FredLynn

How to fix a slump: play the Red Sox. Can we play ourselves soon?

Sloppy baseball.

You can't be referring to our ace, right?

They are very tough to watch. Only die hards keep watching them. No one should doubt the level of support ANY of us have for this team, ever, if we are still here, watching this team lay an egg night after night.

See your pms. Probably not game thread material.

Lets put it this way: it was one of his better ABs of late. Saw 8 pitches, got to 3-2. Its a step up...and I am no Gonzalez fan, as you know. Just keepin it real here.

I was there. I don't recall anyone saying that, but I will check. I recall a lot of people commented on the kind of baseball we are playing right now.

Who claimed the season is already over?

When was the last time a player unequivocally criticized the attitude or performance of another player in the media? Its very very rare. If they are asked to comment about their fellow teamates, the cover for them. I am not saying thats a bad thing; in fact, I think its a good thing. But you've got to read between the lines and look for other sources of information when it comes to who is having a bad effect on the team, like Lackey and Beckett had last year. Never once heard in the media any player criticizing those to buffoons about what they did to destroy the club.

Not quite sure where to post this. Mazzarotti has expressed my viewpoint much more eloquently than I can do it myself. Its all about the pitching, and while ours has improved, its still behind most good teams. By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist From Roger Clemens to Pedro Martinez to Curt Schilling and beyond, the Red Sox always had an answer. But when it comes time to match up now, with the entire major leagues undergoing an ongoing detoxification, the truth is that the Red Sox simply do not match up anymore. So while the Red Sox continue to blame the umpires and most anyone else (but themselves) in the wake of a weekend sweep at the hands of the pitching-rich Washington Nationals, the evidence suggests a far more worrisome problem. When it comes to premier pitching, the rest of the major leagues has passed the Red Sox by, which might be the biggest reason the Red Sox have not won a playoff game since 2008. From Clemens to Martinez to Schilling, after all, the Red Sox did not merely have an ace at the front of their rotation. They had a legitimate, bona fide front runner for the Cy Young Award. That was true even in 2007, the year of the last Red Sox championship, when Josh Beckett appeared to take the baton. But now? The Red Sox don't have an ace anymore, not a true one, not like Stephen Strasburg. Or maybe even Gio Gonzalez. Or maybe even Jordan Zimmermann. The very best starters in the game now reside in other cities - from Justin Verlander to Jered Weaver to David Price and Clayton Kershaw - and so there is no one the Red Sox can really turn to at the most demanding of times, when the other team has an elite pitcher on the mound and there is no room for error. Blame the offense if you'd like. But the Red Sox almost never outpitch anyone anymore, and the weekend series against the Nationals seemed a prime opportunity. The Nationals left Boston late on Sunday ranked first in the majors in pitching, 26th in runs scored. The Red Sox were almost exactly the opposite (28th, third). The Nationals went 3-0 while the Red Sox went 0-3, which we might attribute to the individual matchups were it not for the bigger picture. This season, the Red Sox are 9-17 against teams that currently rank in the top 10 in the majors in pitching. Boston starters simply are not capable of shutting down opposing teams anymore, even a club as relatively inept as the Nationals. (Washington averaged five runs per game over the weekend.) The Red Sox really have not pitched consistently well for more than a few years now, their starters ranking eighth (in 2009), sixth (in 2010), ninth (in 2011) and 12th (this year) in ERA since their last postseason win. At the same time, no one from among the group of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, or Clay Buchholz has been good enough to carry them, which means the Red Sox have a collection of Nos. 2 and 3 starters (or worse) at the top of their rotation. How the Red Sox are where they are is a story far too long to tell in one sitting, but there was a time when the Sox seemed positioned for long-term success. When the Sox signed Beckett to a four-year, $68 million contract at the start of the 2010 season and then locked up Buchholz in the spring of 2011, the Red Sox had their front four starters (including John Lackey) under team control through at least 2014. Most of us deemed that to a be a good thing (and not a bad one) at the time, which raises myriad questions. Are the Red Sox to blame here for foolishly and prematurely locking up pitchers destined to fade? Or are the pitchers now coasting after having secured tens of millions of dollars each? Lackey got an $82.5 million contract and hasn't pitched well since. Beckett got his money before the 2010 season and ranks 53d among the 84 major league starters with at least 350 innings during that time. (Lester ranks 30th, Lackey dead last.) Since he got his deal in 2011, Buchholz ranks 133d out of 185 pitchers with at least 100 innings. And before anyone suggests that the starters have been pitching well of late, let's all agree on something: good pitchers perform well consistently. They don't have a good month every now and then. Rather, they go through aberrational slumps. Not the other way around. For certain, the Red Sox at the moment are dealing with an array of issues. Jacoby Ellsbury's absence and Adrian Gonzalez' relative impotence has made the Sox extremely vulnerable against righthanded starters that make up the majority of all major league pitchers. (The Sox have a losing record of 18-21 against righthanded pitching, easily the worst in their division.) If and when Ellsbury and Carl Crawford return to the lineup, there is certainly the chance that will change some. Nonetheless, at a time like this, especially, the Red Sox need their pitching to carry them. Since the Red Sox last won a playoff game, the Red Sox have scored more runs than any team in baseball but the New York Yankees, yet Boston's only trip to the playoffs resulted in a three-game sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Angels in the fall of 2009. Some people will tell you the Red Sox didn't hit in that series. Others would tell you the Sox got outpitched.

