sk7326

Red Sox are 2nd in the league in OBP (not coincidentally, #1 in OBP is also #1 in runs). They are also 2nd in LOBs. Sox are giving themselves tons of chances - the LOBs and runs show it, just a team that gets a lot of baserunners on, and in the long run that will work. It works in April and works in October. Even when guys have struggled (Middlebrooks excepted), the strong approaches prevent them from becoming total offensive zeroes. Before his slump and injuries got a lot worse, Napoli walked enough to carry a .340 OBP while he was still scuffling. Like you said, Nava, Carp, Gomes. They have a lot of guys who do not give at-bats away. I think that was the genesis of Middlebrooks' demotion - you can live with a slump, but not competing at the plate. The take and rake approach gives up a ton of strikeouts - but in general that is not something I tend to worry about, it is a fair price for the good stuff.

Oh no doubt. But if Price and Moore pitch shutouts every time out, the Rays would never lose. For all the perception about how good the Rays are relative to us - all of those games were close and competitive - just have to grind a bit more on the ABs so they can get to the bullpen a tad earlier.

A WMB-X-Drew rotation on the left side is an offensive plus ... defensively it's a plus when Drew is at SS, jury still a bit out on Boegarts although he has not done anything to scare me or anything.

Middlebrooks showing some competence at 2B was a nice turn - allows them to not have to keep a Holt on the roster JUST to cover for any Pedroia substitution. To be fair, Middlebrooks looks a lot more composed at the plate - he's never going to be Kevin Youkilis out there patience-wise, but he is showing an actual game plan. Boegarts looks very smooth right from the outset. Approach, driving the ball the other way, all of it is very sound. Boegarts ceiling is much higher than Middlebrooks - but there are at bats around for everybody. You wonder whether a 20 year old frame like that can say "Shortstop Sized" for the foreseeable future, but until then you can see the superstardom. (and to be totally fair, if he hits his offensive ceiling and has to play 3B, that is still a very good player)

The coaching staff has done well - just by not being run by insane people. Lester has receded into what he is - just a solid, durable guy. Last couple of starts mojo has been better, although I'd be more bullish on the LA start than the SF one (3 strikeouts against a poor offense). Also remember, two good starts in two good pitchers parks. Lester's not the team's best starter - but he is the most reliable.

I'd call it a John Farrell brain fart away if you want to be accurate

Something about a good west coast trip to raise the spirits. Peavy was on last night. And let's be honest - the starting rotation has been a strength. There have been hiccups during the season, and it'd be nice to have a true #1 (but so few teams have one of those). But day in and day out, the starter has given this team a chance - and that did not happen nearly enough last year or the September prior to that.

I don't think it was that fancy - Francona left and management wanted an outsider ... Farrell was the guy Ben wanted all along, but Farrell got a managing chance before Tito left. What management wanted I think was just a guy who fits in the organizational philosophy - to be able to balance both the needs of the team on a day to day basis, but also being able to understand what the management wants to do developmentwise and stuff. Farrell lapses into a bit too much old timey Fire Joe Morgan sort of mistakes (using the bullpen suboptimally)- but he understands the entire operation, from scouting to teaching to interpreting stuff the nerds are telling him. The idea is just a throughline from the head of baseball down to the coaching staff - and Valentine pooh poohed that sort of thinking. Farrell is a better company man, and has done a better job just not being a carnival side show. This team has had a chance to work and just focus on baseball. His in game management is not Dusty Baker-level awful, but not in the Maddon-Tito sort of level either.

4 out save - Farrell had a good day - atoned for the mistake from Tuesday. His best reliever got the most important out ... and then rode it to the finish.

Balls are dying in the outfield too - lot of balls which look better off the bat than the result

Tough baseball luck there - Will hit a rocket - sometimes just the breaks

They will - now that there is interleague every day - it is going to be hard not to change it. And yes, I'm getting the Vin Scully feed here - another level. By himself no less!

