Main Reason for WS Championship?

[mvp 78]

Ownership didn't really "lose its way" until 2011 when they signed Crawford. Just because they lost in 08 and 09 doesn't mean ownership had lost its way. They have a tv station that needs programming. That's why Tom Werner is there. I don't think Theo or anyone making decisions in 08-09 were doing so based on Sox Appeal. They had a good team in 2010, but got hit hard by injuries.

[User Name]

In fact, with a healthy (pre-head case) Beckett, the 2008 team might have won the WS.

[Thunder]

In fact, with a healthy (pre-head case) Beckett, the 2008 team might have won the WS.

The more I think about, the more you're right. Pitching is what killed that team in the playoffs. The Rays got lucky in the ALCS.

[Palodios]

The more I think about, the more you're right. Pitching is what killed that team in the playoffs. The Rays got lucky in the ALCS.

 

Timely hitting was their problem, IMO. Winning game 2 in extras would have been a back-breaker for the Rays, and the offense did nothing off a solid performance from Lester in game 7.

[a700hitter]

Lester's second half and post-season excellence.

[RedSoxNC84]

Lester being shutdown in the second half, everyone stepping up and taking the slack buchholz left when he was injured. The resurgence of lackey, Farrell and Nieves, Pedroia, Ortiz, Victorino, Drew's defense, iglesias batting 500 before getting traded, Daniel Nava, Jonny Gomes clutch homers, motherf***ing koji uehara, and Ben f***ing Cherington...

 

Also pretty much everyone else besides Hanrahan and Brock Holt

[RedSoxNC84]

And beards.

[User Name]

Timely hitting was their problem, IMO. Winning game 2 in extras would have been a back-breaker for the Rays, and the offense did nothing off a solid performance from Lester in game 7.

 

Timely hitting is not a skill you have any real control over. Good pitching is, and Beckett's oblique issues certainly impacted the series.

[seabeachfred]

Ownership didn't really "lose its way" until 2011 when they signed Crawford. Just because they lost in 08 and 09 doesn't mean ownership had lost its way. They have a tv station that needs programming. That's why Tom Werner is there. I don't think Theo or anyone making decisions in 08-09 were doing so based on Sox Appeal. They had a good team in 2010, but got hit hard by injuries.

 

Most of what you said mvp can stand tall and upright but I noticed some personnel decisions made those years left a lot to be desired. Trying not to beat a dead horse, in ST, 2008 Beckett showed up for ST with a gut and never got into playing shape, not to mention the injuries he suffered along with lack of conditioning. That was also the year that Jason Varitek started coming apart offensively as the seams. From July on he hit under 200 and always seemed to come to the plate in the most critical of times while Francona refused to pinch hit for him....not once during the regular season. In 2009, we had lost the bidding war for Mark Teixeira and that led to a Yankees WS Title. I really believe we could have won the division both seasons with a better field manager. Francona never turned the runners loose even once in those two critical series with the Rays in '08. and I think managed even worse in the ALCS and not once did be bunt or use the hit and run. In 2009 we had a three game lead at the ASB and came out flat after that and fell apart. In Francona's book this is where owner John Henry started really questioning his manager's ability and really questioning some of his moves. I always believed that he should have been replaced immediately after that season. I really think we started losing our way around that time, though you don't seem to agree with me on that. Well, that's one man's opinion and I'm not going to hunker down over it because I feel too good about our team right now. In fact to me that's water long ago under the bridge. I just hope we don't lose our way again.

[mvp 78]

And non of that has anything to do with ownership losing its way.

[Thunder]

Timely hitting was their problem, IMO. Winning game 2 in extras would have been a back-breaker for the Rays, and the offense did nothing off a solid performance from Lester in game 7.

 

You can always argue that when a team fails to come through in the clutch time after time, it is the fault of the pitching staff for allowing other teams to pull ahead in the game. You do have a point though. Garza (correct me if wrong) was pretty dominant himself in game 7, but the Sox really should have won that series beforehand. A combination of a few things cost them. We both may be right.

[Northern Star]

Hot girl avatars.

