Do the Red Sox suck? In my honest opinion, no. Despite being 18-20 and 3rd place in a mediocre AL East, the Red Sox by no means “suck”. We’ve won 5 of our last 8 and have moved into 3rd place in the AL East after being in dead last the week before. I’m not going to sit here and say that the Sox are perfect because they are certainly not perfect, but we are getting to where we should be with the talent and payroll we have. Our pitching has gone through a miraculous turnaround in recent games, excluding that horrible performance from Justin Masterson (which I’ll cover shortly) and last night’s outing by Wright. However, as our pitching has gotten better our offense has regressed dramatically.
Earlier in the year (yeah I mean like 3 weeks ago get over it) our bats were crushing balls left and right and even made the Nationals stacked rotation look like they belong in Triple-A. But now, the very same line-up struggles nightly to put up even 1 run before the 6th inning. In our last 8 games we’ve scored 22 runs but have let in 26 in these last 8 games. So despite being 5-3 in our last 8, we still have given up more runs that we scored. Granted that 9-2 loss to Oakland tilts that stat a bit but the Sox have been shutout once and have put up 2 runs or less in 5 of those last 8 games. That’s just pitiful for the talent we brought in this off-season. Ortiz, Mookie, Panda, Hanley, Napoli, Holt, and Pedroia are as cool as the large iced coffee I get at Dunks every morning on my way to work. For God’s sake Victorino is our hottest hitter right now. Don’t even get me started on Jackie Bradley Jr. either, that kid is a B-U-S-T, BUST. What is he like 0-19 this season? Pathetic.
“But Matt, the Sox have faced 2 of the top 5 AL pitchers during those games that’s why our bats suck.” Solid argument except that the Sox bats did the best against those pitchers stats wise. We got Sonny Gray (best ERA in the AL) for 1 run and 3 hits in Oakland which proved to be sufficient and hung 4 runs on King Felix (#4 ERA in AL) over the weekend. Otherwise it’s been the same story as the last week and a half, the Sox can’t hit (especially against lefties). When you can’t hit, you can’t score. And when you can’t score, you don’t win. Simple. But despite what I’ve said about our offense, they’re still going out there every night and trying to right the ship. Panda and Ortiz just went yard the other night off Felix Hernandez, and Swihart is settling into the majors and keeps producing more and more. Pedroia needs to be better with runners in scoring position and Mookie will find his swing again.
Despite our offensive struggle, the level of play from our pitching staff has been nearly impeccable through these last games. I say nearly only because of Masterson’s atrocity of an outing versus Oakland where he went 3 IP and allowed 6 runs. Justin Masterson has no right to be in this rotation. The dude just cannot get his noodle arms to throw 90+ mph. Maybe he is actually “fatigued” but I honestly think he’s damaged. There just isn’t a good excuse for him other than he just is burnt out. Knuckleballer Steven Wright has since taken Masterson’s spot in the rotation and his first start was not much of an improvement from Masterson. But when your offense can’t give you some runs to work with, your job as a pitcher gets a million times more difficult, you really get limited to what you can throw. Just saying, as an aside, I called all of this, well not Masterson and Wright, but everything else having to do with the increase in quality outings by our pitchers. Carl Willis has not taken any credit for the sudden improvement, saying he’s still observing and taking in the situation, but since his hire, this rotation has been something else. For God’s sake Clay Buchholz went 8 IP allowed 1 run and struck out 11 batters! That’s an ace caliber performance if I’ve ever seen one. Joe Kelly calmed down finally and commanded the plate in his last start. And, like I’ve been saying since Day 1, since our starters have started playing to their potential (mostly) it’s alleviated a lot of the stress on our relievers and especially Koji.
So do we suck? I still say no. We definitely do not suck and are by no means close to being out of anything. The AL East is mediocre this year and it’s only May. We’ll figure it out and if we are at least .500 at the trade deadline odds are we’ll make a move to put us in contention. But if you’ve got something to say otherwise I’d love to hear it.
Tweet at me @mlmcclin (new handle) and we can discuss your opinions.
The Beantown Buzz 