Braun's apology was pretty silly (hint: if it is 944 words, you are doing it wrong). Definitely supported his appeal and the initial suspension being thrown out - the appeals process has to be there and work, and technicalities like that are important if it's your ass on the line. But if he's going to admit something, best to actually just be straightforward with it.

W!ell the HGH benefits are still pretty controversial - granted the studies are scarce - had to go back to 2007 for some of the good stuff http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2007/04/i-dont-worry-about-hgh-in-baseball-and-neither-should-you/ ... certainly the evidence for a drop in homeruns or a staggering change in run scoring after harsher testing hasn't really come true at all. But it is necessary to aggressively test it, if nothing to just have it covered in case Congress feels like wasting its time again. Guys getting ahead of the rules will be an issue the whole way - teams want to get ahead of the rules, and will fully support it though none will ever admit it. In a sense it tells you how healthy the game is that the media and the management have spent several years demonizing its players with the broad brush without suffering at the box office.

Well the brunt of the OBP was the unfathomable number of walks - he had a spectacular batting eye and managers were idiots about refusing to pitch to him.

This. I tend to be fairly ambivalent. Certainly don't feel a moral outrage about it - any of that Shaughnessy-esque sanctity of the game nonsense. I have a hard time believing the teams were in the dark on it - Selig is happy to let the players bask in the wrath, but it's impossible that the teams were not partially culpable. I am glad their testing policy has gotten tougher - nothing wrong with that, as long as they start taking the confidentiality part of the thing seriously. It's a giant loophole in that Biogenesis case - and something that could screw up future appeals.

Ignore the 73 homerun season - that 2004 is mindblowing. .609 OBP, 232 walks. He had more IBBs than any team did that season. Considering the backflips we do justifiably over .400 OBP sorts, it was another planet. I have no doubt the drugs contributed - but it couldn't be 100%, and certainly none of the critics or writers seem the least bit interested in that part of the story.

That is a fair sentiment - although what the actual effects were is harder to actually peg. Baseball involves so many special, learned skills that whatever steroids produced is not as cut and dried as say the edge they give football players. (who still routinely do this stuff) Bonds 2004 was still unfathomable - the ability to hit literally the only good pitch you see all game was still pretty incredible. The 2004 season with its baffling .609 OBP (and I think he's a giant jerk btw) - the only hitter that you could say truly managers and other players feared (they may say that about others but only Bonds got them to act like it). What is the heydays of PEDs? Well, amphetamines and greenies had been around for decades and more or less commonly accepted. I don't get too wrapped up in the numbers implications - guys used amphetamines in the 60s, the owners systematically kept subsections of players from playing baseball in the 30s and 40s (and in the Red Sox and Yankees cases, further than that). All of the numbers require some context. It happened, baseball rolled in dough because of it - a rolling in dough that STILL continues (the fan interest and attendance never went down - only writers seemed particularly interested and still are in the witch hunt aspects of it) ... I am glad that they fixed it, at least from a PR perspective - you don't want kids getting into this stuff, and baseball was extremely unfairly maligned compared to other sports. I feel bad for those who were clean in the old days (although that number is probably not that big) - and for obvious HoFers who get shafted because of playing in the wrong time. (Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio hello!)

