23 of those 26 (88%) pick the Red Sox to win the American League pennant.
More than half of the experts - 18 of 31 - predict a Red Sox/Cubs World Series.
Five experts picked the Red Sox to win the World Series and three of those five predict David Ortiz will be the MVP.
The top choice for World Series champion is the Cubs (18).
26 of 31 (84%) pick the Red Sox to defeat Cleveland in the ALDS.
23 of those 26 (88%) pick the Red Sox to win the American League pennant.
More than half of the experts - 18 of 31 - predict a Red Sox/Cubs World Series.
Five experts picked the Red Sox to win the World Series and three of those five predict David Ortiz will be the MVP.
The top choice for World Series champion is the Cubs (18).
October 3, 2016
Wanted: NESN Video Of Ortiz Weekend Ceremonies
If anyone taped any of last weekend's David Ortiz ceremonies and could share them, I'd appreciate it.
I've seen a few clips on NESN's website, but I'd like to see the whole thing, especially Sunday's stuff (which I read lasted about 40 minutes).
Thanks.
I've seen a few clips on NESN's website, but I'd like to see the whole thing, especially Sunday's stuff (which I read lasted about 40 minutes).
Thanks.
Review: The Selling Of The Babe: The Deal That Changed Baseball And Created A Legend, By Glenn Stout
In Red Sox Century and this 2004 ESPN article, Stout presented a deep understanding and an accurate portrayal of an event that has for decades been the subject of rumour, conjecture, and outright falsehoods.
Stout's book-length treatment of the subject, The Selling of the Babe: The Deal That Changed Baseball and Created a Legend (Thomas Dunne) is a well-researched and entertaining account of what still stands as baseball's most famous transaction.
[Note: I received two copies of this book from the publisher, one of which was the prize in this year's W-L contest. In addition, Stout cites my book on the 1918 Red Sox in his research of Ruth's time in Boston.]
Stout argues that "no other personality in sports has been so exalted, mythologized, and obscured by history". How someone can be the most exalted and the most obscured may seem contradictory, but many aspects of Ruth's life are a near blank. His childhood, for example. And no matter how much attention is paid to Ruth's performances on the baseball field, the more one learns about him, the more one actually starts believing that the man considered the game's greatest player was underrated.
No matter how much we learn about Ruth, he is never diminished. Even as we learn more facts, and the enormity of his greatness grows, he seems more outsized, his baseball career appearing even more improbable. Ruth's obituary in the New York Times hit the nail on the head: "Probably nowhere in all the imaginative field of fiction could one find a career more dramatic and bizarre than that portrayed in real life by George Herman Ruth."
What Stout does in The Selling of the Babe is look at why the Red Sox wanted to rid themselves of the extraordinarily talented Ruth - who was doing double-duty as a pitcher and an outfielder in 1919, while setting a new single-season home run record - and to discuss the sale in the context of Red Sox owner Harry Frazee's contentious relationship with American League president Ban Johnson.
Because the sale of the Red Sox to Frazee was not brokered by Johnson, who was far from an impartial executive and actually had financial stakes in several different AL teams, there was animosity between Frazee and Johnson from the very beginning. Because Frazee had no ties to Johnson, because he owed him nothing, Frazee also had no reason to be loyal to the despotic head of the league.
His battles with Johnson, however, had split the league in two, some magnates remaining loyal to Johnson, others banding with Frazee and calling themselves the "Insurrectos". Two of the teams aligned with Frazee were the Yankees and White Sox - and those clubs ended up being the possible landing places for the talented yet troublesome Ruth if a trade could be arranged.
In telling this story, Stout lays bare some truths: Ruth was a selfish player who looked out for himself (and his bank account) first and foremost, Frazee was a competent front office man whose ownership was impacted more by league politics than by his allegedly overriding love of the theatre, and the sale of Ruth to the Yankees was not seen at the time as a one-sided deal.
Frazee did not sell Ruth because he needed the cash. Indeed, looking at the details of the sale, one would assume that it was the Yankees that had significant cash flow trouble. Also, there is absolutely no connection between the sale of Ruth and Frazee's 1925 hit, No, No, Nanette. Stout calls that story a "tired, spurious, hoary old chestnut". He adds: "It's a fantasy that simply allowed Boston fans to excuse generations of losing baseball, bad management by Frazee's successors, and simplistic, poorly researched, agenda-driven history."
The Ruth transaction is a perfect example of the age-old debate about whether star players should receive preferential treatment. When a team is lucky enough to have someone as talented as Ruth, does management (and his teammates) put up with his off-field shenanigans or do they insist that all players on the team be held to the same rules? When the sale of Ruth's contract to the Yankees was announced just after New Year's in 1920, this debate raged in the Boston newspapers. Opinions were neatly divided down the middle, with plenty of fans and former players believing Ruth had to be shipped out for the good of the team.
Ruth did not magically change his personality when he arrived in New York. Only two months into the 1920 season, he was rooming by himself on the road and had installed a private phone line by his locker at the Polo Grounds. He remained the same self-absorbed player he had always been - yet in New York, he was celebrated for it. The timing was perfect, with the insatiable Ruth landing in the center of the most vibrant, most exciting, most over-the-top city in the world at the dawn of the hedonistic 1920s.
Stout refers to Ruth numerous times as "oblivious" to his surroundings. While Ruth was unquestionably self-centered and often acted as though his own goals were the only ones that existed, to insinuate that he was clueless about what was going on around him is not believable (and more than a little unfair). With regards to the potential strike before Game 5 of the 1918 World Series, the fact that Ruth is not quoted in any of the newspapers does not mean he didn't know what was going on. The only player quoted regarding the strike on either the Red Sox or the Cubs was Boston's Harry Hooper, the spokesman of the four-man representative group that met with the National Commission.
