John Lackey wanted to leave the Red Sox

Two years ago could you have imagined that John Lackey would be the one dumping the Red Sox, and not vice versa?

Lackey made it clear that if the Red Sox tried to exercise their $500,000 option on him for 2015, there was a strong likelihood that he'd retire. But that option nevertheless increased his trade value. At the very least the option gave leverage to the Sox or any other team negotiating a contract extension. They could offer less than market value to Lackey, whose choices would be to accept a few million to pitch or retire once the $500k option was exercised.

Immediately after Lackey was traded to St. Louis, Ken Rosenthal announced that Lackey informed the Cardinals he would honor the $500,000 option, and not retire. Had Lackey told the Red Sox that he'd be willing to play for $500,000 in 2015, there's no way the Sox would have traded him. In essence, Lackey engineered this trade.

Remember when all of us wanted Lackey to be included with Beckett and Crawford in the Great Purge of 2012? Then last year we became Lackey fans as he helped the team win a World Series. And now he is the one who orchestrated his departure.

The Cards and Lackey might come to terms on a new contract extension anyway. But isn't it odd that this option was a point of contention for Lackey here in Boston, then he gets traded and it's no longer an issue? He did not want to stay here.

Lackey had enough of the Red Sox. The way the non-negotiations went between Jon Lester and the front office probably had a lot to do with that. Once the Sox started shopping Lester, Lackey wanted out. He gave the Red Sox an incentive to trade him, with the threat of future uncertainty if they didn't. He also kept his trade value up with his performance on the field, and by never threatening to retire if a team besides the Red Sox wanted to exercise his $500k option.

If the Red Sox were the Titanic, sinking slowly into the North Atlantic, John Lackey got himself a spot on a lifeboat by threatening to blow up half the ship if he wasn't allowed off.

And here's the kicker. The Sox included that $500,000 option when they signed him as a way to mitigate the risk of his elbow issues. The idea was that he might miss a long time due to injury (which he did), costing the team lots of money (which he did), but that the team would recoup the loss with a year of almost free service.

But it's the Cardinals who look to benefit from that nearly free year that the Red Sox paid for. The Sox bought the the insurance policy and made all the payments, the Cardinals are cashing it in. And that's because Lackey wanted to leave.

Photo Credit: Barry Chin/Boston Globe

When the Red Sox Won the World Series in 2004...

A Wednesday night in late October 2004, in a dorm's common room in Ithaca, NY, about 18 college students all focused on a low-def TV attached to a wall. On the screen, a ground ball bounced lazily up the middle to Red Sox closer Keith Foulke. After collecting the ball, he trotted a few steps toward first. As the ball left Foulke's hand and spun toward the waiting glove of Doug Mientkiewicz, time froze in my mind. It was happening. It was actually happening.

Until that moment, I feared the Red Sox would blow it somehow. That they'd find a way to lose Game 4, then the series, completing the worst collapse in the history of sports, because that's what I was convinced they had to do. In the years leading up to this moment, I had read and heard about Buckner in '86, and Dent in '78, and Enos Slaughter in '46. Aaron Boone's homerun the year prior was my generation's firsthand experience of The Curse. They must lose. That was the way of things.

Mientkiewicz would drop the ball, the Cardinals would rally in the 9th and win the game. The Sox would lose 4 straight, mirroring the 3-0 collapse of the Yankees in the ALCS, making the choke even more spectacularly painful. All that late-inning magic, all those stressful games, all of it a buildup to the biggest disappointment in sports history.

None of that happened.

Mientkiewicz caught the ball. Once I unfroze time, only a second had passed but it felt like more than a minute. Jumping around in jubilation in the common room wasn't enough. We ran outside to the quad, yelling, screaming, hugging. Our yells drew Sox fans from the surrounding buildings, who poured out into the night to join us. As the crowd grew, someone suggested we run to the fountains on the other side of campus. There, other groups of Sox fans from other parts of campus seemed to somehow know to meet us. It must have been some psychic connection, or some notion of a central location to gather. It wasn't coordinated on social media. Twitter didn't yet exist. We wouldn't know what Facebook was for another 2 weeks, when it swept across Ithaca College's campus in early November 2004.

