The 2019 Red Sox

[Bellhorn04]

You know of course about the road to hell and good intentions. It didn't backfire a bit. It backfired a lot.

 

However, the team righted the ship in plenty of time. There's no such explanation for the mediocre play of late.

[notin]

However, the team righted the ship in plenty of time. There's no such explanation for the mediocre play of late.

 

The only day off since May 16 was yesterday’s rainout and the team got a couple really short starts, one from illness, that have helped tax a fairly mediocre bullpen?

 

I think that’s a factor.

[FredLynn]

This team seems to be psychologically messed up. I do attribute a lot of it to the World Series hangover. The hunger just isn't there. It's not an excuse, it's just the best way I can explain what I'm seeing.

 

Exactly. No focus. Two cases in point: a botched rundown a couple of days ago and Nunez getting picked off 2B last night. Last year was a lot of fun. What a juggernaut! This year....not so much.

[notin]

Exactly. No focus. Two cases in point: a botched rundown a couple of days ago and Nunez getting picked off 2B last night. Last year was a lot of fun. What a juggernaut! This year....not so much.

 

Last year was fun, but really once they jumped out to a 16-2, there were all but unchallenged the rest of the way, including the postseason....

[Bellhorn04]

Last year was fun, but really once they jumped out to a 16-2, there were all but unchallenged the rest of the way, including the postseason....

 

Too easy for ya?

[Elktonnick]

However, the team righted the ship in plenty of time. There's no such explanation for the mediocre play of late.

 

Really righted the ship, I think not. The mediocre play of late is a natural progression and result of the current manager's implied message to the team in the spring that they did not have to work hard to achieve championship results. That they could take it easy and still win.

[Bellhorn04]

Really righted the ship, I think not. The mediocre play of late is a natural progression and result of the current manager's implied message to the team in the spring that they did not have to work hard to achieve championship results. That they could take it easy and still win.

 

On May 12, 20 days ago, they closed to within 3 games of first place. The bad start was virtually erased.

 

Saying that Cora gave a message to the team not to work hard is absolute nonsense, of course.

[harmony]

The Red Sox were 16-11 (.593) in May, but only 2-5 against the Houston Astros and New York Yankees. Their remaining 14-6 record came against teams that on average are on pace for 70-win seasons.

 

The Red Sox schedule so far has not been particularly difficult:

 

http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/rpi/_/sort/sos

 

... with a combined 30 games remaining against the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, who each are currently at least 15 games above .500.

 

A challenge awaits the Red Sox.

[YastrzemskI]

At this point, the Sox are playing for the opportunity to play a WC game down in Tampa Bay. That’s all. The underperforming by virtually every everyday player thus far (with the exception of Devers) has made for a .500 ball club. Who in the world would have thought that we would be sitting at .500 by the end of May..

 

Chris Sale is 1-7. The Red Sox are 3-9 in games that he's started. It's completely unfathomable. If you simply reverse that, and have the Sox at 9-3 in games that Sale has started (which would make a hell of a lot more sense in a real baseball world), the Sox would be 35-22 and none of us would be worrying about much of anything.

[jacksonianmarch]

No team wants to face TB in Tampa in a single game playoff with Snell on the hill

[moonslav59]

One thing Cora needs to do is pick a closer. This closer by committee ain’t working. A closer needs to get used to the pressure of pitching in the ninth inning. All the moves that worked for Cora last year are not this year. Like the other day after the collapse in the ninth with Braiser Cora stays with Weber when he’s giving it up from the first pitch. Like we have games to spare. Mookie has been average so far and JD isn’t driving runs in like he was last year. Our BP is just atrocious. That’s our achilles heal. So all we can do is hope somehow someway we turn it around because we can’t go get anyone with our highest payroll in the MLB.

 

I think Barnes is our closer. Cora is just using him, when he feels the game is more on the line and not as a traditional 9th inning closer.

[moonslav59]

Our hitting is fairly solid with Chavis going through the first year of needing to make adjustments and JDM with a sore back. When our team faces top notch pitching, like the Yankee bullpen, they all have trouble and we are no different in that respect.

 

Our pitching has been strained due to injuries to starters and the need to find a BP or Minors starter every 5th day out. Eovaldi will be back and should help with that. Our weakest area is our BP and that has been heavily used.