Ruth slumped during his first month with the Yankees, in 1920, entering May batting only .226 with one extra base hit. However, he soon got hot, posting a 1.384 OPS in May. His batting average soared because outfielders played so deep, it left a lot of green space for short flies and line drives to fall in.
And Ruth destroyed a long list of established records. Sam Thompson had set the all-time season slugging percentage mark in 1894 at .696. In 1920 and 1921, Ruth slugged .847 and .846. Back in 1894, Hugh Duffy had an all-time best OPS of 1.196. In 1920, Ruth obliterated that mark with an OPS that was nearly 200 points higher: 1.379.
Ruth clubbed 29 home runs in 1919, something no player had ever done. Anyone who had come close in years past, like Ned Williamson in 1884, was playing at least half his games on fields with extremely short fences that artificially boosted his totals. Then, in 1920, Ruth nearly doubled his previous record-setting total, smacking 54. And he bettered that with 59 in 1921. Ruth was not only doing things at the plate that no one else had seen, he was doing things no one could even imagine.
Ruth believed that swinging from the heels hurt his batting average. (His lifetime average of .342 is tied for ninth all-time.) If he simply tried for singles, Ruth once claimed, he could have batted .600. During his Yankees career, Ruth flirted with .400 several times. He batted over .375 four times in a five-year period, finishing 1923 at .393. I have often wondered what Ruth could have done if he had put his theory into practice, and tried making contact for small hits for an entire season. He probably would not have hit .600, though. Probably.
There are incorrect words ("if" instead of "it" and "it" instead of "in", as though the manuscript was scanned but not cleaned up), misplaced apostrophes ("the Tiger's Ty Cobb"), and (especially) extra words in sentences: "baseball had a faced a challenge", "a big league team team", "for the that year's World Series", and "seemed like he did didn't want to".
In addition, this book could have used one more round of rewriting/editing. There are too many run-on sentences that should be split up, far too many confusing moments when a reader is not sure who is the subject of a sentence. There are awkward word choices: "wise-old heads shaking their heads" and "Those he favored reaped the benefits in the form of favorable trades and other favors".
I want to emphasize that none of these errors should diminish the quality and depth of Stout's research, but they do reflect extremely poorly on the entire production. If I was in Stout's shoes, I'd be smoke-coming-out-of-my-ears furious at Thomas Dunne for its lazy, unprofessional work on the book.
October 2, 2016
2016 Postseason Schedule
American League Wild Card 1004 - Orioles at Blue Jays National League Wild Card 1005 - Giants at Mets American League Division Series 1006 - Red Sox at Cleveland 1007 - Red Sox at Cleveland 1009 - Cleveland at Red Sox 1010 - Cleveland at Red Sox 1012 - Red Sox at Cleveland American League Division Series 1006 - BAL/TOR at Rangers 1007 - BAL/TOR at Rangers 1009 - Rangers at BAL/TOR 1010 - Rangers at BAL/TOR 1012 - BAL/TOR at Rangers National League Division Series 1007 - SFG/NYM at Cubs 1008 - SFG/NYM at Cubs 1010 - Cubs at SFG/NYM 1011 - Cubs at SFG/NYM 1013 - SFG/NYM at Cubs National League Division Series 1007 - Dodgers at Nationals 1008 - Dodgers at Nationals 1010 - Nationals at Dodgers 1011 - Nationals at Dodgers 1013 - Dodgers at Nationals American League Championship Series 1014 - G1 1015 - G2 1017 - G3 1018 - G4 1019 - G5 1021 - G6 1022 - G7 National League Championship Series 1015 - G1 1016 - G2 1018 - G3 1019 - G4 1020 - G5 1022 - G6 1023 - G7 World Series 1025 - NL at AL 1026 - NL at AL 1028 - AL at NL 1029 - AL at NL 1030 - AL at NL 1101 - NL at AL 1102 - NL at AL
G162: Blue Jays 2, Red Sox 1
Blue Jays - 000 010 010 - 2 9 0 Red Sox - 000 000 100 - 1 4 1The Red Sox were no-hit by Aaron Sanchez for 6.2 innings until Hanley Ramirez homered down the left field line. The Blue Jays challenged the initial call of "home run", but the umpires upheld it after a review.
After the Jays went ahead against Brad Ziegler, the Red Sox had two innings in which to come back. Chris Young singled to start the eighth, but Andrew Benintendi was called out on strikes (as Young stole second). Dustin Pedroia grounded to third and Brock Holt struck out swinging.
In the bottom of the ninth, Mookie Betts grounded to short and David Ortiz tapped out catcher-to-first. Hanley Ramirez walked and Xander Bogaerts singled to center to create some excitement. But Jackie Bradley grounded out to third.
In the final regular season game of his career, Ortiz - who had one of his best seasons at the plate - went 0-for-4, with two strikeouts.
The Red Sox finished the regular season at 93-69. Cleveland (94-67) has a make-up game scheduled for tomorrow against the Tigers. But since Cleveland has secured home field advantage for the ALDS, that game may not be played.
Aaron Sanchez / David Price
Pedroia, 2BWEEI:
Holt, 3B
Betts, RF
Ortiz, DH
Ramirez, 1B
Bogaerts, SS
Bradley, CF
Leon, C
Benintendi, LF
If the Red Sox beat the Blue Jays, they will force the Indians to win both their Sunday tilt with Kansas City and a make-up game in Detroit in order to have the ALDS start at Progressive Field.Leo Ortiz, the Large Father's father, talking about staying in Boston for the festivities for his son:
If the Red Sox lose Sunday, and the Indians beat KC, the series will start in Cleveland.
If the Red Sox lose against the Blue Jays, and Cleveland loses Sunday, the Indians would play Detroit Monday. Terry Francona's team would then decide its own fate because of the tie-breaker.
