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Of course when Nick Markakis hits a 2 run homer in the first inning of the day game today all bets are off. People in my office are avoiding me like the plague right now which I have to say is rather pleasant.
I'm thinking of that CYE where Larry accidentally trips and injures Shaq, prompting all of LA to shun Larry. Larry had never been so happy.
2003 - Pissed at Grady Little, but all in all we were on fumes with the pitching in the playoffs, and it's not at all certain to me we would have won the WS had we gotten there.
2004 - Not upset in the least
2005 - Hangover year, not upset
2006 - Lot of goofy things happened, you could tell early on it wasn't our year so you had time to get used to the idea.
2007 - Not upset in the least
2008 - Pleasantly surprised we made it to a Game 7 of the ALCS, though I really thought we'd win it. All in all, not that upset.
2009 - Upset about blowing Game 3, but all in all it was not looking like our year for a while at that point.
2010 - Injuries, injuries, injuries... not upset.
2011 - Epic collapse. Pretty upset.
As I said in another thread, this doesn't erase all the goodwill from 2004 and 2007, but it's the most upset I've been in quite some time, mainly because it was clear in June when Buchholz went down that we had a starter problem for 3/5ths of the rotation and basically nothing was done about it. They kept rolling out Lackey/Wakefield/??? until they got Bedard, and even then they had to realize Bedard was a 5 IP solution who would tax the bullpen even if every start was 5 IP, 2 R.
Look, it doesn't matter that they won most of the starts from the Disaster Trio, they had to know that eventually when 3/5th of your rotation is pitching with a 5+ ERA, it's going to come back and bite you... and that's on Theo.
I hope I'm wrong and chuckle later about being such a pants pisser, but having watched this team the last 3 weeks, I just don't see an obvious switch that gets thrown where they steamroll the last 10 games and blow everyone away in the playoffs. I'd really like to be wrong, but this isn't looking like our year.
This needs to be said more often. For all the talk about their success with those guys on the mound, you simply cannot expect to get through the majority of the season without bad players being exposed. It is one thing to steal a win here and there but when you need to get 50-60 starts from you 7th, 8th, etc.. starters it's going to get you eventually.
I know I've said this before and I know you disagree but the problem isn't that they can't score 70 runs, it's that they'll do it by geting 30 runs in two games and then have a bunch of 2-3 run games.
Until the recent unpleasantness, the Sox real and expected WP were perfectly well in line. They had not shown any tendency, before September, to fail to convert runs into wins. If that were real characteristic of this club, where was it before the unpleasantness?
Because of the contract and some other off-the field stuff, I have close to zero problem with them trotting out Lackey again and again. As long as he says he's healthy and ready to pitch, they needed to see what they had, and the odds had to be on him putting it together at some point.
I do wonder if the Rays (I don't think on purpose - it just worked that way) played Rope-a-Dope on the Sox. A few weeks ago, it looked like the Sox were coming in for an easy playoff spot and could set up their rotation for October any way they wanted. The Rays were comfortably buried, and the Sox were in first place, with the consolation prize telling them that second was good enough. If they had to win the division, they'd have probably tried harder to improve their team, which may be paying dividends right now, instead of the issues they'll have over the next week simply to make the playoffs.
Now... if the problem is that Lackey is hiding an injury (because of that clause where he works for a year at serfdom wages if he goes down with an elbow injury), then that is a different story... but, again, to me it's on the Red Sox to demand an MRI/multiple looks at that elbow to see what the hell is going on. If he declines getting examined you suspend him without pay until he does submit to an examination/MRI. It's beyond ridiculous that no one seems to have any idea what's going on with his elbow.
Again, if it's just his head that's not right I am sympathetic... but I would have preferred the Red Sox let him go on the DL to take care of that. If he's actually hurt and has been hiding it, I am far, far, far less sympathetic, and in fact would be incredibly pissed.
The reason they keep sending Lackey out there, though, is that they have no better options. The next men in line are Kyle Weiland and Andrew Miller. Terrifyingly, John Lackey is the 4th best starting pitcher the Red Sox have.
I do agree that if the Sox had been in a tight race, there's a good chance they would have sprung for a second starting pitcher after landing Bedard. That probably would have made a 1-2 game difference, which would be all the difference in the world right now.
Aceves was certainly better and it was up to the Sox to stretch him out. But as usual, hypothetical innings in which you have no clue about the leverage are more important that real innings. You can argue that there's nothing hypothetical about the innings Aceves is going to get, but the leverage is also very important.
At this point a cobbled together Doubront/Tazawa start couldn't be worse. And it it is...if you didn't have the depth to replace the worst pitcher in the league (by half an earned run)? Man.
edit: All that said, I think Lackey can do 'ok' against the O's. I don't want to see him in NY. They need to use their day off and switch Bedard to pitch the last day in NY and throw Lackey in the middle game in Balt.
And does anyone else other than me have this "I used to like the Rays, but now I'm a little pissed at those smug #############\" feeling?