[SoxSport]

Obviously all of the above--of varying importance. Clubhouse? What was the clubhouse like? I don't think anybody knows. The media talks about "clubhouse" but they never say what is going on there--maybe they don't know either. Schilling said they didn't. Maybe clubhouse means the "beards" , etc. If so, yes. That gave the team character and identity.

 

We do know they had excellent chemistry on the field--a bunch of role players who contributed down the line. 25 guys. Guys who could get the big hit or pitch the big game or inning.

 

Farrell and the coaches must also be big factors. Farrell was a lot more visible than the coaches, but the coaches must have been a factor as well. Farrell and Nieves probably had a lot to do with the pitching--no championship without the pitching.

 

The other thing --maybe the most important--is you had all levels of the organization rowing in the same direction. That was not the case last year. The communication lines were reopened. You could say Farrell was the glue here.

 

A lot of stuff just came together, as it does for any team which wins a championship.

Edited November 3, 2013 by SoxSport

[Bellhorn04]

Timely hitting is not a skill you have any real control over.

 

This gives rise to a question about the Red Sox hitting this postseason. Overall our hitting numbers were poor. But we had some huge timely hits that decided games for us. Ortiz's slam, Victorino's slam, Gomes's 3 run shot, Ross's double, Victorino's triple.

 

How do we explain the timely hits-was it good hitting (even though our overall hitting was bad), untimely bad pitches by the opponent, or luck?

[sk7326]

Most of what you said mvp can stand tall and upright but I noticed some personnel decisions made those years left a lot to be desired. Trying not to beat a dead horse, in ST, 2008 Beckett showed up for ST with a gut and never got into playing shape, not to mention the injuries he suffered along with lack of conditioning. That was also the year that Jason Varitek started coming apart offensively as the seams. From July on he hit under 200 and always seemed to come to the plate in the most critical of times while Francona refused to pinch hit for him....not once during the regular season. In 2009, we had lost the bidding war for Mark Teixeira and that led to a Yankees WS Title. I really believe we could have won the division both seasons with a better field manager. Francona never turned the runners loose even once in those two critical series with the Rays in '08. and I think managed even worse in the ALCS and not once did be bunt or use the hit and run. In 2009 we had a three game lead at the ASB and came out flat after that and fell apart. In Francona's book this is where owner John Henry started really questioning his manager's ability and really questioning some of his moves. I always believed that he should have been replaced immediately after that season. I really think we started losing our way around that time, though you don't seem to agree with me on that. Well, that's one man's opinion and I'm not going to hunker down over it because I feel too good about our team right now. In fact to me that's water long ago under the bridge. I just hope we don't lose our way again.

 

None of what you described are personnel decisions. Beckett has a long, rich injury history - so the struggles were typical. The ALCS, Tampa was better - they were the best team in the majors that season (Angels got off to a huge start but were flawed as we discovered). Frankly the comeback is one of the proudest moments of this entire decade, though it goes under the radar since a title (or a pennant) did not come with it. The players and manager left it all out there. The sacrifice thing - that is just philosophy, and hard to reconcile. Francona, Farrell, Weaver ... the school of not sacrificing has a lot of students. Certainly it has been proven that giving up outs assures that multi-run innings are few and far between.

[sk7326]

This gives rise to a question about the Red Sox hitting this postseason. Overall our hitting numbers were poor. But we had some huge timely hits that decided games for us. Ortiz's slam, Victorino's slam, Gomes's 3 run shot, Ross's double, Victorino's triple.

 

How do we explain the timely hits-was it good hitting (even though our overall hitting was bad), untimely bad pitches by the opponent, or luck?

 

A few things.

 

1. The Red Sox played 8 of their 16 games on the road ... Detroit is a ballpark with large dimensions ... Tampa and Saint Louis are longtime proven pitcher's parks. The Red Sox scored 45 runs in 8 games at home, 5.6 runs a game (which is actually a higher run rate than their season rate, which led the league). So ballparks did contribute some to this. Remember the Red Sox went 5-3 on the road too, so neither team was hitting.