Hours later, after we'd all returned to our dorms and our rooms, at about 1:30 a.m., a friend from North Reading came to my room and said he couldn't sleep. Neither could I. We decided to drive to Boston, along with our RA from Newton. We drove 6 hours. My friends slept, I stayed awake and watched the sun rise over Massachusetts, shining down on the home of the World Series Champs for the first time in 86 years. That's 1,032 months, 4,472 weeks, 31,411 days, 754,000 hours, 45.2 million minutes, 2.7 billion seconds.

2.7 billion seconds, and I still clearly remember that last second, the one I froze, as the ball and landed in Mientkiewicz's oversized first-baseman's glove. That moment felt like it lasted a minute. The feeling lasted longer. I can still go back to that moment and relive it, and feel that feeling again. It's great. Pure joy.

So yeah, it was pretty cool seeing the 2004 Red Sox back at Fenway Wednesday night.

Photo Credit:
Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

People to Thank for the Red Sox World Series

Time to go to Hallmark and get some thank-you cards for a lot of people who made this World Series Championship possible. Here are the people who you should send your cards to...

1. The Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers took all of the Red Sox' baggage. The Sox had a bad kidney (Gonzalez), infected tonsils (Crawford), and an appendix about to burst (Beckett), and the Dodgers accepted all of them. Then the Dodgers paid for most of the surgery. The Dodgers deserve their own duckboat in Saturday's parade for taking all of this payroll and malignant personality off of the Red Sox roster.

2. The Red Sox owners
The owners did the best thing that owners can do: delegate. Bob Kraft didn't become a good owner until he eased up and delegated. The Red Sox owners were good when they let Theo Epstein do his job, then they became overbearing, they then pulled back in response to the failures of the 2012 season. The best thing the Red Sox owners did in 2013 was what they didn't do.

3. Koji Uehara
Where would this team be if Uehara didn't emerge as one of the best closers in the game? Bailey and Hanrahan got hurt. Uehara filled a role that had been vacant since Papelbon was allowed to leave. And Uehara filled that role's brains out.

4. Ben Cherington
The Red Sox GM didn't go nuts, he didn't try to sign any "wow" free agents. He acquired guys who were hungry to win. Savvy ballplayers who knew how to do the little things. He didn't care that Stephen Drew was related to J.D. Drew. He signed Mike Napoli, who was starving for a ring. He made many small moves that combined to make a big difference.

The timing was right as there really weren't many big name free agents on the market anyway.

5. John Lackey
This guy pitched his ass off. He got no run support all season long. We all hated him. Many wanted him to be traded. He's a 35-year-old recovering from surgery, he pitched 189.1 innings in the regular season then 26 more in the postseason (including 1 in relief). And he still argued with Farrell to get just one more out in Game 6. He went from slacker to gamer. Lackey's hunger in 2013 (for doing well, not for beer and chicken) was a key part to the hunger this team had.

And again, give thanks to the Dodgers for not wanting to take this guy from us.

6. John Farrell
His in-game decisions weren't always correct. But trading for John Farrell was an important part to this team's success. He didn't try to discipline the players, he tried to make them more self-disciplined. He got the pitching staff to refocus, and he brought with him an attitude geared toward winning. Most importantly, he didn't put his own ego ahead of anything. If he made a mistake, he learned from it and made different moves. Pride is not one of John Farrell's faults.

7. J.J. Hardy, Jason Kipnis, Jose Bautista
I can't say I remember the All-Star Game. But these three guys all knocked in runs for the AL team. And that's why the Sox had homefield advantage in the World Series. Thanks, guys!

8. Pedroia, Lester, Ellsbury, all the rest of the players
The players who were here in 2011 and 2012 became reinvigorated. And the guys who weren't here brought a fresh energy. All the players, from Pedroia to Lester to Victorino to Bogaerts to Workman to Tazawa. They all gave 100%. Which you sadly could not say about the 2011 or 2012 Sox.

8. The Fans
Yes you. Your outrage over this team's failure in 2012 caused so much to change. In 2011, we weren't as angry as we should have been. And the owners thought they could use Francona as a scapegoat and we'd be happy with his dismissal. We were complacent for a time, until the team failed again in 2012. And the horrible managing of Bobby Valentine became evident.

We as fans actually accepted Bobby V. That's kind of sad. He was shit. Once the fans demanded that he be banished, along with all the other cancerous players and contracts, that's when things turned around. We threatened a revolution in Red Sox Nation and the front office responded.

So pat yourself on the back for being pissed about the 2012 season, then also ask yourself why you didn't start that season with the same skepticism.

