John Lackey and Tim Wakefield: Two Pitchers I Did Not See

Fair warning, this post is going to be needlessly long. But I did all of my own research!

It's not for lack of trying. I wasn't able to watch either starter for the Sox. Actually, yesterday's game I wasn't able to see at all. At the time the game was being played, I was locked in a basement with no access to any TV or internet of any kind. Hell, I couldn't even get cell phone reception. But that's what happens when you're in grad school. They shove you in a basement and expect you to forget all about baseball and how much you love it.

So I didn't see yesterday's game, but I hear we lost 8-0. That's fine. I don't blame Wakey. In these situations, I always blame the offense. No matter how well Wake pitched, we still would have lost because we didn't score any runs!

Imagine that... a team that had everyone worried about their inability to score runs is having trouble scoring runs. The crazy world we live in, I'm tellin ya. I'm not going to pretend that I'm not worried about this offense, or that I never worried about it. I did. I don't like not scoring runs. It usually equates to losing, especially when our teams strengths haven't been living up to their potential yet. Thank goodness it's still early.

So much is made about Papi not hitting. Why don't we focus on who else isn't hitting? Hmm... actually, let's see everyone's basic AB stats in the last five games (which, coincidentally overlaps with the first five games! Yay small sample size!)

Papi: 19 AB, 2 runs scored, 4 hits, 2 RBI's, 2 BB, 12 K's
Victor: 22 AB, 2 runs scored, 5 hits, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 2 K's
Cameron: 13 AB, 0 runs scored, 2 hits, 0 RBI, 3 BB, 4 K's
Drew: 16 AB, 3 runs scored, 2 hits, 2 RBI, 3 BB, 10 K's
Beltre: 22 AB, 2 runs scored, 5 hits, 4 RBI, 0 BB, 1 K
Scutaro: 17 AB, 2 runs scored, 6 hits, 1 RBI, 0 BB, 2 K's
Youk: 18 AB, 4 runs scored, 4 hits, 1 RBI, 5 BB, 1 K
Munchkin: 20 AB, 3 runs scored, 11 hits, 7 RBI, 0 BB, 4 K's
Ellsbury: 25 AB, 6 runs scored, 10 hits, 1 RBI, 0 BB, 3 K's

There they are, folks. Your nine starting regulars. I'm not going to put in the info for Hall, Tek, Mikey, or Wolverine (look, Hermida has a nickname! He reminds me of a Wolverine), because they're bench guys. They don't have time to make a big impact. So... I need more info to really make an educated opinion. Pitch counts!

Here we go!

Papi: 4.6 p/AB (97 pitches in 21 AB)
Victor: 4.2 P/AB (97 pitches in 23 AB)
Cameron: 4 p/AB (64 pitches in 16 AB)
Drew: 4.1 p/AB (78 pitches in 19 AB)
Beltre: 3.1 p/AB (68 pitches in 22 AB)
Scutaro: 3.7 p/AB (66 pitches in 18 AB)
Youk: 4.2 p/AB (97 pitches in 23 AB)
Munchkin: 4 p/AB (92 pithces in 23 AB)
Ellsbury: 3.3 p/AB (83 pitches in 25 AB)

League average on p/AB is 3.88. So, our batting averages right now are:

Papi: .154
Victor: .231
Cameron: .217
Drew: .143
Beltre: .303
Scutaro: .310
Youk: .290
Munchkin: .405
Ellsbury: .333

League batting average right now is .262.
And the all-important BABIP (just for the sake of my sanity, I'm using BABIP numbers from the whole season thus far, not just each player's five most recent games)

Papi: .308
Victor: .229
Cameron: .313
Drew: .214
Beltre: .323
Scutaro: .333
Youk: .333
Munchkin: .379
Ellsbury: .400

Now, another favorite of mine... in-play percentage!

Papi: 45%
Victor: 85%
Cameron: 57%
Drew: 45%
Beltre: 91%
Scutaro: 79%
Youk: 62%
Munchkin: 67%
Ellsbury: 83%

Look, you can take from this what you want... but what I see is that we have a lot of players who are suffering through some bad luck with balls in play. We also have a lot of people swinging early in the count. A lot of our guys aren't making good contact right now. But chances are, we're going to be closer to the high-end of league average by the end of the year. I hope. I like looking at stats. I'm sure I'll come back to this later and realized that there were about five other categories I wanted to mention but didn't have the time for (there are... just about five actually). So, like I said... interpret the numbers how you want to. It'll level out. And if not, we'll lose a ton of games. Either way, you know you're going to watch.