FredLynn

At least Beckett gave us a chance to win, even though I expected better from him. Time to turn it over to the bullpen and try to get a couple of runs. If we can pull this out, the Tigers go home pissed from a losing streak and take on the Yankmees. Hopefully they will take out their frustrations on them.

Wonderful. Moralass is up in the pen. He and Punto should be on the next bus out of town.

16 hits in five innings will do that. I think we need to get Atchison up in the pen right now.

Beckett lucked out. Still in the game.

I don't see anyone getting loose in the pen. Thats a mistake. More runs are on the way now.

Yup. But the seven run rule is in effect. We get to seven and there are even odds of winning the game.

Better get someone up in the pen. Beckett is dog meat tonite

Seven hits now against Beckett. Guess he is due for a lemon.

Beckett better settle down. We should be able to score runs off Scherzer and the Tigers pen, but we really should be putting these guys away early.

Fortunately, Scherzer is pitching for the Tigers. Because of that there is hope.

No problem with that. Ciao.

We will be behind by the bottom of this inning. Too many Beckett pitches up in the zone.

Beckett is getting hammered.

Sox have had some very good defense in this series. Looks like the team is gradually putting it together, getting a winning mentality, expecting to win. Thats not a bad thing.

Gotta get the bat off your shoulders Podsednik

He was safe. I'll take it.

This is one of the reasons that ERA is a really poor stat for evaluating a pitcher. It's useful when taken into context (which is what stats like FIP and xFIP try to provide), but asking for what I would consider an acceptable ERA for 2013 is like asking what I think an acceptable number of wins would be. Too many variables are at play for it to be predictive and it often doesn't do a very good job of telling you how good a pitcher actually was in any given season. This is a different issue, and one that is unlikely to get resolved as I think ERA is the single simplest and most useful measure of a pitcher's effectiveness. A pitcher's job is to not allow runs-regardless of where they are pitching. There will be a slight variation in different ballparks, but good pitchers pitch well anywhere. They prevent the other guys from squaring up; they strike out batters; they do not walk batters. There is no need to use other metrics as the primary tool to evaluate pitchers when a simple very revealing statistic already exists. This is not to say that there is no place for the other metrics. I quoted, for example, WHIP, in one of my posts. Thats a useful statistic because in the days of pitch counts you need to be efficient so you can go deep into games and save the bullpen, which makes you a more valuable pitcher. FIP, not so much. It purports to be defence independent, but its not really independent at all. See this very good article: Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) Isn't Fielding Independent To understand how far from reality the names of some statistics are look no further than FIP. This is an acronym for Fielding Independent Pitching. According to Wikipedia the formula for this statistic is as follows: FIP=13HR+3BB-2K/IP You will notice IP (innings pitched) is the denominator. The formula for a pitcher's IP is the number of outs made while he was pitching divided by 3. Of course "outs" are hardly fielding independent. Even a pitcher who strikes out one batter per inning has fielders who help get the other two. So, in fact, this statistic is not fielding independent at all, despite the label its creators put on it. Do the results of a pitchers fielders actually change the pitcher's FIP? Lets look at two scenarios where a pitcher faces 9 batters: Scenario one: groundball hit, groundball hit, groundball hit, strikeout, walk, walk, strikeout, home run, strikeout. In this scenario his FIP is 13+6-6/1 for 13.0 FIP Scenario 2: groundball out, groundball out, groundball out, strikeout, walk, walk, strikeout, home run, strikeout. In this scenario his FIP is 13+6-6/2 for a 6.5 FIP If the fielders catch those groundballs and turn them into outs, they cut the pitcher's FIP in half. Is FIP really "fielding independent"? Not hardly. But you wouldn't know it from its name or how it is used around the internet. Not a big fan of that particular metric. And another article recognizes that ERA is the gold standard when it comes to measuring a pitcher's effectiveness when it concludes: xFIP has the highest correlation with future ERA of all the pitching metrics If you need something to correlate with ERA, its better just to use ERA instead. And if you want to try to predict future ERA I would use the most accurate metric, SIERA, not xFIP. I am also not a big fan of SIERA, although I have a rough understanding of what it attempts to do. Lackey had a SIERA of 4.22 in 2010, and thats classified as "below average". I would submit that his ERA since 2007 indicates decline, and even without an elbow injury he would likely have continued that decline, further raising his SIERA and ERA. You can value xFIP more than ERA, but I don't. Old folks like me just like to keep things simple when there is no need to obfuscate the data.

