This one's for you, Dave.

Not really on topic, but Chad Finn makes an interesting case that Beckett is tipping his pitches.

Not really on topic, but Chad Finn makes an interesting case that Beckett is tipping his pitches.

After watching the last couple games, at the very least he seems to be tipping his fastball. I don't think he's commanding his other pitches effectively either (I'd like to see a strike % breakdown by pitch type for him to be sure, but it seemed like he's been having trouble with non-FB's).

beckett struggles when he can't get his curveball over. if he can't get the curveball over it doesn't matter whether he's tipping his pitches, the hitters can still sit on fastball.

Is this Pauley guy a prospect? I don't follow the minor leaguers as much as I probably should, but I don't recall hearing (seeing, I can't hear posts) his name on Primer before he was called up.

The Red Sox are still a lock. The Yanks are nothing but a bunch of cripples, just like they were in 1949.

Is this Pauley guy a prospect? I don't follow the minor leaguers as much as I probably should, but I don't recall hearing (seeing, I can't hear posts) his name on Primer before he was called up.

he's a decent prospect--not a future ace. he put up good numbers in AA last year. he was part of the dave roberts trade.

here ... http://soxprospects.com/players/pauley-dave.htm

From scotto's link:

(in 2002)
Former major league catcher Jim Leyritz stopped by the Marlins' clubhouse last week to tell Arnsberg that Beckett positioned his glove one way before throwing a fastball and another way for a curve.

Way to cost us the '03 WS, jerko.

Chi Chi Rodriguez, Red Sox fan and legendary golfer, also says Beckett is tipping his pitches.

Usually I am in the glass-is-half-full camp, but this team bothers me. 33-23 .589 is nice, but a pythag of 31-35 .554 is not.

er, 31-25.

Pauley's a #10-15 in the system type of prospect. He doesn't have any plus pitches, but he's young and he has enough solid pitches that if he hones his command, he can be a major league ballplayer. Right now, he's too hittable to be a major league starter, but hopefully he can continue to work the smoke-and-mirrors thing from this start until Wells is back. (It would be really nice if we could get the same luck with Pauley that the Yankees have had with their mediocre-to-shitty prospects, but it doesn't look to be the case with Pauley.)

On the intensity front, Ortiz' reaction to the losses to Toronto last week definitely showed intensity:

"They've got good players," David Ortiz acknowledged late last night, after Vernon Wells clubbed three of Toronto's five home runs in an 8-5 Blue Jays win before 27,324 at the Rogers Centre. ``They've got good hitters. But we're not pitching the way we're supposed to. That's what I say. When we come to hit, they don't give us [anything] to hit. Why do we have to give them [something] to hit? That's it.

"I mean, the guy is hitting three homers on pretty much the same pitch, something up in the strike zone. [When] I hit one, I don't see another pitch again all night. We've got to make adjustments."

Globe article

Slight hijack:

I just heard Tito on EEI, and they asked him about perhaps using Papelbon in the 7th last night instead of Seanez. Tito basically said that if you can tell him how to warm up Papelbon in that situation, then he'd do it. He agreed that it was a situation that called for your best pitcher, but if he had gotten Pap throwing early enough, then what happens if Pauley gets out of the jam?

That got me thinking about why a relief ace theory might fall down in practice. You just don't really know when a high leverage situation is going to crop up. In the 6th and 7th inning you can really go from low leverage to high leverage in a big hurry. How are you going to know that 4 batters from now you're going to need your best pitcher when the situation is bases empty two outs like it was last night?

Chi Chi Rodriguez, Red Sox fan and legendary golfer, also says Beckett is tipping his pitches.

That's a riot. They should get him on a TV interview, let him say that again and then grab a bat and do his Zorro thing.

This bugged me from last nights game (and I swear its not strictly hindsight):
In the 5th, they had Crisp on 1st and 1 out and Loretta at the plate. You gotta send Crisp on a hit and run or straight steal. Wang is very uncomfortable from the stretch. He'd already balked once, he's not that quick to the plate, and he's a sinkerball pitcher. You gotta put pressure on him and on Posada. Instead, bam, grounder to second and a double play. Ughh.

I've honestly been pretty impressed with the bits I've seen of Pauley's starts, even when he got roughed up in Toronto. He's got a nice, sharp break on his curve and seems to be able to change speeds with it a little. His fastball isn't the quickest around, obviously, but he does get some very good lateral movement on it occasionally. If he can polish that up, it'll be a real plus pitch for him.

A two-seamer with movement like that is so versatile. Against RHs, you can run it in on their hands to jam them or start it outside and try to backdoor the outside corner. Against LHs, you can get them reaching for it over the outside half and get some cue shots or start it inside and try to "frontdoor" the inside corner. Maddux has built a HoF career on his two-seamer. I'm not saying Pauley will be anywhere near that good, but it's certainly possible to get a ton of mileage out of commanding a high-80s fastball with good movement.

