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1. Darrenand, BROCKTOON! he's back?
Right around the same time that Pap starting K'ing 2 guys every appearance, people started talking about him using a lower armslot. That slot seems to be working for him.
Since June 22 (arbitrary endpoint!), Pap has the following line:
21.1 IP, 10 H, 4 ER, 2 HR, 4 BB, 37 K. That's 15.67 K/9.
Billy Wagner looks like the best (optimistic) comp. Overpowering fastball that does most of the work, great secondary pitch to spike the K numbers.
Papelbon improved his command of the splitter over the course of the season last year, and he struck out 28 in 22 innings after the all-star break. He's now fully confident in the split and throws it a lot. I think the addition of the splitter explains a good chunk of the jump in Ks.
I guess there's a question as to whether Papelbon could have maintained his one-pitch brilliance from early '06, but I think it's unlikely. He's got an incredible fastball, but I don't think it's a once-in-a-lifetime pitch like Mariano's cutter.
*Sigh* I'm just one frustrated White Sox fan. Hopefully, they'll be back playing baseball and not doormats next year.
Perhaps, but this comes on the heels of failing to close the deal on a sweep twice in a row in less than two weeks' time vs. the Devil Rays, and being shut down by a pitcher not named Kazmir or even Shields each of those times. That would explain the "pleasant surprise" aspect to Red Sox fan's reaction.
Really? The White Sox and the Devil Rays are pretty much the worst teams in the game right now--certainly the worst in the AL and (I will risk pissing off the White Sox fans here, and they can correct me if they feel I am wrong) I would think a disappointed, veteran team like the White Sox would have a hard time being focused and motivated right now. This, combined with the Yankees schedule this past week, made it almost certain that the Red Sox would increase their lead this week, as in fact they did.
Except that the Yankees had recently won 3 of 4 from the Tigers, who had been in a bit of a slump, in the Bronx - and swept a 3-game set in Cleveland. I'm not sure a losing week, even on the road in Detroit and Anaheim was anything like a foregone conclusion.
Certainly the Red Sox have been getting more baserunners lately, but I kept waiting during this Chicago series for that game where they totally forget how to score runs..which seems to happen at least every third game or so, most frequently when Dice-K starts. That game didn't come this time.
7 games at this point is a good lead, 8 obviously even better if Detroit prevails tomorrow. And I wasn't really expecting it to be this size at this juncture. Two out of three in the Stadium would mean the Yankees would need another 18-2 stretch to make the East interesting in the final week; additionally, it would put their postseason streak in considerable jeopardy.
sure, the devil rays are bad, but they have some good young hitters and kazmir is pitching as well as anybody in baseball. shields isn't bad, either. it's the other 3 spots and the bullpen that make them horrible. now the white sox ... that's a bad team. they didn't even look like they were trying.
and like robinred said, you have to expect to gain ground when the yankees are facing detroit and anaheim and you've got the drays and the white sox. which they did ... so that's good.
Yeah, but I think people in fandom mode sometimes underestimate the way that things even out. The Tigers have a pretty good team and had been playing badly for awhile--they were due to win a few. The Yankees had been hotter than hell for awhile--they were due to lose a few. The Yankees always have trouble with the Angels. You could say this might apply to the White Sox as well, but as I said, I think they may be phoning it in.
I do think that things went even better from the Red Sox POV than one would have expected--but I was 99% sure that the Red Sox lead would be bigger on 8-26 than on 8-19. I would have guessed 5.5 or 6.5, not 7.5, however.
I agree with Part 1 of that; I am not sure about Part 2. It depends on how you define "considerable jeopardy" but I still see the Yankees as slighty better than even money to finish ahead of the Mariners.
I was thinking this too, but they really have two good young hitters, Crawford and Upton, plus Carlos Pena's career season (he's 29). Delmon Young and Dukes haven't lived up to their promise yet, maybe they will next season. Jonny Gomes is pretty good, but not as good as he was 2 years ago. Brendan Harris is pretty good for a shortstop, but not what you'd call a scary hitter. Wigginton has reverted to being mediocre, and he's 29 too. Dioner Navarro has lived up to maybe 1/8 of his promise.
They're a very very young team, though.
better than the white sox.
Yeah, the "keep the core intact" strategy Kenny Williams seems to be using looks to be a bit ill-advised. They seem to be largely buying into declining skill sets. Buehrle seems to be worth signing (esp. considering what Zito is costing the Giants) but the Dye signing doesn't seem like a great idea given where this team is right now.
Momentum is only as good as your next game, but after it got down to 4 and I was as pissed at this team as I've been all year, I'm liking what I'm seeing.