 

2. We have good hitters - yeah the averages were bad this postseason, but these were also tiny samples. (to give you an idea - if you see a guy get 3 hits in 10 at-bats ... on that basis alone, you can only really narrow down that he is really a .000 to .644 sort of hitter - it takes a couple of SEASONS to really hone in on true ability) The timing was luck, but when you have a lot of good hitters - at some point something was going to happen. It's like having 3 scoring lines in hockey - you can take guys away for a while, but at some point something good is likely to happen.

 

3. Just because we hit did not mean that we did not get on base. Consider the one-hitter. Yeah only one hit, but there were a parade of baserunners. We lost 1-0, but we had plenty of chances to take the lead. It's not luck, but it is not clutchness either. It is just piling up opportunities, and our ability to generate baserunners even without hitting allowed us to have chances. Yeah we stranded a lot of guys, but remember, during the season we and Detroit led the league in LOBs. LOBs are is a good "bad" statistic.

[User Name]

This gives rise to a question about the Red Sox hitting this postseason. Overall our hitting numbers were poor. But we had some huge timely hits that decided games for us. Ortiz's slam, Victorino's slam, Gomes's 3 run shot, Ross's double, Victorino's triple.

 

How do we explain the timely hits-was it good hitting (even though our overall hitting was bad), untimely bad pitches by the opponent, or luck?

 

A few things.

 

1. The Red Sox played 8 of their 16 games on the road ... Detroit is a ballpark with large dimensions ... Tampa and Saint Louis are longtime proven pitcher's parks. The Red Sox scored 45 runs in 8 games at home, 5.6 runs a game (which is actually a higher run rate than their season rate, which led the league). So ballparks did contribute some to this. Remember the Red Sox went 5-3 on the road too, so neither team was hitting.

 

2. We have good hitters - yeah the averages were bad this postseason, but these were also tiny samples. (to give you an idea - if you see a guy get 3 hits in 10 at-bats ... on that basis alone, you can only really narrow down that he is really a .000 to .644 sort of hitter - it takes a couple of SEASONS to really hone in on true ability) The timing was luck, but when you have a lot of good hitters - at some point something was going to happen. It's like having 3 scoring lines in hockey - you can take guys away for a while, but at some point something good is likely to happen.

 

3. Just because we hit did not mean that we did not get on base. Consider the one-hitter. Yeah only one hit, but there were a parade of baserunners. We lost 1-0, but we had plenty of chances to take the lead. It's not luck, but it is not clutchness either. It is just piling up opportunities, and our ability to generate baserunners even without hitting allowed us to have chances. Yeah we stranded a lot of guys, but remember, during the season we and Detroit led the league in LOBs. LOBs are is a good "bad" statistic.

 

SK pretty much encompassed everything i came here to say even better than i would have.

[Behindenemylines]

Timely hitting and good pitching will win a lot of games. The Sox road that to another World Series championship.

[User Name]

Timely hitting is not a repeatable skill. The Cards were, by far, the best "clutch" hitting team in the Majors, posting league-leading batting averages in every possible run-scoring situation in 2013, yet look at how they fell flat in part of they playoffs and the WS.

[Behindenemylines]

Timely hitting during the regular season is different then timely hitting during the post season. If you looked at the Sox stats for many of the players for the post season their numbers don't look that great, but there where many that had clutch hits some time during the playoffs.

[User Name]

Timely hitting during the regular season is different then timely hitting during the post season. If you looked at the Sox stats for many of the players for the post season their numbers don't look that great, but there where many that had clutch hits some time during the playoffs.

 

It's different because of the sample size, and that's exactly the point i was trying to get at. Even after a significant sample size of success, hitting values always end up evening themselves out, and it happened at the worst of times to the Cardinals. Again, superior timely hitting, or the regular definition of "clutch" does not exist (with some notable exceptions), because it isn't a repeatable skill.

[a700hitter]

I noticed looking at the team stat sheet that Daniel Bard actually pitched in 2 games for the Red Sox in 2013. I just don't remember that. I wonder if he will get a ring?