Hopefully in 2014 Ben Cherington can continue to do his job, and the front office won't inflate attendance figures. Marketing people can market the team, and baseball people can assemble it, and baseball players can play baseball.

RED SOX WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!

This is unreal. This team was picked to finish last in their division. Fans were hoping that they'd flirt with .500 and contend for a Wild Card spot. 108 wins later and it's duckboat time.

The bats finally woke up Wednesday night. Shane Victorino and Mike Napoli returned to the lineup. People not named David Ortiz got big hits. Victorino had a massive impact, going 2 for 3 with 4 RBI. Napoli hit an RBI single in the 4th. Victorino's 3-run double in the 3rd came with 2 outs. So Michael Wacha was only an out away from escaping that inning, just like he escaped the 2nd. Five of the Sox' 6 runs were scored with 2 outs.

It was only a matter of time before the bats woke up. And that the 22-year-old Wacha was knocked around. Who was going to adjust better after Game 2? Wacha to the veteran Sox batters, or the Sox batters to Wacha? The Sox lineup isn't loaded with stars, but it's packed with savvy players that know how to work at-bats and figure out pitchers.

The Cardinals did not figure out John Lackey. He wasn't dominant, but he made pitches when he had to. He allowed 9 hits in his 6.2 innings. He seemed to save his best pitches for the most important at-bats. He struck out Jon Jay with runners on second and third in the 2nd inning. He struck out David Freese to end the 4th, also with two runners on. Of the 9 hits he allowed, only 1 wasn't a single, and only 1 was allowed with runners in scoring position.

The Sox scored 5 of their 6 runs with 2 outs. Lackey shut the Cardinals down with 2 outs, at least until the 7th. Wacha's inability to get the third out and Lackey's ability to get it was the difference in this game.

What can you say about this team?

They never learned how to lose.

The 2011 and 2012 Sox found ways to lose. They seemed to go out of their way to lose. This team never learned how. They never lost more than 3 games in a row all season long. And they only had five 3-game losing streaks. Only one of those streaks came after the All-Star Game.

Losing was foreign to them. It was distasteful. They hated it. Once they lost they found a way to win the next day. They were 43-21 in games after a loss. That's a .672 pace, which would win 109 games in a 162 game season. In the playoffs they were 4-1 after a loss.

They found ways to win. When a reliever blew a save, the offense would rally. When the offense struggled to score, the pitching would bear down. Down 5-1 in the 8th against Detroit? No problem. David Ortiz will hit a Grand Slam to tie it.

Just magic. They made the city believe in them again. They made a cynic like me believe in them again. Faith restored.

I can't wait for Spring Training.

Photo Credit:
Greg M. Cooper/USA Today Sports

Jon Lester Officially an Ace

Monday night Jon Lester was promoted from being a very good pitcher, to being an Ace. What's the difference? Ace is frequently capitalized. It's the most powerful card in the deck. It's an honor bestowed to fighter pilots who shoot down 5+ enemy planes. And it's a designation reserved for starting pitchers who are the rarest of the rare. It's for pitchers who make winning easy for their team. And that's what Lester has done in this World Series.

Lester was ruthlessly efficient. He only needed 91 pitches to go 7.2 innings, or 3.96 pitches per out, 11.9 pitches per inning. He struck out 7. He allowed a solo homerun. He didn't walk anybody.

In the 2013 playoffs Lester is 4-1 with a 1.56 ERA. He's struck out 29 in 34.2 innings, and allowed 8 walks and 25 hits for a WHIP of 0.952 WHIP. Which is ridiculously low for a starter.

David Ortiz might steal World Series MVP away from Lester. Although co-MVPs have been awarded before (2001: Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson), and we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. However, Ortiz was 3 for 4 Monday night with a double and an RBI. He's hitting .733 in the World Series, with 6 RBI, 5 runs scored, 2 doubles, 2 homeruns, an OBP of .789, SLG of 1.267, OPS of 2.056. He hasn't struck out since Game 2 of the ALCS against Detroit.

David Ross was inserted into the lineup for his defense. His bat made the difference in this game. The ground rule double he hit in the 7th knocked in the game-winning run. And he nearly scored himself on a Jacoby Ellsbury single. It took a great throw from Shane Robinson to eliminate Ross at the plate.

Koji Uehara ended the game, of course. That's 7 saves in the playoffs for Uehara. His emergence as closer after injuries to Hanrahan and Bailey might be the most important development of a very special season for the Boston Red Sox.