 

We traded away a lot to get last years national championship and we are carrying Panda's and Pedey's contracts which limit our financial capability to maybe one BP acquisition. The decision to do more than that would mean further consequences to the team and might not even get us a wild card. I'm for just limiting to a BP acquisition and accepting whatever that can bring us. If we don't get to the wild card level then so be it.

 

Actually, it seems to me, our hitters do worse vs rookies and scrubs. Our history (maybe not so much this year) is to rise to the occasion, when we need to.

 

When we needed to beat the Yanks last year, we swept them. When playoff time came, we beat the best of the best- perhaps the hardest all time 3 series opponents in MLB history- the Astros, Yanks and Dodgers.

 

We just need to snap out of this funk and play like we can.

 

I still think we will, but time is running short.

[YastrzemskI]

No team wants to face TB in Tampa in a single game playoff with Snell on the hill

 

There’s no denying that. No team would want that no matter where they end up in the standings.

[moonslav59]

If the season goes down to the wire, the Rays may need Snell for game 161 or 162, and he won't be available for the WC game.

 

[notin]

If the season goes down to the wire, the Rays may need Snell for game 161 or 162, and he won't be available for the WC game.

 

 

Cash might also use his opener like Yarborough.

 

Honestly, against Boston in a WC game, if I was managing TB, I'd want to go with Charlie Morton anyway...

[OH FOY]

No team wants to face TB in Tampa in a single game playoff with Snell on the hill

 

Lets just look out for tonight. Sorry Jackson, we need to do a beatdown on you. Play like Champions. Were getting beat by mostly kids, that can't happen.

[Kimmi]

Personally I didn't think that Restgate was a result of complacency and/or arrogance.

 

I think they looked at all the extra innings pitched by the starters last postseason, and the analytics people probably dug up some data on how that has impacted starters the following season, and they came up with this rest scheme.

 

It appears to have backfired a bit. But I think the intentions were good.

 

You are probably right about that.

[Kimmi]

No team wants to face TB in Tampa in a single game playoff with Snell on the hill

 

I guess we'll see if the Yankees are up to that challenge!

[Elktonnick]

On May 12, 20 days ago, they closed to within 3 games of first place. The bad start was virtually erased.

 

Saying that Cora gave a message to the team not to work hard is absolute nonsense, of course.

 

If you are going to misquote me at least be honest about it. My exact quote was implied message. That means his actions by not working his starters as hard as everyone else was that certain players didn't have to work as hard as other to start the season or to be successful. It may be nonsense but that is exactly what he did.

[Bellhorn04]

If you are going to misquote me at least be honest about it. My exact quote was implied message. That means his actions by not working his starters as hard as everyone else was that certain players didn't have to work as hard as other to start the season or to be successful. It may be nonsense but that is exactly what he did.

 

You're just being obtuse. Starting pitchers are treated differently from other players on a regular basis throughout baseball.

[moonslav59]

You're just being obtuse. Starting pitchers are treated differently from other players on a regular basis throughout baseball.

 

Always have been- always will be.

 

We rested them about 8-12 more innings each than the previous season(s), so it's not like it was a radical change, and it's not like we sent them to Hawaii while the other players worked their butts off.

[YastrzemskI]

And the lifeless 2019 campaign rolls along.. the pen was perfect tonight.. how ironic.

[jung]

Always have been- always will be.

 

We rested them about 8-12 more innings each than the previous season(s), so it's not like it was a radical change, and it's not like we sent them to Hawaii while the other players worked their butts off.

 

Do we really know how much work the Rotation was getting in the Spring? They came into the regular season not just looking like they had not pitched enough from the mound in ST but had not pitched enough period. I agree, I think the intentions were good. But I have never seen a Rotation so utterly unprepared to start the season. Then what really hurt them IMO is that the team as a team really needed the Rotation to pitch well early because the everyday players were not exactly lighting things up either.

 

The schedulers have not been a help either. Playing in London....WHY. As a team we get very little rest till ASB and then our big days off month is August. Well I will trade days off even in the dog days for getting off to a good start. By August it could be a who cares.

 

It almost makes me wonder if Cora did not explain it to the team of if he did and they just didn't respond. If you are going to strategize around saving the best asset you have (the rotation) for the last half of the season and post-season then you better be telling your team what you are doing....THE WHOLE TEAM, not just the pitching staff. As it was we started out with a Rotation that was not ready and everyday players that were simply not into their game at all.

