Francona teaches math class in Marlborough

I’m surprised Leyland didn’t nail this gig…

Math can help baseball teams calculate the odds of stealing second base, examine pitching speeds and study the all-important statistics that drive the game.

And yesterday, math became a little more fun for the city’s middle school students, courtesy of their surprise substitute teacher, Red Sox manager Terry Francona. He visited the middle school yesterday as part of Raytheon Co.‘s MathMovesU program, an effort to get more middle schoolers engaged in math.

... “Some people might think that success in baseball is all about maybe one lucky swing, or one perfect pitch, or all about base running,” Francona said. “I’m here to tell you that almost everything in baseball is calculated and planned, and a lot of that is using math.”