Just because players have each others' back does not mean that the effect a player is having on the clubhouse is not a negative one. They should, to a large degree, be a brotherhood of sorts. My guess is that had you asked Pedroia and Youkilis about Beckett and Lackey last year they would have covered for them too, but its pretty clear that some of the activities those two (and others) were engaging in were deleterious to the team.

Thanks Emmz. I am always willing to listen to reasonable criticisms such as yours and I will make an effort to rein it in a bit. Yes, I am passionate about the team as we all are (except Jacko). When criticisms are presented constructively like this they are easy to digest; when someone comes on here and calls other posters idiots or *******s, thats really not a constructive criticism, its a personal insult. Very few of us know one another well enough to determine who is or is not an idiot or an *******. I think its fair to say that many if not all of us ACT that way here sometimes, but thats different than actually being one. Sandusky is an *******. He has lots of company, but I am not in the subset. Probably none of us here are. Have a good day.

Thanks. Thats very helpful. As the Japanese say, "I will give it my utmost consideration". You are now on ignore.

How Youkilis will perform over the next 3 1/2 months is anyone's guess. You base your opinion on his career record, and I am basing mine on more recent history, the last 11 months. Neither of us can claim to be right until Oct 1. Therefore, you cannot categorically reject claims by me and by Nick that it is our opinion that Youkilis is likely finished as a major player. We can revisit this in October and only then see whose opinion (because thats what it is) proves right.

As for Elktonnick, his response to being presented with statistical evidence was to dismiss it because... well, because it works against him. He's ignoring evidence to cling to a gut feeling. Yet you are basing your opinion that he can still hit on gut feelings as well. Right now, there is no statistical evidence that he is remotely like the Youk of a year ago. Also, you are saying, if I understand you, that he fell off a cliff last year because he was injured. That isn't exactly denying that he fell off a cliff, its giving what you feel is the reason he fell off a cliff. Maybe he just can't stay healthy playing 3B. All I know is that his numbers are hideous for almost a year and he has given me no objective reason to think that he is ever going to be productive again. This year he has 136 PAs and he is .231/.681. Its not like its 20ABs; its well over 100. Put that together with what he did last year and MY gut feeling is that he is not going to contribute in any significant way. At one point you have to give WMB a try. When is that, in your opinion?

If you honestly think he's dropping off a cliff like Drew did last year, you're an idiot. I assure you that Nick is no idiot. Youkilis began his drop off the cliff nearly a year ago, on July 15, the ASB of last year. Here are his statistics from before the ASB, after the ASB, and year to date: BA/OPS/%BBs/%Ks Before ASB: .285/.911/13.7%/19% After ASB: .199/.660/12.1%/20% Year to date: .231/.681/8%/27% Thats dropping off a cliff to me, and its been almost a year. How much longer do we wait until we give WMB a chance?

Because our FO is inept and slow to react? Thats a reasonable explanation for the continued infection Youkilis is perpetrating on this franchise. Got news for you Bob: by the time this FO makes the necessary moves for us to compete for a playoff spot this year, we will be so far behind that it won't even matter. We could already be there.

I know they are. And I don't give a damn. They miss pitches both ways. The umpiring has been horrible, but they are not singling out the Red Sox to s*** on. The point is that its time to stop whining about the umpiring and blaming them for missing calls. That happens. When you complain about someone else you aren't looking at the real reason we are entrenched in last place. Its the players doing it to themselves, not the umps. They need to look in the mirror if they are looking for a reason the team sucks.