It's revisionist to say that it was clear in June that 3/5 of their rotation was a problem. It was not clear that Buccholz was gone for so long. And it was not clear that Lackey would be this bad. They needed SP depth (although even this was disputed by some in Sox Therapy in July), but it turns out they needed more SP depth than at first apparent. It also doesn't help that the SP depth they acquire hasn't pitched for 2 weeks. I guess it was defensible at the time that they target a high-talent but low-innings type guy rather than a less stingy innings-eater (or both), but that looks like a mistake now.
EDIT: You know, I take that back, partly. Having Aceves in the pen two weeks ago was defensible. Starting Weiland in a huge game today, with Aceves in the pen, is a load of crap, and a big mistake.
I quite grant it wasn't Wake's most distinguished pitching performance, nor this his best year. But with decent fielding, both would have been greatly improved and the Sox would be in fine shape.
Using the numbers from the post above, these are the Red Sox chances of losing the WC to the Rays, listed by RS sweep, split, and O's sweep:
(Sox bad, Rays great)
18%, 33%, 51%
(Sox not so good, Rays good)
12%, 25%, 41%
(Sox good, Rays good)
9%, 20%, 35%
(BPro W3%)
6%, 14%, 27%
If the Sox get swept today, they actually will be in the position that Jose and Dale have thought they were in. (I figure Jose and Dale will move to a new, even more pessimistic position if the Sox get swept today.)
Nah, I'm pretty much as far as I can get.
The 2003 Chicago Cubs lost two in a row to Pittsburgh in late September in a playoff race and still made the playoffs. The 2005 Astros lost two in a row to the Cubs on the last weekend of the season and still held on for the Wild Card. The 2006 Cardinals lost seven in a row down the stretch, including four to Houston and two to the Padres, and held on for the division, then won the World Series. The 2007 Diamondbacks lost three in a row, including two to Pittsburgh, and held on for the divion. The 2008 Brewers lost 8 of 9 down the stretch and still won the Wild Card.
The Tampa Bay Rays, with the Wild Card on the line, lost two in a row to Baltimore last week. Are neither of them going to make the playoffs? If they don't, the Wild Card will probably go to the Angels, who lost two in a row to, yup, Baltimore just this weekend.
Baseball is a sport where the very best teams still lose 40% of their games. A good club losing two in a row is extremely common, regardless of the importance of the games, or even the quality of the teams involved.
Look, be pessimistic. Beat your chest and tear at your hair and weep uncontrollably in public if you want. But don't say things that are wrong.
They get swept today, I think they're done.
Oh you silly Dale, saying games at home against the Orioles are at best coinflip games.
Guthrie vs. Weiland is at best a coinflip game. The only reason Baltimore isn't the clear favorite is that it's at Fenway Park and that the Sox have the superior lineup.
And though Brian Matusz has been a disaster for Baltimore this season I don't trust Lackey at all in the nightcap.
IF they get swept today, even Ray Ray may admit feeling slightly nervous...
I strongly suspect this WC race is already over. Tampa's the vastly better team and the Sox have caught a collective case of apple-in-throat.
The Orioles are a BAD team]
The guy they are throwing out there tonight for instance is WORSE than Weiland or Lackey
and the Orioles can't hit like Boston- not even if Wieters has really transmorgified into the BPro fantasy version of Wieters
On Aug. 23 they survived another lackluster start by Lackey - and Lackey hasn't even looked this good since - to beat Texas 11-5.
On Sep. 13 they beat Toronto 18-6 and got Wakefield #200 despite the fact that he didn't deserve it.
(They did survive bad relief pitching to beat Texas 11-7 on Sep. 3. Bedard pitched well enough but didn't last long, which is a separate issue.)
If you stretch the definition of "crapped out" a bit you can get 9-5 a win over the Yankees on Aug. 31 in which Beckett managed a W out of 7 IP/4 R, which is usually not enough, and a comeback Aug. 8 win over Minnesota 8-6 where Wakefield went 7 and gave up 5 runs (3 earned.)
And of course during the current unpleasantness the offense has had a couple of massive outbursts and has otherwise looked pretty bad themselves.
They are choking badly.
5-1 in the 4th.
The race is over.
It's over.
4-14 in September now.
but 2 games up in the win column
I still blame Tony Clark
Such a person doesn't exist, so I suspect Francona won't be fired.
I think 88 is 50-50 right now.
Seriously, this team is so cooked. I think Curt Young is the sacrificial lamb when this is done with some kind of medical staff shake up.
Hitting/pitching coaches are always pretty fireable, if you just want a token measure. Whoever signed Crawford/Lackey deserves some rotten fruit thrown at them. I'd say Francona certainly deserves a large portion of blame for the way this team has fallen apart. I don't know that I'd fire him, but I wouldn't rule it out.
Most people are going to be forgetting about the 2007 Mets after this.
And pro scouting. And amateur scouting. And everyone else they can get their hands on.
The organization needs a complete overhaul. Just strip down the whole rotting core and start over.
If they win tonight their postseason odds (BPro or Coolstandings), will likely have dropped a little from this morning - afterall a split was the most likely scenario before today's games were played
BPro sees the Sox as a .580 team, so it likely saw a Sox sweep as a 30% chance, a split at 50% and a Orioles sweep at 20%. Now of course the Sox have dropped 1, so they can't sweep, but the Orioles are running an even worse pitcher than Lackey out there - I'd give it 60% split, 40% Orioles sweep.