I'm going to be here until the World Series because we're going to win that, too.
Red Sox Will Retire Ortiz's #34 Next Season
The Red Sox announced during Sunday's celebration of David Ortiz's career that the team will retire Big Papi's #34 in 2017.
Other announcements: The bridge over the Mass Pike on Brookline Avenue is now the "Big Papi Bridge" and the street that intersects with the T station near Fenway Park will be renamed "David Ortiz Drive".
Vin Scully's Last Game
After 67 years behind the microphone, Vin Scully will call his last baseball game this afternoon at 3 PM. Dodgers at Giants.
Grant Brisbee, SB Nation:
Grant Brisbee, SB Nation:
Baseball on the radio sticks around as a kind of anachronism as the rest of the world shifts to television for its news and entertainment, and it sticks around long after the quality of televised baseball improves. Not only is it the format that you can sneak up to your room, follow at work, and bring to the beach with you, but the pace of the game fits it perfectly.
Baseball is action and inaction, with the gaps giving us time to breathe, time to contemplate the next move. It’s sort of a cliché to compare baseball to chess, but ... c'mon, the fastball's the rook, the curveball's the bishop, the slider's the knight ... here, let me draw you a diagram. As the catcher and pitcher are figuring this all out, the hitter is going through the permutations in his head, too. Runners are leading. The crowd is roaring. Everyone crouches down and waits for the next active moment. There's tension. Oh, how there's tension.
And there's a voice describing it all. When you're following the radio, you get one sense to work with, and then you have to fill the rest in on your own. That means your imagination has to do at least a quarter of the work, and sometimes it sighs and complains, but it's OK because you're your imagination's biggest fan. It was designed just for you, you know.
Scully was that voice for everyone, echoing through the garage while you were under a car, in the car as you were going for a drive, at the mechanic's because you had no business being under the car in the first place. When you're young, old, in-between, with an old friend, remembering an old friend, everywhere.
When television took over, Scully spent more and more time on the medium, for different sports and different audiences. But the foundation of the affection felt for him, the necessity of him, was built on the stream of consciousness coming over the radio. It was perfect for him. Baseball was perfect for the radio. He was perfect for baseball. The feedback loop got stronger with each decade.
* * *
It helps that Scully is the best, of course, a master storyteller with a photographic memory and appreciation for tangents. It helps that his voice is unquestionably the archetype of what a sports broadcaster's voice should be — calm, sonorous, with enough range to let you know when the really important stuff is happening. It helps that he knows he's there in service of the game, not the other way around, which means there are times when it's better to shut up and let the crowd call the game for a little bit.
It's possible that Scully holds the highest possible approval rating for anyone who's done any job in the history of the world. ...
Everyone else loves him. Probably because he's the best.
October 1, 2016
G161: Blue Jays 4, Red Sox 3
Blue Jays - 020 001 001 - 4 4 0 Red Sox - 200 000 010 - 3 5 0Craig Kimbrel walked the first batter he faced in the top of the ninth (Michael Saunders). The Jays pinch-ran Dalton Pompey and bunted him to second. Kimbrel's wild pitch put Pompey on third. A sacrifice fly brought him home and broke a 3-3 tie.
The Red Sox went in order in the bottom of the ninth.
Mookie Betts went 2-for-4 (and scored twice) and has 214 hits this season. Only two men in Red Sox history have had more hits in one season: Wade Boggs (240 in 1985) and Tris Speaker (222 in 1912).
Also, the Red Sox have three players (Betts, David Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez) with at least 110 RBI for the first time since 1950 (Bobby Doerr, Walt Dropo, Vern Stephens). There have been five Red Sox teams with three players with 110+ RBI: 1940, 1946, 1948, 1950, 2016.
Pedroia, 2BIt is official: The Red Sox will play against Cleveland in the ALDS.
Bogaerts, SS
Betts, RF
Ortiz, DH
Ramirez, 1B
Young, LF
Bradley, CF
Hill, 3B
Vazquez, C
Today's Toronto Sun:
A Look At The Potential Winners Of 2016 W-L Contest
The Red Sox are 93-67 with two games remaining. Thus, they can finish the season with 93, 94, or 95 wins. Looking back at our contest entries, we have these remaining eligible entries:
W-L PRICE ERA Chris S 95-67 2.63 David P 95-67 2.99 Bernard S 93-69 2.66 Dan C 93-69 2.81 Jeff M 93-69 3.09 Benjamin B 93-69 3.18 Lewis S 93-69 3.37David Price will start the final game of the regular season on Sunday and even if he throws nine shutout innings, his current ERA of 4.04 will drop only to 3.88. So what we are left with is a two-man race:
W-L PRICE ERA David P 95-67 2.99 Lewis S 93-69 3.37
September 30, 2016
G160: Red Sox 5, Blue Jays 3
Blue Jays - 000 030 000 - 3 10 2 Red Sox - 100 000 40x - 5 10 0David Ortiz snapped a 3-3 tie with a line drive two-run homer to right field. It was his 38th rally killer of the season. Ortiz also got Boston on the board with an RBI-single in the first inning.
The Red Sox trailed 3-1 when Andrew Benintendi started the seventh with a double. Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin committed a throwing error on Dustin Pedroia's short grounder, and Benintendi scored. Pedroia went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Mookie Betts's single to center, tying the game. Brett Cecil game in from the pen and Ortiz took the goggled lefty deep.
The runs were especially welcome since the Red Sox had stranded two runners in the fourth, and wasted Pedroia's leadoff double in the fifth and Xander Bogaerts's one-out triple in the sixth.
Koji Uehara allowed a walk and a double with one out in the top of the eighth, but got a pop-up and a grounder to third to end the Jays' threat.