Game 6 Wednesday night at Fenway. The Sox have a chance to clinch a World Series in their home ballpark for the first time since 1918. John Lackey faces Michael Wacha.

Photo Credit:
Jeff Curry-USA Today Sports

I'm So Sick of these Fox Broadcasts

The World Series is now essentially a best of three series. And the best part about that is that we will only be subjected to three more Fox broadcasts.

At best Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are boring. I'm tired of the shallow Wikipedia talking points for each hitter. Did you know Xander Bogaerts speaks 4 languages and started the year in AA? Did you know that Will Middlebrooks and Michael Wacha both grew up in Texarkana, Texas? Not Texarkana, Arkansas, but Texarkana, Texas!

At worse they're overly critical and then when events unfold to prove those criticisms wrong, they rarely acknowledge them. They criticized the decision to put Lackey in the game in the 8th (how much would they have drooled if Verlander had been used in relief?). Now I can't say I liked that move, I can't say I didn't like it. But I got it. I understood the sense of it. Lackey pitched well and Buck and McCarver didn't allow the audience to hear them eating crow.

Then they criticized the Sox for holding Wong on first. How did that work out for the Sox?

All McCarver has ever done is point out and then complicated the obvious. He sounds like he's reading a 1949 book on baseball fundamentals. And then he goes on tangents about anything and everything related to 1960s baseball and pop culture.

I think if Buck had a more youthful, more dynamic partner, he'd be okay. I actually like how he doesn't scream and shout, and allows the spectacle of the moment to be enjoyed by the viewer. He's not trying to make a memorable call, he's just working.

But Buck's measured pace doesn't blend well with Fox's hyperactive camera shots. Fox missed the last out on their live broadcast because they were busy showing various 1.5 second shots of anxious Cardinals fans with their hands on their face. Because that's how you build tension.

Tension in the World Series builds on its own, it doesn't need a director's help to be conveyed trough editing and camera work.

Fox baseball broadcasts are close to unbearable to watch, and should be used at Guantanamo to extract information from enemy combatants.

Red Sox Win Game 4 Unobstructed

This series just gets weirder and weirder. Saturday night gives us the first ever walk-off obstruction call in World Series history. Sunday night gives us the first ever game-ending pickoff in World Series history.

The 2013 Red Sox find a way to to support each other. When one player struggles or makes a mistake, the others make up for their teammate's failures. John Lackey, normally a starter, pitched a scoreless 8th inning, bridging the gap between Junichi Tazwawa and Koji Uehara when Craig Breslow couldn't get an out. That's how the Sox have done it all season. Even when your starter is hurt and only manages to pitch 4 innings, a guy like Felix Doubront enters the game and pitches 2.2 innings of quality relief. He was charged with a run, but that was Breslow's fault.

While some members of the Red Sox picked up their teammates, others stepped up and made the big plays that decided the game. None more than David Ortiz and Jonny Gomes Sunday night.

Ortiz is red hot in the World Series. He's 8 for 11 with 2 homeruns and a double. That double came Sunday night, leading off the 5th. After Ortiz reached second base, he looked into the Red Sox dugout and screamed words of encouragement to his teammates in English and Spanish. ¡Vámonos! He eventually scored on a Stephen Drew sac-fly.

Before the 6th inning Ortiz gave a motivational speech to his teammates in the dugout. And then Jonny Gomes hit the 3-run homerun that pushed the Sox to victory. How much did the pep-talk affect Gomes? There's no way to accurately measure that. Although in the postgame press conference Sunday night, Gomes beamed as he talked about Ortiz and his leadership.

Jonny Gomes hasn't gotten a lot of hits this year. But the hits he gets mean a lot.

In 2013 David Ortiz has taken on more of a leadership role. He isn't just everyone's friend in the clubhouse. He's expecting more from his teammates and pushing them to push themselves. After the game he spoke about what he told his teammates before the 6th:

"Let's loosen up... What got us to this level is doing what we normally do. If you run, run. If you play defense, play defense. If you hit, hit. If you pitch, you pitch. That's all it takes to win games. And it clicked."

I'm not looking forward to Craig Breslow's next appearance. He's looked dreadful in this series. Without him the bullpen gets stretched very thin. That means the starters must go deeper into games.

