August 30th, 2006 → 12:19 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Well, it hasn’t been a good month. For real. To wit:
* The Sox record of 8-20 is the worst single-month record since John Henry and Tom Werner bought the team.
* The team has lost 12 of its last 14 games on the road, the worst stretch since 2001. (You remember 2001, right? Jimy Williams, Dan Duquette, and Carl Everett? Good times.)
* They Old Towne Team has lost 13 of its last 16 and 18 of its last 24 games. August is only the second time the Sox have lost more than 20 games in a month since 1966, and the first time the team’s had three losing streaks of five or more games in a single month since 1985. (On the overly optimistic side, that means that if precedent holds, Boston should be back in the Series next year.) Needless to say, the team has the worst record in baseball over the last month.
* August breaks a streak of 13 straight months of over-.500 ball.
It’s not likely to get better anytime soon: there’s not a day off until September 7, and 19 of the last 30 games are versus winning teams. If only the Sox could limit their games for the rest of the season to NL teams. And the Orioles.
Let’s see, what else? Four members of the starting nine are on the DL, and another — who happens to be the best righthanded batter of the past decade — is in the hospital for tests. David Ortiz, the best thing to happen to Boston baseball in a long while, has spent two nights over the past 10 days in Mass General due to an irregular heartbeat. (As Mark Loretta said yesterday, “In all my years you’ve seen injuries and you talk about how every team has injuries, but we’re well beyond that stage.”) The team’s best pitcher over the last month has a body that resembles Bill James‘s more than it does Billy Beane‘s…and he might be traded in the next 30 hours. The active roster is almost unrecognizable. Kyle Snyder, Bryan Corey, Mike Burns, Javy Lopez, Dustin Pedroia, Carlos Pena, Eric Hinske…is this the Red Sox or a reclamation league?
Yup, it’s bad. I’ll take a deeper look at all of this in the next couple of days, but right now I need to head out to an Indian restaurant for lunch (which I’m sure will put me in an even better mood).
In the meantime — and I know, this will be hard — I’ll seek out things to look forward to. Last night, Coco made a helluva catch to rob former clubhouse snake Jay Payton of a hit, which was doubly satisfying; maybe he’ll have some more of these and less of these. I love watching Pedroia. When Carlos Pena fell, headfirst, into the stands in the early innings of his first MLB game of the year, I held my breath — please, god, not another guy on the DL — but I also was weirdly heartened by that type of effort. Hopefully Ortiz will be okay and we can go back to watching him obliterate Jimmie Foxx’s Red Sox single-season HR record (50, 1938). Regardless of whether he has a chance to notch up any more saves this year, Papelbon is a the best baby-faced bulldog anyone’s seen in a while. It’s an open question as to whether the Sox will have more hits than Schilling will have strikeouts in tonight’s game, but Curt will hit 3,000 K’s. And after holding things together with spit and luck, the Sox are, finally, a team with nothing to lose. (Except for games, I mean.) If they pull of some weird, total eclipse string of wins it’ll be a comeback of 2004 proportions. And if not, well, that’s pretty much expected at this point.
So for those of you going to Thursday’s game, do a solid and give these guys a standing O. You can’t blame any of the guys who’ll take the field for what’s been happening, from Cora to Loretta to Youks to Lowell. If Manny and Ortiz (and WMP) come back, you sure as hell can’t blame them, either. (Fine: Coco’s been a disappointment. But if you boo him he might cry. And you don’t want to see him cry.) (You can boo Mike Timlin, but only once, and only for blowing all those games and making those idiotic comments about the offense. After that you need to think back to what he did for this team in ’03, ’04, and ’05.)
I’m not kidding. Give them a standing O. Trust me, you’ll feel better, both about the team and about yourself. We can — and I’m sure we will — go back to complaining and analyzing what went wrong soon enough.
Post Categories: Coco Crisp & Curt Schilling & Injuries
August 29th, 2006 → 6:47 pm @ Seth Mnookin
From the “not-hugely surprising” department: the Sox are apparently shopping David Wells, who passed through waivers and can be traded to any team (although it’ll have to happen in the next couple of days for him to be eligible for the postseason). In this ESPN.com article, Buster Olney lists the Mets, Twins, Diamondbacks, Padres, Dodgers, Phillies, Cardinals, A’s, and Reds as possible destinations. That’s nine teams. Eight other teams have hopes of reaching the playoffs: the Tigers, White Sox, Giants, Marlins, Astros, Brewers, Braves, and Yankees. The Tigers and the White Sox aren’t in the market for starting pitching, despite recent woes. The ‘Stros have Clemens, Oswalt, and Pettitte; their problem is their pen. The Marlins would only agree to a trade if Wells paid them. The Braves’ best pitcher and its GM are too busy sniping back and forth to think about playing baseball in October, the Brewers are suffering from the curse of Bud Selig, and it wouldn’t be right if Barry Bonds got to finish his career in San Francisco with a trip to the playoffs.
That leaves the Yankees. Wells loves the Yankees. New York loves Wells (this guy notwithstanding). The Yankees could certainly use pitching: any team that’s relying on Jared Wright (9-7, 4.72), Cory Lidle (10-9, 4.64 ERA) and, um, Randy Johnson, (14-10, 4.96) can’t be totally secure about its starters. (And it doesn’t look like Carl Pavano will be helping the Yankees this year. Or ever.)