On account of being on the west coast, I haven't seen enough of Pauley's innings to know what his third pitch is, or if he even has one. Does he throw a change? That would round out his arsenal nicely, especially if he can cut his fastball every so often for a different look.

The lack of intensity is all Bob Tewksbury's fault, by the way. Manny's his paragon of virtue for the mental side of baseball, for crying out loud!

Seriously though, I don't know how helpful intensity really is. When you're not playing well, isn't intensity usually manifested as frustration? And doesn't frustration breed a negative attitude? That doesn't generally help you succeed unless you're Paul O'Neill. All the sports psychology doctrine I've ever been exposed to preaches trust in your ability even when things aren't going well, since maintaining a positive attitude is more productive than beating yourself up for playing poorly. That seems to be implicit in comments like Beckett's. I don't think he's happy or satisfied. I don't think he doesn't care. I think he knows he's a good pitcher and he's confident he can do better. As a pitcher, if you don't believe your next trip to the hill will be a good one, it probably won't be.

The intensity criticism strikes me as a search for symptoms to a disease that isn't there. When the Sox are winning, they're always "loose" and "just having fun." When they're losing, they need to play with more intensity. I don't buy it.

As far as the Herald articles go, Pauley did pitch pretty well and Mazz is a knucklehead. I blame Tito for giving Pauley a little too much rope in the 7th and Seanez for having a lousy gameplan. You can't walk in the go-ahead run in the late innings and call it good because, hey, you didn't give up a granny. That's garbage. It sounds like Seanez pitched to Giambi with the goal of not letting him hit a homer. He should've pitched to Giambi with the goal of getting him out.

Toby, thanks.

The team definately seems to be reeling a fair amount. When I think back to the beginning of the season where every night it was a 1 run victory right out of the gate... well no, it sure isn't that good right now. So I went to check the trusty schedule. All the way to the all star break all we have left as far as good teams are one with the Yankees, tonight, and six against NYM and CHW. Hopefully after six weeks of playing Florida, the Nationals, and the Minnesota everything will be grooving again. At least we're still competative in the non-Pythag standings.

"More intensity!"

Actually, I'm with Mattbert on this one. Beckett, for example, is plenty instance, but Ortiz is right, I think, that he's not making enough adjustments. Hopefully, this experience humbles him to the point where he watches more tape and prepares himself more effectively.

I think Francona's wrong about the 7th inning situation. The game was tied. So what if Pauley gets out of the jam? Unless the Sox score a bunch in the 8th, which is unlikely, then Papelbon will still be useful. It will still be a high-leverage situation. I realize this is not a simple matter-- you can't warm him up every time it's close in the 7th inning. But in a 1-1 game with the Yankees in the bottom of the 7th... that's worth taking the risk.

Is it just me, or has this team really had trouble since Crisp returned from injury? Is it possible that this is a cause for the offensive malaise we see from the Sox? As a Yankees fan, I much prefer to see Youkilis at the bottom of the order, and in a very small sample size, I have been way underimpressed with Crisp as an offensive player.

Also, from the other side of the "relief ace" issue, I've argued elsewhere that the warmup situation doesn't apply to the Yankees. It doesn't mean anything because of Melky's catch, but with a one-run lead, the bottom 8 was far higher leverage than bottom 9 just because of the hitters due up. The Yankees allowed their second-best available bullpen pitcher to face Loretta/Ortiz/Ramirez with no margin for error, and anyone with a scorecard could have seen this coming as early as the "God Bless America" break in the middle 7th. Why didn't Torre feel free to use Rivera in that spot, saving Farnsworth for the top 9?

The Sox have scored 4.7 R/G since Coco's been back. They've been playing on the road, and against hte teams with the 1st and 7th best ERAs in the majors.

The problem is that the Sox have allowed 5.7 R/G since Coco's been back. If they were pitching competently, I don't think we'd be so concerned.

Francona screwed up with the Coco lead-off issue. He said he'd give Coco some time at the bottom of the order, then, when injuries and days off came along, he kept plugging spots in the lineup with Youkilis, moving Coco to leadoff, and now Coco has had a cold streak at the plate but he's at lead-off anyway. If Francona had stuck with his stated plan, Coco would still be batting 8th or so, and Youkilis would be cementing his lead-off spot, or at least helping the Sox more at the top of the order than Coco is.

Crisp looked great his first few games, and has looked bad in his last few games-- coming off injury. I'm not really worried about him offensively, though it's possible the knuckle injury will linger and he'll under-produce. But I'm annoyed that Francona blew this. Does anyone really think Coco was sulking because he wasn't going to bat lead-off right away? Seems unlikely. So I really don't understand Francona's decisions here.

How good is the Chi-Chi interview!!!

This quote rocked...

“I loved it,” Rodriguez said. “You know, I didn’t think (Terry Francona) was a good manager, but winning is everything. So everything I said about him, I had to take back. I had to eat crow.”