BPRO had Boston 88% and Coolstandings had them at 90%, if they split I'm guessing we'll see that drop to 86% and 88%
If Baltimore sweeps, I think we'll see it drop to the 70s.
I think both sites are running 5-10% too high for Boston- they still see a .580 team that just isn't there right now.
Personally, Boston loses tonight and it's 50/50
yeah, and tear down fenway park and re-flood the back bay! heh
that's the best Sox news I've heard all day!
We let Theo go to the Cubs. Since he still has a year on his contract that compensation is... The Cubs have to take Lackey's contract.
That would make me happy. Not much else for the next 6 months is likely to.
I hadn't considered the idea they'd fire Theo... But I don't think that's likely, either. He's under contract and, as such, is worth something should the Cubs come knocking and asking to make Theo their GM. Firing him gets them nothing, and I would guess the second the season is over the Cubs will make a request to interview him, so why not get some compensation while you let him go?
Thanks, Ike.
Lassus isn't the only one having flashbacks in here...
I was born at the perfect time as a Jays fan*. Too young to remember '87, but there for 92-93.
*If you ignore the past 15 years.
Sorry, Sox fans, you can't get close.
When healthy, of course. The average 2007 Mets vs. today's Red Sox? I wouldn't.
And as much as we may applaud the Sox for the mid-season play, they've stunk at the two ends. Really, truly, abysmmally awful. Perhaps they're not as good as we thought they were.
I love you guys, but you disappoint me. They've had key injuries. If you want to blame the trainers (rolls eyes), go ahead, but, I won't follow. Players get hurt.
They have a good chance to make the playoffs. I'll bet they make it.
Lackey is pitching right now, not tomorrow.
Tampa Bay doesn't play today, though they play twice tomorrow.
Tampa Bay doesn't play today, though they play twice tomorrow
Yeah, I've stuffed the scheduling, need to pay less attention to work and more to this.
AND, it looks like I may have overestimated Lackey's performance.....
You're never going to feel like there's a better option out there if you can't bring yourself to get rid of the guy who "won" the 2 World Series for you. 2004 and 2007 should never be forgotten, Francona should go in the Red Sox HOF, etc. But they bear little importance in deciding who should manage the team in 2012.
Warning: Pedroia is listed as a possible person to blame, Theo is listed twice and the second mention includes this:
That sounds like a really, really low bar. 7 times in 10 years? You should do that without trying. Your goall, with the Sox resources, should be 10 in 10.
We get it Darren. You hate Tito.
He actually said 8 out of 10 a while back.
With two HOFers taking the mound the Sox had probably a 9-10% chance of coming back in 2004.
Oliver Perez started games 4 and 7 of the 2006 NLCS for the Mets. 3-13 with 6.55 ERA, 68 ERA+ in the regular season.
And pitched well in Game 7 IIRC! There's hope for Lackey yet!
[sigh]
That I'd be clinging to this is not something I imagined 4 weeks ago.
John Lackey's ERA+ was 68 BEFORE giving up 8 runs in 4.1 IP last night.
I still think they'll make the playoffs, though obviously it's not a lock. I had the misfortune of choosing Sunday's game when I bought tickets last December though (I am in the usually-sees-wakefield-pitch club), and it was tough to watch. The defensive mistakes may be the toughest to watch.
I'm with you. When I woke up the next morning I felt genuinely ill, and I firmly believe it was the result of swallowing so much rage when I went to sleep. After 2004, I can't imagine ever feeling that angry about the result of a Sox game again.
At the time, I wanted to beat the Yankees, but I wanted to win the WS much, much more, and I didn't see much solace in beating the Yankees but losing the WS.
This year, what kills me is that I think/hope that if we get in--and the pitching aligns as we'd prefer--we have a real fighting chance to win the WS. Philly is beatable. We have 2 great starters and 1 decent one, Aceves, Bard, Papelbon and maybe Buchholz in the pen, and a pretty good offense. I like our chances in the playoffs this year much more than I liked our chances in the WS in 2003 had we gotten there... That's what I'm getting at when I say this year would be more disappointing to me.
If this team misses the playoffs there will be nothing redeeming about 2011. It won't be like they won 95 games but got beaten out by superior teams, they will have simply folded down the stretch and have nothing to show for six months of baseball.
I also consider it a wasted season when I'm forced to watch my team play .650 baseball for four and a half months. It's just wretched.
However, it will hurt way, way less. C'mon. 2003 was the worst thing that ever happened to me as a fan. That sucked beyond words and beyond recognition. I know we're just talking about our feelings, but Jose's and TE's feelings are weird and unrecognizable to me.
Feelings aren't a matter of tallying up pros and cons. They're part of our immediate experience. As David Berman says, You can't change the feeling, but you can change the feeling about the feeling, eventually. It sounds like you guys changed the feeling about the feeling through rational reconsideration of 2003, but you're underselling the painful experience of the initial feeling of 2003.
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