I expect Lackey will be serviceable next year and for the rest of his contract. What do you mean by "serviceable"? I would like to see an ERA no higher than 4.20-max. Can he do that vs the ALE? Is an ERA of 4.80 "serviceable"? I say no, its unacceptable because we must improve our overall pitching, and that won't do it. For the record, I hope you are right, but I can't see it. Here are the OPSa numbers at Fenway for some other Sox SP (Lackey's is .832): Beckett: .698 Buchholz: .709 Lester: .713 Matsusaka: .753 All are significantly better than Lackey's. Furthermore, here are Lackey's ERA figures beginning in 2007: 2007:3.01 2008:3.75 2009:3.83 2010:4.40 2011:6.41 See the trend? He is a bad pitcher, especially at Fenway Park, and he is getting worse. Yeah, I know, he was hurt last year for part of the year. His style of being a fly ball/contact type pitcher is tough to navigate at Fenway. Good discussion, but only time will tell who is right here.

I think the probable decline in performance in the rotation going from Doubront/Bard to Lackey/Matsuzaka is more than offset by the likely improvement from moving Doubront and Bard to the pen But as I pointed out, Doubront simply had no success as a relief pitcher, for whatever reason. Maybe if he went back there now he would do better; maybe not. I am quite happy with the performances of Miller (did I really say that?) and Hill as our LHRP. Do we really need Doubront too? Besides, he is much too valuable a commodity as a SP if he has continued success there. Who would you replace him with, Lackey or Matsusaka? Neither is going to put up Doobie's numbers. So then that leaves replacing Bard (which I have been advocating here for a long time) and putting him back in the pen. You can only pick one guy to replace him with, and that guy's name, presumably, is not Lackey. So Lackey is the odd man out-unless you would really put Doubront back in the pen despite his success as a SP. And about facing "one of the top offenses in baseball at Fenway Park", thats true. Its also true that his OPSa at the Trop is over .800, and this year four of the top six offenses in the AL reside in the ALE. Lackey isn't going to get a break; he is going to have to face, on average, an ALE team 44% of the time. Then there is the Rangers, the Tigers and so forth. I don't see a place for John Lackey in our rotation right now. DiceK, maybe, but not Lackey. So to get back to the original discussion, I can see your point about DiceK's loss weakening our overall pitching, but Lackey? I think thats really a stretch given Doubront's success.

I will say this: at least you are able to support your position with some statistics. That makes your opinion more valid than stuff like "I think this is a great team" and the like. You have chosen the statistics that support what you think is true, and I chose the ones that support what I think is true. I absolutely disagree with your assertion that by adding John Lackey back into the rotation we improve it; Matsusaka is more of a tossup, especially if by adding him we send Bard back to the pen, where he excels. Lackey has NEVER pitched well at Fenway Park. His career OPSa there is .832 with a BAA of .300 in 44 total games. Those are horrible numbers, and thats why I think he is never going to do well with the Red Sox-because he never has done well at our park, even when his elbow was intact. And at the other parks of our main rivals in the ALE his OPSa is .808 (Yankee Stadium) and .866 (the Trop). So most of his games are going to be pitched at stadiums where he has never done well and maintains OPSa of over .800. Hard for me to understand your support of John Lackey pitching for the Red Sox in the ALE.

Are you really going to say that adding Lackey and DiceK would strengthen our pitching? John Lackey ERA/WHIP with the Red Sox: 5.26/1.504 John Lackey ERA/WHIP last year: 6.41/1.619 (*worst ERA in the AL) Daisuke Matsusaka ERA/WHIP with the Red Sox: 4.25/1.397 Daisuke Matsusaka ERA/WHIP in 2010, his last full season here: 4.69/1.373 Daniel Bard ERA/WHIP this year: 4.56/1.538 Felix Doubront ERA/WHIP this year: 3.86/1.387 Bard and Doubront as our #5 and 4 SP are an IMPROVEMENT by far over Matsusaka and Lackey, who stinks. We improved by subtraction. The arguement that we would be stronger with Lackey in the rotation is ludicrous and weak with regard to DiceK when compared to our current #4 and 5 SP. Yes, the pen would be better with Bard in it (Doubront is an ineffective relief pitcher: career .884 OPSa as a RP vs .724 as a SP), but that is outweighed by the huge Lackey effect. Give me a break: Lackey was the WORST AL PITCHER IN ERA last year of all pitchers who threw more than 100 innings. He stunk; he will keep stinking when he gets back. Yes, his elbow was shredded last year, but even when he was healthy, he was less than excellent-and worse than Doubront. I am happy not to see him in the rotation.

Yeah, stats are a bitch. I could also mention that we are still in last place.

It will be as good as the pitching is and no better. We were always going to score runs. Our problem was always pitching, as it has been for years. We remain in 13th place in the AL in that department, and we are a total of two (thats 2) games over .500. I would say that the performance to date is mediocre but improving. Sorry to rain on your parade.

Winning is easy to get used to.