You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Manager' category.
There’s a really long article with lots of pretty pictures on Baseball Analysts (one of my long-time favorite sites) comparing Matt Holliday and Jason Bay. Holliday seems to cover the plate better, but Bay’s command of the strike zone is impressive; that 15.0% walk rate this year was not an accident. Bay also seems to be a better fastball hitter, though he pulls a lot and Holliday sprays the ball and uses the field more. From the charts it looks like if you want to get Holliday out, you throw a mixture of breaking stuff in the dirt and high heat.
Brad Mills has been tapped as the new manager of the Houston Astros, and Terry Francona is happy for his good friend. Word is that the Sox may promote from within, and the rumors are swirling around current Pawtucket manager Ron Johnson.
The Red Sox met with Aroldis Chapman this week, but it’s not clear how serious the talks were; he’s met with at least nine other teams, which to me spells bidding war. Meanwhile, Yusei Kikuchi will play for the Seibu Lions in the Nippon League next year.
Unsurprisingly, the New York Yankees have elected to start their Divisional Series tomorrow, so that means the Red Sox will play game 1 against the Angels on Thursday. Here’s what the schedule looks like:
Game 1: Thu @ LAA, 9:37PM
Game 2: Fri @ LAA, 9:37 PM
Game 3: Sun @ BOS, 12:07 PM
Game 4: Mon @ BOS afternoon (if needed)
Game 5: Wed @ LAA
Red Sox roster
Pitchers (10)
Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz
Jonathan Papelbon, Billy Wagner, Hideki Okajima, Daniel Bard, Takashi Saito, Ramon Ramirez, Manny Delcarmen
Positional (14)
Victor Martinez, Jason Varitek, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Alex Gonzalez, Mike Lowell, Casey Kotchman, Jed Lowrie
J.D. Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jason Bay, David Ortiz, Rocco Baldelli/Josh Reddick, Joey Gathright]
That leaves one spot up for grabs. The Sox could add Daisuke Matsuzaka to avoid pitching Lester on short rest in Game 4, or add another middle infielder, given the shaky status of Lowrie.
Here’s the line for the starting pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday – 5 IP, 3 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks and 9 Ks, including a streak of 7 men in a row. That line belonged to John Smoltz, formerly of the Red Sox organization. I should acknowledge that this happened against the Padres, who feature kind of a Quad-A lineup right now, but still…
Alright, time to tackle the topic of the day – John Smoltz. After six starts, the future Hall-of-Famer has averaged a mere 5 innings per outing and compiled a 7.04 ERA. This is not exactly what people were expecting, so the calls for him to be moved out of the rotation are growing. What can we say about the way he’s throwing the ball now, and can we expect things to get better for the 42-year old?
Congratulations to these Red Sox, who achieved notable milestones this past week:
- David Ortiz, who collected his 1,000th RBI
- Terry Francona, who won his 800th game as a manager
- Tim Wakefield collected win number 10 already! Is this guy ever gonna stop pitching?
In case you missed it, here is the video of Nick Green’s narrow escape from a flying broken bat last week. My heart almost stopped during this play, thinking, “oh no, this means we have to play Julio Lugo!”
Daisuke Matsuzaka has been bad, horrible, even in 2009. Everyone’s piling on now, demanding he be traded (his no-trade clause be damned). But he’s been playing hurt, and what he’s done the past two years is a cache that should teach us better. Don’t give up too early on a guy that’s done nothing but produce, despite your lack of excitement over him.
The Red Sox traded outfielder Chip Ambres to the New York Mets for a PTBNL yesterday. Ambres was hitting .259/.335/.368 at Pawtucket at the time of the trade. This is just a depth move, and it frees up some outfield space at Triple-A, which is already crowded with the likes of Zach Daeges, Chris Carter and recently promoted Aaron Bates.
The David Ortiz conundrum is reaching national status. His eyes checked out, so there’s not many reasons left for his decline. Either he’s way older than we thought, or there’s something wrong with his head. Last night’s long homer and the seven game hitting streak notwithstanding, we still have to have some doubt as to when and how much Papi will rebound. Here’s one exit strategy, given by Craig Calcaterra at THT.