Hopefully that's exactly what Jon Lester does Monday night. He faces Adam Wainwright in a rematch of Game 1.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo/The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chris Lee

Red Sox Bresblow Game 2

In the ALCS against the Tigers, the Red Sox bullpen was a relative strength. Against the Cardinals, that advantage is no longer there. I'd venture to say that St. Louis has the edge with their top-level relievers. Craig Breslow had been very good in the playoffs. Last night he blew it. He entered a 2-1 game with 2 on and 1 out. His pitching didn't preserve the lead, and his throwing error didn't preserve the tie. Breslow blew it.

Offensively, the Red Sox only managed 4 hits. Give credit to Cardinals rookie Michael Wacha for that. David Ortiz collected 2 hits, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia had the others for the Sox. The Red Sox 5 through 9 hitters combined to go 0 for 17 with 8 strikeouts.

Give credit to the Cardinals pitchers in this one. Wacha was excellent. Then Carlos Martinez pitched 2 great innings, striking out 3. And closer Trevor Rosenthal struck out the side in the 9th. I was hoping Mike Matheny would pull Martinez when Ortiz came to the plate in the 8th. Ortiz hit a single, but I think the move to keep Martinez in the game was correct. He was mowing the Sox down.

The Red Sox could have stolen this one had Breslow done his job. Even if he kept the score at 2-2, then anything could have happened. I don't want to peg one loss on just one pitcher. Especially since most of the hitters did nothing. But Breslow didn't do his job, and it cost the Sox a win, and a 2-0 advantage going to Missouri.

Although I do have a feeling that if the Sox see Wacha again, they'll do much better against him.

Also remember that the Sox started the ALCS 1-1, and that ended well.

Now this series is 1-1. Which isn't the end of the world. The Sox lose the DH because stupid NL fans like watching pitchers bunt and strikeout. That's entertainment to you people? Anyway, Jake Peavy takes the mound against Joe Kelly Saturday night. Kelly was 5-7 this year, with a 3.53 ERA. In the NL. So hopefully the Sox can tag him for a few runs and Peavy can pitch well against an NL team, which he has done this year.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

Red Sox Take Advantage of Cardinals Sins

Both the Cardinals and the umpires had a rough 1st inning. At least the umpires were able to confer and undo their mistake. Unlike the umps, the Cards didn't come together as a team and help each other out. They kept making mistakes. The worst was Adam Wainwright calling for an infield pop-up, then just standing there as the ball fell between he and his catcher.

The Red Sox took advantage of these mistakes, as they've done throughout the playoffs. Mike Napoli's bases clearing double took advantage of Pete Kozma's fielding error in the 1st. Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz knocked in runs in the 2nd after Wainwright let that ball drop.

Wainwright's pitching was worse than his fielding. If not for his right-fielders making two great catches, he might have given up 9 runs. Carlos Beltran robbed David Ortiz of a Grand Slam in the 2nd, and Shane Robinson took away extra bases (at least a triple, maybe more) from Dustin Pedroia in the 5th. Even when the Sox made outs they hit the ball hard off Wainwright.

Ortiz and Pedroia combined for 4 hits, 4 RBI, and 4 runs. If not for those catches by St. Louis right-fielders, they would have combined for 6 hits, and perhaps 8 RBI and 6 runs.

Jon Lester pitched brilliantly. He set the tone early, allowing only one baserunner in the first three innings and striking out 4. In the middle innings he had to work through some jams. In the 4th he escaped a bases-loaded, 1 out situation by inducing a double-play ball. A double play which he initiated, 1-2-3. He finished the game with 8 strikeouts and only walked 1 Cardinal, allowing 5 hits and 0 runs in his 7.2 innings.

Lester has been Ace-like in the postseason, starting each series with a topnotch performance. In ALDS Game 1 he went 7.2 and allowed 2 runs, striking out 7. In ALCS Game 1 he lost 1-0 but pitched well, 6.1 innings and only 1 run allowed. And now this start in the World Series opener. He's 3-1 in the playoffs with a 1.67 ERA. If baseball had a Conn Smythe type of trophy for postseason MVP, he'd be the leading candidate.

The Red Sox have won 9 straight World Series games, and haven't lost a game in the Fall Classic since 1986.

John Lackey takes the mound Thursday night to face rookie Michael Wacha. Wacha only started 9 games this year. He's been lights-out in the playoffs, with a 3-0 record, a 0.43 ERA in 21 innings, striking out 22, allowing only 8 hits, and only walking 4. So to say he's doing well is something of an understatement. The Red Sox need Lackey to continue to perform at the high level he has pitched in the postseason.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo/Charles Krupa