Craig Kimbrel faced Toronto's 3-4-5 hitters in the top of the ninth. Edwin Encarnacion grounded to third. Jose Bautista walked on five pitches. Martin fouled to first. Kimbrel's first pitch to Troy Tulowitzki was wild, and Bautista went to second. Kimbrel couldn't find the plate and ended up walking Tulowitzki. Dalton Pompey pinch-ran. With the potential tying runs on base, Dioner Navarro hit for Justin Smoak. Kimbrel fanned him on three pitches to end the game.
With the Orioles beating the Yankees and the Tigers topping Atlanta, the Blue Jays (having lost four straight) are in danger of stumbling out of the wild card race.
Pedroia went 3-for-5, and now has 201 hits. It's the second time in his career he has topped 200 hits; he finished his MVP season in 2008 with 213. ... Ortiz and Benintendi each had two hits.
Pedroia, 2BThese pitchers faced each other back on September 9 at Skydome. Boston won that game 13-3 and I expect (nay, I demand) more of the same tonight.
Holt, 3B
Betts, RF
Ortiz, DH
Ramirez, 1B
Bogaerts, SS
Bradley, CF
Leon, C
Benintendi, LF
The Red Sox are two games behind the Rangers for best record in the AL with three games remaining, so Boston will likely face the Cleveland Titos in the ALDS next Thursday. As MLB.com noted: "To face another opponent besides Cleveland, the Red Sox would have to sweep the Blue Jays at home this weekend and the Rangers would have to be swept in Texas by the last-place Tampa Bay Rays."
In the AL Wild Card race, the Blue Jays and Orioles are tied for the top spot(s), with the Tigers 1.5 GB and the Mariners 2 GB. The AL Wild Card game will be played next Tuesday.
Also: An image of David Ortiz has been mowed into the Fenway outfield grass.
September 29, 2016
G159: Yankees 5, Red Sox 1
Red Sox - 000 100 000 - 1 4 0 Yankees - 100 012 01x - 5 8 0CC Sabathia pitched well (7.1-4-1-2-8, 105) as the Yankees finished a three-game sweep of the Red Sox.
New York's three wins were utterly meaningless, though, as the AL-East-champion Red Sox will be playing in the ALDS next week, while the fourth-place Yankees will watch that (and every other) postseason series at home on their big-screen TVs.
During the game, the Yankees were mathematically eliminated from the 2016 postseason. Enjoy your sweep, losers!
Xander Boagerts hit a solo home run in the fourth. ... David Ortiz struck out and walked in his two plate appearances.
Hill, 3BAll I know is that the Red Sox will be playing baseball next week ... and the Yankees will not.
Benintendi, LF
Bogaerts, SS
Ortiz, DH
Young, RF
Bradley, CF
Hanigan, C
Shaw, 1B
Marrero, 2B
David Ortiz: "I wanted to celebrate on that field so bad, but it is what it is. We're going to celebrate anyway."
Jackie Bradley: "[A]s soon as we got in here, we quickly got over it. We're ecstatic. We're glad to be able to go to the postseason and make some noise."
John Farrell: "I told them, don't let one inning take away from what they've done for seven full months."
John Henry: "When a team is as effective as this team has been on the road late in the season, you know there's something special. I feel pretty good. Let's put it this way: Where we are now, I wouldn't want to play us going into the playoffs because this is a really talented team and really tough."
April 14, 1933: Red Ruffing (NY's starting pitcher), Yankees 6-2
August 12, 1942: Charlie Keller, Yankees 8-4
July 11, 1959: Don Buddin, Red Sox 8-4 (10)
September 28, 2016: Mark Teixeira, Yankees 5-3
September 28, 2016
G158: Yankees 5, Red Sox 3
Red Sox - 000 000 030 - 3 5 0 Yankees - 000 000 005 - 5 3 1The Boston Red Sox are the 2016 American League East Champions!
However ...
The Red Sox clinched their eighth division title because the Blue Jays lost to the Orioles. In the Bronx, however, Craig Kimbrel and Joe Kelly combined to blow the game in the bottom of the ninth as Mark Teixeira smacked a walk-off grand slam. The Red Sox had a golden opportunity to end New York's slim postseason hopes, but that will have to wait until tomorrow night.
After last-place finishes in 2014 and 2015, winning the division is very sweet. But I can only imagine that whatever post-game celebration the Red Sox had was awkward and subdued.
Clay Buchholz (6-1-0-2-6, 89) was magnificent. The only hit he allowed was a little infield roller by Brett Gardner in the fourth that third baseman Brock Holt could not made a bare-handed grab of.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox could do nothing with Yankees starter Bryan Mitchell (7-2-0-5-2, 94). They threatened in the fifth. Hanley Ramirez walked, but was caught stealing. Then Jackie Bradley walked. And Holt walked. With Mitchell unable to find the strike zone, Andrew Benintendi swung at the first pitch and fouled to first. Then Sandy Leon swung at the first pitch and grounded out to second. Maddening.
Once Mitchell was gone, though, the Red Sox pounced on Adam Warren. Leon reached when his routine grounder to second was booted by Starlin Castro. Marco Hernandez pinch-ran and had to stop at third on Dustin Pedroia's ground-rule double to right-center. Xander Bogaerts lined out to third and Hernandez was close enough to the bag to get back safely. David Ortiz was walked intentionally, loading the bases. Mookie Betts (6-for-10 against Warren) chopped a ground ball over the head of third baseman Chase Headley and down the left field line for a two-run double. After Ramirez was intentionally walked, New York brought in Tommy Layne. Bradley popped to short center and after pinch-hitter Aaron Hill was walked intentionally, Benintendi flied to left.