Which I guess means that while players have no compunction about jumping directly from one team to the other, the front offices still aren’t crazy about dealing with each other. Especially in the middle of a pennant race.
(Tomorrow if Wells ends up in pinstripes and this is proven wrong I’ll blame it all on Buster. No, not that one; this one.)
Post Categories: David Wells & Oblique references to Buster Bluth & Red Sox & Yankees
August 29th, 2006 → 6:00 pm @ Seth Mnookin
If there’s anything the last couple of weeks have taught us, it’s that it’s never safe to assume anything (tomorrow night, I wouldn’t be surprised if Theo and Larry Lucchino end up in the outfield). That said, it seems pretty likely that Schilling, with 2999 career strikeouts, will hit 3,000 tomorrow night, putting him 14th on the all-time list and making him one of four active pitchers to reach that plateau (Clemens, 4566; Randy Johnson, 4509; Maddux, 3148. Pedro, for those keeping score, will likely reach it after another couple of starts: he’s sitting at 2986).
The Sox sent out a fact sheet about Schilling’s career K’s; it’s five pages long, so I won’t reprint it here. But the following are some of the highlights:
* He has 457 K’s as a member of the Sox.
* His first strikeout victim was Todd Benzinger…a member of the Red Sox at the time. (My bet for no. 3000 is Milton Bradley.
* He’s struck out 245 Giants, but only 16 Twins.
* He’s topped 300 K’s three times, in ’97 (319), ’98 (300), and ’02 (316).
* He has 279 strike outs at Fenway.
* He’s faced Jeff Fassero 6 times; every time resulted in a whiff.
* He’s faced three players more than 10 times without a single strikeout: Orlando Merced (20 ABs), Warren Morris (15 ABs), and the always-pesky David Eckstein (11 ABs).
* He’s struck out five Hall of Famers (Ryan Sandberg, Eddie Murray, Wade Boggs, Kirby Puckett, and Ozzie Smith), four members of the 500 HR club (Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Murray), three major league managers (Joe Girardi, Willie Randolph, and Mike Scioscia), and two members of the Sox front office (Bob Tewksbury and Craig Shipley).
* No wonder he’s a Republican: he has 1,520 strikeouts during the George H.W. Bush’s and George W. Bush’s administrations but only 1,479 during Clinton’s.
Post Categories: Curt Schilling
August 29th, 2006 → 5:13 pm @ Seth Mnookin
August 29, 5:00 pm Red Sox press release
MANNY RAMIREZ AND WILY MO PENA TO RETURN TO BOSTON FOR FURTHER EXAMINATION
BOSTON, MA–Red Sox outfielders Manny Ramirez and Wily Mo Pena will return to Boston on Tuesday to undergo further examination by team Medical Director Dr. Thomas Gill.
Ramirez has appeared in just one of Boston’s last five games due to soreness in his right knee. Pena has missed the last three games due to soreness in his left wrist.
Both players are expected to be further examined on Wednesday.
Post Categories: Manny Ramirez & Wily Mo Pena
August 29th, 2006 → 4:28 pm @ Seth Mnookin
I love jazz. I love listening to jazz and I love seeing jazz live. For a while, I wrote about jazz. And then I stopped. Why? Because there was no way I was ever going to be knowledgable enough to write paragraphs like this one, from Nate Chinen’s New York Times article on a Sonny Rollins concert:
“What came next was even better: an unaccompanied cadenza that took Mr. Rollins through the emotional spectrum of his playing, and through seemingly dozens of musical quotations. In one stretch, modulating keys and elasticizing time, he flirted with the “Tennessee Waltz,” and then quoted, back-to-back, “I Thought About You” and “Look at Me Now.” In the hands of another player, this might have seemed cloying or overtly conceptual. Mr. Rollins made it a personal outpouring.”
My version would have been more along the lines of, “Man, is Sonny Rollins awesome.”
Post Categories: Jazz & Sonny Rollins
August 29th, 2006 → 4:22 pm @ Seth Mnookin
1. Restaurant exhaust vents that blast out hot bursts of putrid-smelling air. If whatever you’re producing smells that nasty, shouldn’t you need to direct the vent back into the restaurant? The Chipotle Mexican Grill on 6th Ave and 13th is especially foul.
2. New York City buses. As far as I can tell, they’re not required to obey any traffic laws. That can be especially frustrating when you’re on one of these.
Post Categories: Pet peeves & Uncategorized
August 29th, 2006 → 3:24 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Tuesday, August 29
2:05 pm
STATEMENT FROM BOSTON RED SOX
MEDICAL DIRECTOR DR. THOMAS GILL
BOSTON, MA–“Prior to Monday night’s game in Oakland, David Ortiz experienced palpitations and was removed from the lineup. At that time, it was determined that he would return to Boston to undergo further examination and testing to determine the cause of these recurring symptoms. The examination and testing will be done over the next few days led by Red Sox Team Internist Dr. Larry Ronan , with the support of a group of specialists.”
“David had experienced similar symptoms approximately ten days ago. He was admitted to the hospital on August 19 where he was fully examined by specialists and a series of tests were performed. Based on the results of these tests, and David’s symptomatic improvement, he was cleared to play. David had not experienced any additional episodes of palpitations until Monday evening.”
“With the recurrence of these symptoms, we would like David to be fully examined and tested before he is allowed to return to the field.”
More information will be released as it becomes available.
Post Categories: David Ortiz