Bedard hasn't pitched well against us in his career, he's been good against us this year, but we can handle him.
Kazmir kills us.
Coming into this year, I was all sorts of wrong about stuff. Anaheim always beats up on the Yankees, but I was not a Detroit believer, and I thought that both the Rays and White Sox would put up a better fight for Boston.
-Yanks miss playoffs
-Mariners get wild card
-Sox play Mariners, who frankly just are not all that good. Nice bullpen, not much else, and Putz will be wasted if the team is behind after 7 most days.
Also, I find that sort of rooting way too complicated. I'm rooting for the Red Sox to beat the Yankees, then for the Red Sox to make the playoffs, then for the Yankees to miss the playoffs. Which team beats out the Yankees is just too far down the rooting ladder, and too much wishcasting, for me to get involved.
Whatever happened to AL East solidarity? Besides, would it really feel like postseason if there wasn't a series against the Yankees?
Only you could be pessimistic about things with a 7.5 game lead and 31 to play.
Isn't he nursing some injuries? I know he's hot and probably wants to hit but wouldn't it be prudent to let him rest a little when he will be needed down the stretch and in October? Maybe I'm missing something so I thought I'd ask Sox fans if anybody else noticed and had the same thought.
That's what happens when you catch a bunch of players right at the end of their primes and then hold onto them into their decline phase. Two years later, you have a mess on your hands.
I'm hoping that this series is a wake-up call to the White Sox front office - this team is not a player or two away from contention. It's going to be a long, slow process to rebuild this team. Throw 2008 and probably 2009 out the window.
King Felix might have a great career. But so far, his lifetime W-L record is 26-24, ERA of 3.94. This year his ERA is 3.90. In a pitcher's park. If he's their #1 guy, I'm not trembling in my boots.
What? Yes. Every game Jeter and the gang has nothing better to do than watch the Sox in the playoffs with the rest of us is a good game.
//
Sorry to those who find this distasteful but..... I am smelling SWEEP IN THE BRONX this week. Knock 'em out cold boys.
See, IMHO this is how Red Sox fans oughta be: basic, arrogant old-school high payroll first-place smacktalk, instead of all the handwringing. Evil Empire Jr. ;-
I never bought into that. In football, I despise the other NFC East teams. In college hoops, I don't root for Georgetown and 'Cuse. The only other ALCS team that I will root for is the Jays.
College Hoops seems to be the only sport for which I will root for division rivals. I'll cheer on other Big East teams after GU is eliminated.
i find myself rooting for other AL East teams pretty often--whenever they play the yankees!
There's a pool and a pond. A pond would be good for you.
Primey
As long as SEA cooperates, things ought to be OK for the Sox, but the M's keep hanging in there.
Pride goeth before the Fall, b-town jimmie. At least you've got a few things to think about while your schedule softens up a bit. Schilling pitched a great game, though, even if Cano got in a few good swings.
The chief function of the White Sox these days seems to be to instill a false sense of confidence in both the Yanks and the Red Sox. Neither of them seemed to realize that beating up on Chicago is sort of like proving yourself on a team of blind cripples from the Helen Keller Home for the Seriously Senior Incurables. But the Sox should consider themselves lucky to get the Orioles in their worst looking stretch since April of 1988.
The scuttlebutt is that the gays put the kibosh on them after one too many press conference cracks by Ozzie. It's as good an explanation as any.
With no Bedard (for once!) and no Guthrie. I consider anything less than winning 3-of-3 in Fenway against a seriously reeling Baltimore club a failure. They've pissed away their margin for error.
I still fail to see this team winning a playoff series, even if I have to admit that it's still unlikely that they'll choke away a playoff berth entirely, if for no other reason than there aren't really enough games left in the season for them to do so. They're just too easy for a decent pitcher to shut down - this has got to be the worst hitting Boston club since Butch Hobson was managing the team.
The Radhames Liz guy is supposed to 100 miles an hour.
I can't speak to the general value of OPS+, but Ortiz has simply been a _different_ hitter this year-- more OBP, less SLG. Also, he's been less clutch.
Manny's numbers are down across the board, of course, but the dropoff from him to Hinske is considerable. Sox still should have won at least one game in New York, but that would have been easier to do without Manny's injury.
1. 4 games in a row of 10 runs or more scored. That was almost a whole week ago, I know.
2. 4th in the MAJORS in OPS
3. They were incredibly snake bit the last 2 games. No-hitters thru the 5th and 6th? Bah! If a pitcher KOs 9 thru 5, he has a decent no-hitter going. Clemens and Wang weren't fooling many guys at all. The Sox just hit at-em balls two days straight.