Koji Uehara needed 25 pitches to get through the eighth, but all he surrendered was a one-out walk. That was smooth sailing compared to what was to come. As Kimbrel took the mound in the ninth, news arrived from Toronto of Baltimore's victory and the Red Sox's clinching of the East. Now, three quick outs would make the night doubly enjoyable, as New York's (pipe) dreams of playoff baseball would also end. Gardner began the ninth with a hard single to center. After Gardner took second on indifference, Kimbrel walked Jacoby Ellsbury. Then Kimbrel threw a wild pitch. Then Kimbrel walked Gary Sanchez, loading the bases. Joe Kelly began warming up. Then Kimbrel walked Brian McCann to force in a run. (In Kimbrel's defense, his 2-2 pitch was very clearly a strike (and thus the first out), but home plate umpire John Tumpane (who was dogshit all night long) called it a ball.)
Manager John Farrell came out to change pitchers and Kimbrel actually looked surprised. He had thrown 28 pitches, recorded 0 outs and left the potential winning run on first - and he was shocked he was being lifted? Is he insane? Kelly began restoring some order, striking out Castro on three pitches and getting Didi Gregorius to foul out to Bogaerts. Kelly got a called strike on Teixeira, but the horse-faced douche bonnet hit his 0-1 pitch over the fence in right-center. And the Yankees began celebrating as if they had won the East (and were not actually 10 games out).
Pedroia, 2BBoston's magic number for winning the AL East is 1 with 5 games to play. ... Also: Orioles/Blue Jays.
Bogaerts, SS
Ortiz, DH
Betts, RF
Ramirez, 1B
Bradley, CF
Holt, 3B
Benintendi, LF
Leon, C
BOS --- TOR 5.0 BAL 7.0 MFY 11.0
September 27, 2016
G157: Yankees 6, Red Sox 4
Red Sox - 000 002 200 - 4 10 1 Yankees - 200 011 20x - 6 13 1It was a frustrating Tuesday night in the Bronx.
David Price (6.1-12-6-1-2, 89) had an ineffective start, allowing three home runs, John Farrell had a slow hook on Price, the Red Sox's bats were cold against the immortal Luis Cessa (6-5-2-1-2, 84), and David Ortiz, in his final visit to Yankee Stadium(s), batted in clutch situations in three different late innings, and came up empty each time. And so Boston's 11-game winning streak came to an end.
Price put his teammates in an early hole when he gave up a two-run homer to Gary Sanchez in the first inning. Singles by Austin Romine and Tyler Austin (New York's 8th- and 9th-place hitters) set the table in the fifth, and Jacoby Ellsbury singled home Romine to make it 3-0.
Boston narrowed that gap to 3-2 in the top of the sixth. Andrew Benintendi reached second when his ground ball up the first base line was thrown away by Cessa. Dustin Pedroia promptly singled him home. Xander Bogaerts doubled into the left field corner, putting runners at second and third with no outs. The heart of Boston's order squandered the golden opportunity. Ortiz struck out, Mookie Betts grounded to second (scoring Pedroia), and Hanley Ramirez struck out. New York got one run back in the bottom half on a home run by Didi Gregorius.
In the seventh, with Cessa out of the game, the Red Sox rallied. Facing lefty Tommy Layne, Aaron Hill, pinch-hitting for Brock Holt, homered to left. Jackie Bradley singled and Sandy Leon bunted him to second. Benintendi struck out, but Pedroia lined a single to right, scoring JBJ and tying the game at 4-4.
Price was shaky all night and Farrell would have been justified in pulling him after six innings, even though he had thrown only 76 pitches. But Farrell let Price start the seventh - and the game was lost within two batters. Romine singled and Austin homered to right, giving the Yankees a 6-4 lead. Farrell actually left Price in to allow a single to Brett Gardner and a soft line out by Ellsbury before Brad Ziegler induced a double play grounder from Sanchez.
In the eighth, trailing by two, Ramirez walked with one out. But Chris Young forced him at second and Bradley fanned.
The Red Sox faced Tyler Clippard in the ninth. With one out, Benintendi doubled into the right field corner and Pedroia walked. Even though Clippard was struggling to find the strike zone and seemingly unwilling to throw fastballs, Bogaerts swung at the first pitch - and popped out to shortstop. That left matters in the hands of Ortiz, as the potential go-ahead run with two outs. Throughout his career, Big Papi had tormented the Yankees so many times in situations like this one, but some Ortiz heroics were not in the cards tonight. He swung badly at a 1-1 pitch in the dirt and eventually struck out on a full-count off-speed pitch.
The Blue Jays beat the Orioles, so Boston's magic number remains at 1.
Pedroia, 2BYankees Say Good Riddance To David Ortiz, The Best To Ever Own Them
Bogaerts, SS
Ortiz, DH
Betts, RF
Ramirez, 1B
Holt, 3B
Bradley, CF
Leon, C
Benintendi, LF
Mike Vaccaro, Post:
Late in the '03 season, Steinbrenner took The Post's Joel Sherman aside and insisted he'd told GM Brian Cashman to look into making Ortiz a Yankee only to be told by Cashman: "We don't need him. We have Jason Giambi. We have Nick Johnson."Hanley Ramirez has 29 home runs and 110 RBI this season. If he hits one more home run, the Red Sox will have three batters top 30/100 in a season for the first time.
Steinbrenner backed off. But by September of 2003, after Ortiz had already started to hint at the kind of damage he would rain down on the Yankees, Steinbrenner insisted that he'd seen what was coming.
"I said, 'Find a way!'" Steinbrenner told Sherman. "'He's going to be tough.'" ...
Ortiz came at along at precisely the right time, and he dived into this ancient cauldron with both feet, and alongside his countrymen Martinez and Manny Ramirez he immediately found ways to taunt and torture the Bombers. ...