 

Result, a hole I doubt they can work out of for anything but a Wild Card. They will struggle to make that IMO, only helped by the sludge at the bottom of the AL.

[jacksonianmarch]

I guess we'll see if the Yankees are up to that challenge!

 

You were saying?

[Kimmi]

You were saying?

 

And I'm still saying the same thing. It ain't over 'til it's over.

 

FTR, the Pythagorean records of the Red Sox and Yankees, respectively, are 31-27 and 36-21. The Red Sox are not as bad as their record indicates, nor are the Yankees as good as their record indicates.

 

The difference in the Red Sox/Yankees games so far has mostly been the Red Sox' inability to get a timely hit.

 

Sox vs Yankees with RISP in four games: 2-22, 10 Ks, no extra-base hits, .091/.167/.091

 

That is, for the most part, a random, fluky type thing.

 

And quit being so obnoxious.

[Slasher9]

Last year was fun, but really once they jumped out to a 16-2, there were all but unchallenged the rest of the way, including the postseason....

 

We were in 2nd place in May tho?

[Slasher9]

You were saying?

 

 

And for the past 3 seasons you would whine/wax endlesyhow the Yankees would win the division....so there’s that...

[Maxbialystock]

You're just being obtuse. Starting pitchers are treated differently from other players on a regular basis throughout baseball.

 

FWIW, you keep making sense, at least to me. Last year I think we can agree giving guys periodic rests, which runs completely counter to traditional views of what players should do during a 162 game season, sure didn't hurt and probably helped. It was the best season, especially the postseason, in Red Sox history, so the rest might have helped. So Cora tried to use rest for his starters in ST this year.

 

Plus, as you say, starters throw a lot of innings and pitches and one in particular, Sale, burned out in the 2017 and 2018 seasons. That's beyond question when you compare his April-July ERA's with his August-October ERA's. Another point in favor of extra rest for starters in ST.

 

That said, I do think April, for whatever reasons it went so badly, did create a confidence problem from which the Sox have not recovered. I suppose you can start with the rotation being so lousy in the early games, add in an 11 game west coast trip with no break which caused losses and overworked the bullpen, and suddenly the Sox are playing catch-up, the exact opposite of a year ago.

 

The 5 game winning streak ending May 12 should have created a burst of confidence, but since then the Sox have gone 7-10 since then and are in danger of going below .500 today. During that 7-10 run the Sox played 13 games without a break, including two starts (by Price and Velazquez) then last 2 outs and 1 out, respectively, which maybe why the bullpen collapsed vs. the Guardians.

 

Right now I think that Yankees bullpen is like the feather in Dumbo's trunk for the rest of the team--rotation and lineup--because they're thinking, "no biggie if we fall behind because the bullpen will shut them down and we can win later." Or, "all we need is a small lead that the bullpen can maintain forever." I say that because our rotation and hitting are about as good as the Yankees, but so far this season they are beating our brains out. Despite multiple injuries to their lineup and rotation.

[YastrzemskI]

I was listening to WEEI this morning.. good God, never again.

They were looking for excuses for the Sox play so far this season and one host’s recommendation was to unload Mookie and JD in the off season. You guys think that some of us are off our meds?!? LOL

[Elktonnick]

You're just being obtuse. Starting pitchers are treated differently from other players on a regular basis throughout baseball.

 

Really I did not know that. I try not to make personal remarks but in your case I'll make an exception. You are needlessly ignorant and rude. This isn't a question of pitchers vs position players. The manager didn't play his veteran position players as much as the Sox did in the years past. It was just more noticeable with the starting pitchers to those who weren't at ST because they were so horrid the first two weeks of the regular season.

 

Oh how do I know the regulars didn't play as often. Besides being there in 18 as well as 19. If you had checked you would have seen that a comparison of the 2018/19 stats show that Betts Beni Bogaerts JD Martinez and JBJ all had fewer plate appearances in 19 than they did in 18. Betts 15 fewer Beni 4 Bogie 6 JD 4 JBJ 3. I didn't check every position player because these demonstrate the point. Given that position players regulars only average 2 or at most 3 PA per game in ST this represents a considerable percentage of less game participation than in years past in each case.

 

In all cases the implicit message was we don't need to work as hard as last guys because we won and we are so good.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Elktonnick