Yeah, there's no reason to start thinking OH NOES TEH RED SOX R DOOMED. They were just outplayed & outlucked & outGiambi'd - if I see him make another great defensive play this year, I'll eat CHB's hat.
Oh, whatever. It might seem that way (probably because he actually made some outs in the 9th inning), but check his situational splits w/ RISP and/or 2 outs between this year & last year - they're nearly identical. Bagging on Ortiz, or calling him near-useless (like karlmagnus did), is a crock of sh!t that even the most diehard bipolar RSN acolyte wouldn't stir. It's the same garbage NYY laid on A-Rod's door prior to this year.
What the ####? This is David Ortiz, people! The clutch god! You Boston fans are out of your ####### minds.
Funny stuff. Wang was excellent yesterday, and had the Sox doing what he wanted them to do.
Listen, on the Red Sox lineup. Do you know how as a fan you can sometimes gauge your competition by the guys on it you really really fear? I hate the Sox, as y'all know, but as a Yankee fan what scares me about your team is its pitching, not its hitting. The 2 toughest outs, the guys who really bug me, are Pedroia and Youkilis. Ortiz is great and intimidating, but he doesn't have that aura this year. And with Ramirez out, it's definitely a lineup that, as a fan of their most hated rival, I can locate lots of flat points where I think, "Geez, if we just get by Pedroia, I'll take my chances with Crisp," or, "Let Youkilis get on 1st, and let's get the fat guy to hit into a DP." Varitek, Crisp, Lugo, Drew, Hinske, Cora, and even Lowell (despite Lowell's excellent season) don't scare me much. That's a lot of empty space.
But your pitching? Another story.
I know the Sox have a relatively good offense, and had some tough, Manny-less luck this week, especially against Clemens (Wang mostly shut them down, I think, with some surprisingly good defensive help-- though there were a lot of balls in the air in the early going, which doesn't seem like Wang's MO).
I find it funny that when the Yankees beat up bad teams it's because they were playing bad teams, but when the Red Sox did it against the ChiSox they were "gearing up".
I imagine a lot of slapheads bringing up the grim spectre of '78 yet again are probably spewing this nonsense. & I imagine someone on WFAN will say this as well (if it hasn't been said already).
The RS and Yankees will play just about even for the rest of the year, barring any major injuries. I hope the Yankees hang on for the WC. I think they will.
Why in the world would you hope for that?
It's not just that my deep disdain for the Yankees and would delight in their failure to reach the postseason. But of all the potential playoff opponents, they're certainly the team I find the most threatening.
Regardless, a Yankee playoff appearance would make this into a good year. And with the kids coming up and playing well, it's decent-to-good even if they falter in the last few weeks.
This is adjusted expectations, a consequence of the disastrous early season. At the beginning of the season, you and I would never have thought the season remotely successful if the Yankees missed the playoffs, right?
You're hocking a chynek. The season series is split 8-7. The last 125 games between the 2 are something like 64-61. They split the last 2 playoff series they've met in.
At the beginning of the season, I could have been convinced that a miss of the playoffs could equal a good season. But it wouldn't have been easy.
Take your meds.
Well, it might not be what folks expected in terms of performance, but it looks like the early scuffling might be beneficial for the team in the long run. It caused them to actually look @ folks in their farm system & take stock of their future (in lieu of their recent veteran-plug-&-chug antics). I imagine things were heading in that direction anyway, but falling flat on their face early on (coupled w/ all the injuries) forced their hand, & now the Yankees are back to being the lovable pain in the a$$ RSN knows and fears. Even though I've had more than my fill of Joba Fever & the Melkman, it sure beats the one-two punch of Aaron Small & Shawn Chacon.
That said, I'm rooting for the M's to get off their cans & seal the deal. (Actually, I'm rooting for the Tigers to sneak in & shiv both of them, but if they keep batting Timo Perez in the 3 hole & having their starts screw the pooch in the 1st inning, I'm not sure it'll happen.)
True, true. But "that said," I'm rooting for the Red Sox to collapse, and if that doesn't happen, at least for Pedroia and Youks to confess to playing footsy with Senator Kennedy in the bathroom stalls at Logan.
Isn't that supposed to be "DOOMDED"?
The Angels just kill us (and I feel like I've been saying that all my life).
Ah, youth.
I'm 40.
What happened to the White Sox, btw? They're not just bad, they're terrible.
We need to hear from Mr.Keefe on this.
Whippersnapper.
And get the hell off my lawn.
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