And here Ortiz is. Here he remains. Here is Big Papi, set to take one last curtain call in The Bronx these next three days, a pit stop on the way to one more postseason and perhaps a fourth World Series. Here is Papi, who has been equal parts feared and loathed in the Bronx ... 240 games. 271 hits. 53 homers, 75 doubles, even a triple. 140 walks. A batting split-line of .307/.397/.574, an OPS of .970. ...
Ortiz is the Yankees killer to end all Yankees killers. He is the one who has given more night sweats to more Yankees pitchers (and Yankees fans) than anybody, mostly because he has played for a team (and for a city) that has been the object of Yankees obsession from the moment he arrived.
HR RBI David Ortiz 37 124 Mookie Betts 31 109 Hanley Ramirez 29 110The last two teams to have three 30/100 hitters were the 2015 Blue Jays and 2006 White Sox.
One of my favourite Red Sox teams - the 1977 Crunch Bunch - came close, with four hitters topping 25/100 and three hitters exceeding 30/95:
HR RBI Jim Rice 39 114 Butch Hobson 30 112 Carl Yastrzemski 28 102 Carlton Fisk 26 102 George Scott 33 95Boston's magic number for winning the AL East is 1 with 6 games to play. It is extremely likely that the Red Sox will celebrate clinching the division in front of tens of thousands of Yankee fans (whose team did not spend even one day in first place this year). ... Also: Orioles/Blue Jays.
BOS --- TOR 6.0 BAL 7.0 MFY 12.0
Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel: How Pitch FX Technology Could Change Baseball
This looks like must-see TV.
Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel Explores How Pitch FX Technology Could Change Baseball
When A New Edition Debuts Tuesday, Sept. 27 On HBO
Complaining about balls and strikes is nothing new in the game of baseball. It's been going on throughout the history of the game… and over the years, has become a genuine part of the game… an art form practiced and perfected by some of the legends of the sport…But for all that time, it was just one man's opinion against another's. Not anymore.
Because now, high-tech cameras are in use in every Major League park… capable of mapping the precise path of every pitch…in real time.
Which means that today, everyone watching a game – from broadcasters to TV viewers to fans watching online – can see for sure whether a pitch actually hits the strike zone… or misses it.
Everyone, that is ... but the guy who gets to decide.
HBO'S JON FRANKEL: "So you're saying the guy at home, the fan in the stands, the--"
MLB NETWORK ANALYST ERIC BYRNES: "The guy at home they have--"
JON FRANKEL: "--guys in the dugout."
ERIC BYRNES: "Jon, they have it on the TV. We see the boxes. Why do millions of people at home sitting there watching on TV get to know whether it's a ball or a strike? Yet the poor dude behind home plate is the one left in the dark. That's bullshit."
So former MLB players Eric Byrnes says it's time. Time to take one of the iconic figures of American culture … the wise and judicious home plate umpire … and replace him with … yes … a computer.
JON FRANKEL: "Could you ever see a situation where you might want technology?"
JERRY CRAWFORD: "Never, It's ridiculous."
JON FRANKEL: "But progress is a good thing, isn't it?"
JERRY CRAWFORD: "Not in the game of baseball."
Jerry Crawford was an umpire in the Major Leagues for 34 years… and fought his share of battles with players and managers upset about balls and strikes.
[W]e went to Yale University and asked one of the leading mathematics experts in the country for some help...
Professor Toby Moskowitz agreed to analyze every pitch called by Major League umpires over the last three and a half years … about a million in all.
While Major League Baseball claims that its umpires get nearly 97% of the calls right… Professor Moskowitz found that since 2013 the umpires are actually only about 88% accurate… that they get 1 out of every 8 calls wrong… piling up more than 30,000 mistakes a year.
And that's including the easy calls ... the many pitches that go right down the middle ... or way off the plate ... that scarcely require a decision.
When the umps have to actually make a decision ... when the pitches are anywhere near the border of the strike zone … they miss at an even higher rate ... much higher.
YALE PROFESSOR TOBY MOSKOWITZ: "In that area they get it wrong 31.7% of the time. Just a little under one out of every three calls in that zone, they get wrong." ...
Former umpire Jerry Crawford says he doesn't trust the math ... or the technology... which he says is no match for guys like him.
JERRY CRAWFORD: "I don't care what the guy from Yale's looked at, to be honest with you. It's not even feasible. He's absolutely incorrect."
Major League Baseball, however, appears to disagree. The league has not only installed the computer system in every park… but for the last several years has actually been using it to try to tutor their own umpires…
Yes, after every game umpires are shown exactly where each pitch actually was ... so they can review what they got right and what they got wrong.
At least, that's what the league thinks is happening.
JERRY CRAWFORD: "About 20 minutes after the game was over, there would be a knock on the door. There would be a guy standing there. He'd have a disc. He'd say—'umpire Crawford?' I'd say, 'Me.' He'd hand me the disc.
JON FRANKEL: "And you would usually do what?"
JERRY CRAWFORD: "I threw it in the trash."
JON FRANKEL: "Are you telling me you never sat down and used it as a learning tool to improve the way you call the game?"
JERRY CRAWFORD: "No, I didn't. I never did."
September 26, 2016
Jackie Robinson's Inconvenient History: "I Cannot Stand And Sing The Anthem. I Cannot Salute The Flag."
Jackie Robinson, from I Never Had It Made:
[In 1972,] I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world.Two years earlier, in a letter to his agent, Robinson wrote:
I once put my freedom into mothballs for a season, accepted humiliation and physical hurt and derision and threats to my family in order to do my bit to help make a lily white sport a truly American game. Many people approved of me for that kind of humility. For them, it was the appropriate posture for a black man. ...See also: Shaun King's column in the New York Daily News: "If You Hate Colin Kaepernick, You Must Also Hate Jackie Robinson":
But when I straightened up my back so oppressors could no longer ride upon it, some of the same people said I was arrogant, argumentative and temperamental. What they call arrogant, I call confidence. What they call argumentative, I categorize as articulate. What they label temperamental, I cite as human. ...
