Red Sox Return to Reality

Jon Lester is 5-10. That's simply shocking. He's never lost 10 games in a season before. And he's managed to reach 15 wins every year since he became a full-time starter. He'll be hard pressed to reach that mark with only 51 games left on the schedule.

Lester wasn't bad. He was excellent the first time through the lineup. The Rangers eventually got to him. He was charged with 4 earned runs in 6.2 innings. But 1 of those runs was scored with Mark Melancon on the mound. He was good enough, but his teammates weren't.

Speaking of the bullpen, they've been very shabby lately. As a unit they started the season poorly, then settled into a groove of dependability, and now they're back to being a problem. Had Melancon done his job, and Junichi Tazawa done his job, this game could have been a 3-3 tie that went to extra innings.

Instead, the bullpen allowed the Rangers to build some insurance.

Meanwhile, the only scoring the Sox could manage came thanks to Will Middlebrooks and his pinch hit 3 run homer. I'm sure Bobby Valentine will take credit for that one.

Apart from that Ryan Dempster shut the Sox lineup down. Carl Crawford helped by getting picked off.

The Sox were mad at the umpiring, and maybe justifiably so. But the Sox take umpire-baiting to a new level. Jon Lester gets upset with about two calls per inning, and shows it with feminine snaps of the glove and passive aggressive behavior. And none of the Sox hitters are shy about lingering in the batter's box after striking out and expressing their opinion.

Maybe the umpires are sick of the Sox' whining. I know I am. Maybe the umps make unfavorable calls because the Red Sox irritate them.

I can't blame them.

Josh Beckett takes the mound for the Sox tonight. This is a chance for him to do what he's paid to do. He hasn't made a Quality Start since July 15th and the Sox could really use one.

Once again, Beckett is up against a good opposing pitcher. Matt Harrison is 13-6 with a 3.17 ERA. He's a lefty and Carl Crawford is the only active member of the Sox to have had much success against him.

The Sox will struggle to score off this guy, so Beckett needs to pitch as well as he's capable of pitching.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

Red Sox Back to .500

The Red Sox are 51-51, thanks to beating the Yankees 2 times out of 3 this weekend. But as much fun as it is to win a series in Yankee Stadium, we all need to take a step back and look at the larger picture.

The Sox have played 102 games and are a .500 team. Why should we expect them to be anything better in the 60 games they have yet to play?

In the first game of the series, Aaron Cook and Mark Melancon were battered around. Melancon has proven to be utterly useless.

In the second game, Jon Lester outpitched CC Sabathia. And typically that would be impressive. But Sabathia sucked, and Lester was mediocre. So while he was better than Sabathia, he was not great.

It was important for Lester to not have a bad start. It was important for him to not get a loss, and for the Sox to win a game he started. It wasn't a very good start though. He gave up 2 homers and 4 runs in 6 innings. He still needs to improve.

Last night Prince Felix Doubront did a very good job, and the Sox squeezed a win out. Alfredo Aceves blew a save but recovered nicely.

If you've allowed yourself to ride the Red Sox emotional roller coaster this season, then right now you might be feeling positive. However, as a whole, they're a strictly .500 team. We're still waiting to see Beckett pitch consistently, and we're waiting for Lester to return to the stable rock he once was.

The Tigers are in town starting tonight. Clay Buchholz faces Max Scherzer. Scherzer is 10-5. He started the season poorly but has pitched well the last two months.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

A Texas Sized Smackdown

Buy some Dramamine and don't eat an hour before game time because this Sox season is shaping up to be a motion sickness inducing roller coaster ride of dizzying highs and soul crushing lows.

After two very good starts, Jon Lester dropped an utter turd on the mound last night, only getting 6 men out. He threw 80 pitches in his 2+ innings of work, only 46 of which were strikes. He allowed 8 hits and walked 4. It was ugly.

Even uglier was Mark Melancon's outing. 6 batters faced. 2 of them walked, 4 of them got hits, 3 of them hit homeruns. He's allowed 5 homeruns in 2 innings of work. His ERA is now 49.50.

I fear that the rest of the season will be much like the first 11 games. The Sox will look invincible at times. Then at other times they'll look like a AAA team that's been drinking heavily.

But hey, Texas is good. Really, really good. I love hearing people say "there's no guarantee the Wild Card comes from the AL East this year." No shit. The Rangers have pitching. And as we saw last night, some very scary hitting.

Josh Beckett faces Derek Holland tonight. It'll be interesting to see which Josh Beckett shows up.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

Red Sox Making April Seem Like September

Vicente Padilla had the second best pitching performance for the Sox in Detroit. Need I say more?

No. But I will anyway.

A pair of horrible starts from Beckett and Buchholz, combined with inconsistent hitting, and one unbelievably shitty bullpen resulted in a Detroit Tigers sweep. Just like in September, the Sox are finding different ways to lose.

Alfredo Aceves gave up the winning hit in Thursday's loss. Yesterday he blew a 3 run lead. Mark Melancon also blew a save yesterday, and now he's 0-2. It's April 9th and the Sox have a reliever that's 0-2. That's sadly impressive.

One bright spot was Padilla's 4 scoreless innings. He might earn a chance to be in the rotation if he keeps up that good work.