[Orange Juiced]

I noticed looking at the team stat sheet that Daniel Bard actually pitched in 2 games for the Red Sox in 2013. I just don't remember that. I wonder if he will get a ring?

 

I'm sure he will.

[a700hitter]

I'm sure he will.

1 inning for 1 ring. A good deal.

[Dojji]

I noticed looking at the team stat sheet that Daniel Bard actually pitched in 2 games for the Red Sox in 2013. I just don't remember that. I wonder if he will get a ring?

People need to stop obsessing about that. Players know the difference between having jewelry, and actually making a big contribution.

[a700hitter]

People need to stop obsessing about that. Players know the difference between having jewelry, and actually making a big contribution.

I am not obsessing about it, just noting that it is a sweet deal. 25-30 years from now people won't remember what role he played on the 2013 team.

[jung]

The Sox may have gotten timely hits but that is not the same thing as saying they had timely hitting. The former is valid but the latter is not.

 

On more than one occasion they hit pretty decent pitches which says to me that their scouting effort eventually caught up to the much publicized but maybe not so super Cards starting pitching. Maybe add Carpenter to that mix and it could have been a different story. The Sox were guessing right many times especially against Wacha who they eventually figured out and pulverized. While on the few occasions that I tuned them in, the TV broadcast team made much of Wacha not being as sharp the second time around as he was in game 2 of the series, I thought he was leaving pitches in some bad spots in game 2 but the Sox were simply not prepared for him. I said the exact same thing in the game 2 game thread. I really thought Wacha pitched similarly in both games with the difference being the Sox working their usual process on the opponent once they had a book on him.

 

I thought from the beginning that not only were the Cards foolish to pitch to Ortiz but that they were leaving pitches in horrible spots to a LH power hitter.

 

Gomes had to be looking for the pitch he hit out and I think you can say the same for the Vic HR. I just can't remember the pitch that was hit for the triple. I will have to go looking for it. Salty hit a pretty good pitch although again I think they could have pitched Salty heat, up all day long instead of where they threw that thing and Salty would never have caught up to the pitch. As it was Salty hardly hit a liner. that was more of a six hopper. The pitch to Ross was just terrible...a bad pitch in a bad location and Ross made them pay.

 

I am just focusing on the RBI hits here but in general I do think that the Sox vaunted ability to talk through the opponent really came to the fore here. Once the Sox got a read on those guys, things got much better for them. If anything given the situation, the Sox may have worked extra hard and extra fast to get these guys figured out. In fact I had given up on the TV broadcast team and the radio team was saying before Wacha's second start that the Sox were walking around like they were saying " come ahead big fella', we got something for ya' this time." The radio crew, particularly Lou Merloni claimed that the Sox thought they had definitely picked something up on Wacha.

Edited November 4, 2013 by jung

[Orange Juiced]

1 inning for 1 ring. A good deal.

 

And I think he made over a million bucks too. Good deal indeed!

[Thunder]

Timely hitting is not a repeatable skill. The Cards were, by far, the best "clutch" hitting team in the Majors, posting league-leading batting averages in every possible run-scoring situation in 2013, yet look at how they fell flat in part of they playoffs and the WS.

 

Yes. Great post. Timely hitting, or clutch hitting, is bogus. There's no way to really measure it, because you wouldn't know if getting an out or a hit in the given situation would really effect what happened in that inning and maybe even the game. A good example of this was games 2, 4, and 6 of the ALCS. In game 2, the Sox were down 5-0, but certainly had chances, and then it was one hit that tied it. Who knows? Papi strikes out, and maybe whoever was up after him could hit a single knocking in two, and a rally starts. Who knows? In game 4, the Sox were down and also had plenty of chances, but couldn't capitalize. Game 6 was similar to game 2, except for the fact that the Sox weren't down as much. There were also plenty examples from the World Series.

[seabeachfred]

I think the reason the Red Sox the World Series this year was because.....WE HAD THE BEST TEAM....TEAM...TEAM...TEAM. Everyone boosted everyone else and egos didn't seem to get in the way. Yes, there were team that might have had more raw talent than we did, but we had the best TEAM!!!!!!!!