I do not have to wave flags or have stickers on my car or wear patriotic cufflinks or armbands on my sleeve. I do not have to leave this country at the suggestion of some third generation European who wants to compare grandfathers — his who came here seeking freedom and immediately enslaved others for his own advancement — and mine who was brought here in chains in the stinking hold of a ship.
This land is my land as much as it is his. And it is his, too. With the land, I've been told, Americans inherit the legacy of free speech, free expression, of the right to dissent. I always intend to indulge that freedom.
In America, brave heroes who stand against injustice have a way of being hated, booed, and mercilessly jeered when they are alive and celebrated to the point of near sainthood when they pass from time to eternity.
September 25, 2016
Red Sox Pitchers Record 23 Strikeouts In 10 Innings
Eduardo Rodriguez matched a career high with 13 strikeouts, including his final 11 outs. Heath Hembree struck out all five batters he faced. Matt Barnes got one out, on a strikeout. And Joe Kelly, who closed the game, recorded four strikeouts.
It was only the fifth major league game (since 1913) with at least 23 strikeouts by one team. And the Red Sox's win was by far the shortest game.
July 9, 1971 - Athletics 1, Angels 0 - Athletics: 26 K in 20 innings
May 15, 2003 - Cubs 4, Brewers 2 - Cubs: 24 K in 17 innings
May 31, 2003 - Cubs 1, Astros 0 - Astros: 23 K in 15.1 innings
June 8, 2004 - Brewers 1, Angels 0 - Angels: 26 K in 17 innings
September 25, 2016 - Red Sox 3, Rays 2 - Red Sox: 23 K in 10 innings
The 23 strikeouts set a new Red Sox team record, breaking the old mark of 20, which had been accomplished four times:
April 29, 1986 - 3-1 win over Mariners in 9 innings (Clemens 20)
September 18, 1996 - 4-0 win over Tigers in 9 innings (Clemens 20)
September 15, 1999 - 6-4 win over Cleveland in 13 innings (Pedro 14, Cormier 1, Beck 2, Wasdin 3)
June 12, 2009 - 5-2 win over Phillies in 13 innings (Lester 11, Okajima 2, Ramirez 1, Masterson 3, Bard 3)
The 21 strikeouts recorded in the first nine innings is the most in major league history, but it will not be listed as a nine-inning record, according to Elias Sports Bureau, because the game actually lasted 10 innings.
The 11 strikeouts by Rodriguez and Hembree in 11 consecutive plate appearances set a new major league record. The old mark was 10, set by Tom Seaver of the Mets on April 22, 1970. Seaver struck out the last 10 Padres in the game.
I am assuming that the 17 consecutive outs recorded by the Red Sox via strikeout is also a major league record.
One account of the game said the Rays did not put the ball in play for 2 hours and 11 minutes.
Tampa Bay's play-by-play:
1 - L5 K 1B F9 2 - 2B BB K 1B F8 K 3 - HP K K K 4 - K BB K K 5 - K K K 6 - K K K 7 - K K K 8 - 1B K BB 1B 463 9 - P5 K K 10 - 1B K K 1B F7Strikeout linescore: 123 333 312 2 - 23.
G156: Red Sox 3, Rays 2 (10)
Red Sox - 101 000 000 1 - 3 8 0 Rays - 010 000 010 0 - 2 7 1
This is the Red Sox's longest winning streak in September since the 1949 team won 11 straight (September 13-27).
Led by Eduardo Rodriguez (5.1-3-1-2-13, 113) Red Sox pitchers struck out 23 Rays hitters. Rodriguez and Heath Hembree combined to strike out 11 consecutive batters in the middle innings, a new major league record. From the second inning to the eighth, the Red Sox recorded 17 straight outs by strikeout. There were two walks, a HBP and a single in that stretch, so 21 Rays batters came to the plate over parts of seven innings and hit only one fair ball. MLB.com reports there was an "astonishing two-hour and 11-minute drought in between balls put in play".
Mookie Betts singled in Xander Bogaerts in the first inning, but the Rays tied the game in the second. Dustin Pedroia snapped the 1-1 tie with a solo home run in the third. In the home half of the eighth, after Matt Barnes put two men on base, Fernando Abad gave up a run-scoring single to Brad Miller. Manager John Farrell had been relying on Robbie Ross and Robbie Scott as his bullpen lefties, so it was odd that he would rely on Abad in such a high-leverage situation. Perhaps this was a small postseason try-out for Abad? If so, he failed.
In the top of the tenth, Pedroia singled off Eddie Gamboa. Bogaerts lined out to left, but David Ortiz (3-for-5) doubled to center. The throw to the plate beat Pedroia but he juked to the right, avoiding Luke Maile's initial attempt at a tag. Pedroia danced around briefly, trying to get in and touch home plate. He saw his opening and leapt over Maile and the catcher tried tagging his leg. It looked like Maile tagged Pedroia's left leg, but the ball came loose, and he was called safe. After a review, the call was upheld. (I think the call should have been reversed. It looked like the ball came loose after Maile's tag, not in the process of making the tag.)
Joe Kelly had come into the game in the eighth after Abad's one-batter stint. He closed that inning and pitched the ninth and tenth. Richie Shaffer began the home tenth with a hard single that ate up third baseman Travis Shaw and went into left field. Kelly struck out Logan Forsythe and Jaff Decker (though Decker took eight pitches). Evan Longoria singled to right, moving Shaffer to second. Miller lined Kelly's first pitch to left for the third out.