On some level we have to be grownups about this. The teams are all looking for an edge - and for a time from the resumption of baseball after the 1994 strike to, well, now I suppose - players took a whirl with PEDs, and more than likely teams helped provide them whenever possible. There is a narrative associated with cheating and clean players getting screwed - but without a full accounting of the time period, it is not fair to speculate on who was "enhanced" and who was not. Hell, baseball relies on such specialized skills that the actual positive effects of steroids are not at all set in stone. This doesn't mean I don't think there was an effect - I just don't know what it is. Homeruns are not sufficient evidence - after all the McGwire-Sosa thing happened in the shadows of a two team expansion, and in the history of baseball expansion periods have always had large homerun boosts come with it. Certainly I think the writers essentially passing along rumors like jr high school chicks about who might have used - and using that to base HoF decisions is unconscionable, especially placing a pure guilt by association case on Jeff Bagwell, who should be a lead pipe cinch to get in. Everybody had years to unring the bell and nobody chose to, and that includes the writers and the league itself. It is odd for a museum of baseball to try to deny that the greatest individual offensive performer since the Babe walked the earth - I am sure the drugs helped that as much as racial non-integration helped the Babe. (although the drugs do not explain a truly baffling 232 walks in a season). The effects of steroids are not certain - and I am not really sure HGH helps performance (in a highly skilled world like baseball) much at all. At least the latter has a bonafide medical use, and I don't see why it cannnot be delivered to players by team physicians. Technology to help injury recovery is a good thing. At the end of the day, did the 2004/7 Sox have PED use? Probably - but I have a hard time saying the Red Sox were dirty while the 2003 Marlins or 2000 Yankees were clean. That doesn't square with any sort of laugh test. It was not a "clean" game then (if it ever has been) - no point making judgments on relative cleanliness.

If you want to go with value creation, it'd be Ellsbury or Pedroia. Can't go wrong with either - though for me Ellsbury has been a wee bit better. Ortiz is way up there too, but it's still value only being created on one end of the field so to speak. If you look at it from an exceeds expectations perspective - Nava proving that he is at worst a legitimate piece of a credible corner outfield platoon is one, and obviously Koji Uehara's ability to be healthy has been the other. Lackey has been remarkable as well. Really this season has been a triumph of the middle of the bell curve. Last 2 seasons literally every out of the blue bad thing that could happen to this team happened. Yes, some of the wounds were self inflicted, but you just look at average expectations for this roster and these baseball players, and the 7 months before April 2013 really needed a ton to go wrong. This year has been our good players being good again, and the injury bug not being so debilitating.

Standings at the All Star Break 1. Red Sox 59-39 2. A's 56-40 (2 games back) 3. Tigers 52-43 (5.5 games back) 4. Rays 56-41 (2.5 games out in division) 5. Rangers 54-42 (2 games out in division) 6. Orioles 54-43 (4.5 games out in division, 0.5 game out WC) 7. Guardians 51-45 (1.5 games out in division, 3 games out WC) 8. Yankees 51-45 (7 games out in division, 3 games out of WC) 9. Royals 44-49 (7 games out in division, 8.5 games out WC) Standings entering today 1. Tigers 74-53 2. Rangers 74-53 3. Red Sox 75-54 (tied, Tigers have 2 games in hand) 4. Rays 72-53 (1 game out in division) 5. A's 71-55 (2.5 games out of division) 6. Guardians 69-58 (5 games out of division, 2.5 games out of WC) 7. Orioles 68-58 (5.5 games out of division, 3 games out of WC) 8. Yankees 67-59 (6.5 games out of division, 4 games out of WC) 9. Royals 64-61 (9 games out of division, 6.5 games out of WC) I know Sox have mucked around a bit - and I'd be more annoyed at "how" they are playing in April and May (where now we just want results) - but really with the parity at the top of the AL, the Sox have not actually lost much ground at all - in fact they have gained a half a game on Baltimore for the final playoff slot. What has really happened since the break was that some of the teams that might have been buried (Royals, Yankees) are still not dead. In some ways Sox are in the same position they were before the Break - and actually a little better since they've run off a month from the calendar. If this is struggling - things aren't so bad.

True - although Ryu's excellence should be tempered a bit - terrific pitcher's park. We're a good team - and the "take a ton of pitches" AL approach is always an adjustment for NL teams

$50 to win the East $100 to make the playoffs either way I think that the team has muddled along in August has given fans a false sense of dread - they have not actually moved much in the standings.

Divisions: Sox, Tigers, Rangers WC: Rays, A's Divisions: Braves, Pirates, Dodgers WC: Cards, Reds really no suspense in the NL and very little in the AL

Answer is probably yes - at least for a time. But given how the sport was until - let's just say until pretty recently - it is hard to call any champion "clean" or any team having more integrity than others. Haters can hate, but it's not supported by the evidence.