I'm hearing some clamoring for Daniel Bard to be installed as closer. Maybe that will eventually happen, but right now the Sox need starting pitching. Because while the bullpen ultimately blew yesterday's game, a good start from Buchholz would have allowed the Sox to cruise to a blowout victory. Bullpens lose games. Starting pitchers win them.

And you know who should be the closer...

Jonathan Papelbon.

People in Boston were far too complacent and docile when the Sox didn't re-sign the best closer they've had in a long time. Everyone who wants Bard to close should also get angry at the Sox for not retaining Papelbon.

The Sox go up to Toronto to face the 2-1 Jays. Doubront faces 21 year old Henderson Alvarez.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

Red Sox Preview: Bullpen

The Red Sox bullpen was decent last year. They didn't blow many saves. They had the 13th best bullpen ERA in the Majors, with the best WHIP. Then the Sox decided to let their best reliever go to Philadelphia, and convert their second best to a starter, with their third best likely to find his way into the rotation as well.

They did go out and acquire a handful of arms to try to backfill the voids left by Papelbon, Bard, and (eventually) Aceves. They got a closer who has never saved more than 26 games a season. Another guy who saved 20 last year and won 8 games as a reliever.

Andrew Bailey is from Voorhees, NJ. That doesn't bug anyone? The Sox once had Michael Myers on their roster, now they have a guy from Voorhees? And their home opener is on Friday the 13th. Why not rename Yawkey Way Elm Street?

Anyway, I don't trust the closers that Oakland produces. It's a very pitcher friendly ballpark. Bailey's numbers look pretty good. 75 career saves, only 9 blown ones. He doesn't walk people, he doesn't give up homeruns.

And now he's hurt. He might be out for 3 to 4 months. Even if he were healthy, he's never been tested. He's been closing a few games for a sub .500 team in front of less than 20,000 fans a game. Now he has to close games in a playoff race in front of a packed ballpark. He hasn't pitched more than 50 innings since his rookie year. And probably won't in 2012 either.

So he's capable of succeeding. It will be interesting to see how he deals with adversity in this city. If he blew a save in Oakland, who cared? It's a bit different here. I think he'll be decent when healthy. Not as good as Papelbon, not bad enough to search for a mid-season replacement.

Mark Melancon's resume is interesting. He's only 27 but the Sox are his third Major League organization. He was a reliever in college, which always raises a yellow flag for me. I feel like the best Major Leaguers relievers were once starters at a lower level.

But he is a worker. He made 71 appearances and pitched 74.1 innings last year. And it was his best year. He won 8 games, recorded 20 saves, had a 2.78 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP. He only let 4 of 17 inherited runners score.

There are very few Mike Timlins out there who can have a long, consistently successful career as a setup pitcher. Maybe Melancon has a few good years in him, maybe he's already peaked, maybe he's a future closer. But for 2012, I think he'll be very good as a set-up man and should be okay as a replacement closer.

The problem is, with Melancon closing, you get an inferior pitcher setting up to replace him.

Matt Albers is a token middle-reliever. He recorded 10 holds last year, blew 3 saves, had a 4-4 record. He pitched mostly in losses. He was actually pretty good until August and September. He's a gap-filler, pitching the 6th inning of a game that the Sox are behind by 3 runs, pitching the 8th inning of a game that the Sox are winning by 5 runs. And as a gap-filler, you just want someone who isn't horrible, who doesn't make bad situations worse, or make you use your closer in a game you once had a 6 run lead in. And Matt Albers isn't horrible.

Franklin Morales isn't a shutdown situational lefty. But on the bright side, he's not bad against righties, either.

I'm not a fan of Morales. I'd rather have a guy who can dominate left-handed hitters and who can only give you 0.1 innings a night as opposed to a guy who is semi-good against both lefties and righties. Morales is very similar to Albers, in my view. These gap-fillers are fine, but the Sox need a second setup pitcher to emerge from this mediocre middle of the bullpen.

Michael Bowden has been in the Sox' organization since high school. He never excelled as a starter so now he's being used as a reliever. It's the equivalent of a failed film actor trying to make it as a TV actor. He's only 25, but this is his 7th year with the Sox.

He was a very good reliever in AAA Pawtucket last year, but struggled once he hit the Majors. He has potential to be the 2nd setup pitcher and as a former starter he's quite capable of pitching 2 or more innings in an appearance. I have a good feeling about Bowden. I think he has a breakout year as a reliever and records at least 20 holds.

The quality of the Sox bullpen will improve if the rotation struggles. Which is like saying that a car's engine will run more smoothly if the tires fall off. A slight bit of good news mixed with some horrible news.

If Bard can't make it as a starter, there's your 2nd setup man. But how many leads will he, Melancon, and Bailey need to protect? Where Aceves winds up will determine quite a bit. If Bard and Doubront struggle, you need to plug Aceves into the rotation. A setup pitcher might be more important than a #5 starter, but not a #4.

If the Sox had acquired just one frontline starter in the offseason, not only would their rotation been solidified, it would have dramatically improved the bullpen. Now you have guys like Morales and Albers who will need to be used when Matsuzaka throws his 5 inning, 140 pitch gems.

And there's very little safety net for this bullpen. With the loss of little old Andrew Bailey, the entire bullpen and even the rotation look so much weaker.

It's a very shallow, very tenuous bullpen.