Pedroia, 2BThe Red Sox will play postseason baseball in 2016, as they have secured (at the very least) a spot in the AL Wild Card Game. Boston (91-64) is one game behind the Rangers for the AL's best record (home-field advantage throughout the postseason). (The current postseason picture.)
Bogaerts, SS
Ortiz, DH
Betts, RF
Ramirez, 1B
Holt, 3B
Young, LF
Benintendi, CF
Vazquez, C
Boston's magic number for winning the AL East is 3 with 7 games to play. ... Also today: Yankees/Blue Jays (1 PM) and Diamondbacks/Orioles (1:30 PM).
BOS --- TOR 5.5 BAL 7.0 MFY 11.5
September 24, 2016
G155: Red Sox 6, Rays 4
Red Sox - 010 100 400 - 6 8 0 Rays - 003 000 001 - 4 11 0
It's a good thing we don't actually have robot umpires because Danny Farquhar's 1-2 pitch to Pedroia in that at-bat was in the strike zone and should have been called strike 3, ending the inning. But home plate arbiter Carlos Torres called it ball 2. After fouling a pitch off, Pedroia cracked his four-run dong. Manager John Farrell mixed and matched relievers in the seventh, and Koji Uehara Craig Kimbrel took charge of the final two innings.
The Red Sox scored first in this one, when Brock Holt doubled home Mookie Betts in the second.
Rick Porcello (6.1-8-3-1-9, 116) was hit hard in the early innings. He escaped a jam in the second, when the Rays had runners at second and third and one out, thanks to some marvelous fielding by Pedroia and Holt. Porcello was not so lucky in the third. With two on and two outs, Brad Miller drove both runners in with a double over Jackie Bradley's head in center. Corey Dickerson followed with a single that made it 3-1.
Boston got one of those runs back right away, as Betts walked and stole second and scored on Hanley Ramirez's single. But Holt grounded into an inning-ending double play.
The Rays threatened to add to their lead in the sixth. Miller walked and went to third on Nick Franklin's single to center. But Porcello struck out Mikie Mahtook and got a fielder's choice grounder to shortstop from Alexei Ramirez.
Ramirez began the lucky seventh against Ryan Garton by grounding a single to right. Holt lined a single to center and the table was set. Chris Young was out on a dribbler in front of the plate, catcher to first, and the runners advanced to second and third. Lefty Dana Eveland came in to face Bradley and walked him on four pitches, loading the bases. Rays manager Kevin Cash called on Farquhar, who got Sandy Leon to hit a sharp grounder to Longoria at third. He threw home to force Ramirez for the second out; there was no relay throw. Pedroia fell behind 0-2, but battled, fouling off four pitches before finally homering to left.
Porcello was at 104 pitches at that point and when the Red Sox went ahead, it seemed all but certain that his night was over. He now qualified for the "win" and the bullpen could likely handle the three-inning load. But Farrell had him on the mound for the bottom of the seventh. Porcello allowed a single to ninth-place hitter Curt Casali and then struck out Logan Forsythe. With Porcello now at 116 pitches, his second-highest total of the season, Farrell finally pulled him and went to the bullpen. Robbie Scott allowed a single to Kevin Kiermaier, bringing the potential tying run to the plate. Brad Ziegler got Evan Longoria to line out to center and Robbie Ross retired Miller on a fly to Betts on the warning track in right.
Uehara allowed a leadoff double to Dickerson in the eighth. With Franklin batting, Uehara's 0-1 pitch was in the dirt and got away from Leon and rolled a bit towards first base. Dickerson took off for third and was easily gunned down. Franklin flied to right and Mahtook was called out on strikes (although strike three was probably actually ball 4; another gift for the Red Sox).
Kimbrel allowed a solo homer to Forsythe with two outs in the ninth, but he struck out Kiermaier (though it took 10 pitches) to end the game.
Betts had reached base at least three times in five straight games - the Red Sox's record is seven - but that streak came to an end, as he only singled and walked today. (The Red Sox record of consecutive games reaching base at least twice is 23 (!), by Ted Williams in 1957. TSW also holds the second-highest total (21) and the third-highest total (18).)
Betts now has 208 hits. Only eight Red Sox players have had as many or more hits in a season.
Most Hits in Red Sox Season, 1901-2016
YEAR HITS
Wade Boggs 1985 240
Tris Speaker 1912 222
Wade Boggs 1988 214
Jim Rice 1978 213
Dustin Pedroia 2008 213
Adrian Gonzalez 2011 213
Jacoby Ellsbury 2011 212
Wade Boggs 1983 210
Nomar Garciaparra 1997 209
Johnny Pesky 1946 208
Mookie Betts 2016 208
There are seven games remaining in the regular season for Betts to add to his total.The Blue Jays beat the Yankees 3-0 so Boston's magic number is now three. New York has been shutout in three straight games (for the first time since July 27-28 1975 (the Red Sox won the first two of those three games, with a 1-0 and 6-0 doubleheader sweep) and is 11.5 GB.
Pedroia, 2BMatt Collins at OTM is wondering who will start ALDS Game 1.
Bogaerts, SS
Ortiz, DH
Betts, RF
Ramirez, 1B
Holt, 3B
Young, LF
Bradley, CF
Leon, C
Last night's game was only the second time that David Ortiz hit a first-inning home run that accounted for Boston's only runs in a win. The other time was on June 7, 2007, when a solo home run in the first led the Red Sox to a 1-0 win over the A's (Curt Schilling's near no-hitter).
Boston's magic number for winning the AL East is 4 with 8 games to play. ... Also: Yankees/Blue Jays and Diamondbacks/Orioles.
BOS --- TOR 5.5 BAL 7.0 MFY 10.5
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