Jon Van Every: Putting the "Van" in "Vantastic"

He definitely was pretty Vantastic last night. Hitting, catching, RBI'ing... how can you possibly ask for more? I am continuously impressed with our farm system. Really, how cna you not be? These guys really want to be in the show, and they're working so hard to prove they belong here. It's incredible to realize that a large percentage of our roster could right now be replaced with minor leaguers who want their shot, and we would still probably win games. Lots of games.

I need Van Every to continue doing really well, because I really like saying he was Vantastic. It just rolls right off the tongue.... and coming up with a nickname that can fit 'van' or 'every' and still has negative connotations isn't happening, so he's just going to have to continue to play really well.

Jon LESTER, on the other hand, didn't really look so good. Five runs in six innings isn't the kind of quality start we need from him or his right-handed twin Josh. One or both of them needs to step up and be dominating, because watching them flounder at the same time is annoying. Don't get me wrong, Jon had an ok start against the Yankees, and Josh... well, he pitched against the Yankees. That's about the best I can do for him. When are either of them going to realize that the season already started and they need to be the good versions of themselves consistently? I hope it happens soon. I'd like to see them both get into a rhythm. With a starting rotation that looks as good on paper as ours does, no one would expect that Tim Wakefield would be the best pitcher we have. So, here's to hoping that this was the last mediocre start that Lester makes for the season.

Mike Lowell has grounded into 8 double plays this year. He leads the majors in double plays. Dustin Pedroia is second to him with 5, and Jacoby Ellsbury is a close third with four. I'm really focused on these double plays. They really bother me! Mike has grounded into 145 DP's in his 12 year career, which means that 5% of his career DP's have come in this month alone. This disturbs me. How the heck is this guy batting over .300? He's so busy GIDP'ing! I love Mikey though. Funny thing is that he has the exact same amount of doubles on the season as he does DP's... so he's either getting two, or taking two away. My guess, without looking at any pitch data is that when he pulls the ball, he gets his doubles, and when he tries to drive it to the opposite field, he ends up with a double play. But who knows?

John Smoltz has had a minor setback, and it expected to be delayed by a couple of weeks. I still retain hope that he'll pitch on June 19th...

Josh tonight vs. the spitting machine. Let's hope for '07 JPB instead of '08 JPB. Ok? Good.

Brad Penny: I Think Bowden's knocking at your Locker

My favorite phrase during the tail end of the Coco years was "Jacoby's knocking at your locker." Well, I feel that the phrase (minus the Jacoby part) still has some life in it. I've never really liked Penny. I didn't like him when we first picked him up. I didn't like him out in LA, but I thought... ok, it's a low-risk move. I can deal with it.

Despite my ability to deal with it, I'm not really sure I want to.

Let's consider... Penny has made four starts for us. Despite the fact that he's 2-0, he has an 8.66 ERA, has pitched only 17.2 innings (averaging right around 4.1 per start), has given up 24 hits (17 ER), 5 HR and 11 BB. Opponents are batting 3.20 against him. He ranks 375th ERA across all of major league baseball... and while I'll admit that these stats aren't the be all, end all of stats, it makes you think (Dice-K, for the record, ranks 407th with a 12.79 ERA). Last night's other starter, Anthony Reyes, is higher on the list than Penny. Now let's compare!

Michael Bowden, who would be starting on just about every other team, is sporting a handy 0.64 ERA in three starts and 14.00 IP (averaging 4.2 per start). 10 H, 1 ER, 5 BB, and 15 K. Averaging about the same IP as Penny per outing, but seemingly knows how to throw a baseball better. And don't forget, we already saw him this year, and he looked good. Not Bowden? You don't want to rush him too much? Ok, that's cool.

Try this instead. Clay Buchholz... 2.45 ERA, 3 GS, 14.2 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 HR, 7 BB, 12 K's. He's got the major league experience, and it won't be considering rushing if you bring him back now. Plus, Dahmer deserves another chance to prove that last year was just a little flukey. Still no? Ok...

How about Enrique Gonzalez? Charlie Zink? Junichi Tazawa? Christopher Walken?! Come on, any of these guys could throw more strikes than Penny. I honestly would rather see the job go to one of our itty bitty baby Sox. I guess we can always wait until Smoltz is ready to go.

Honestly, though, if our number 5 starter being ineffective, and our closer allowing a few runs are our biggest problems, we're ok.

Actually, I wanted to comment on Papelbon. I would, uh, really appreciate slightly less drama, but I can live with it. If we have a three run lead, and he gives up one run, that's ok. Don't get me wrong. I worry about the long-term implications of his extra work, but I'm not really panicked yet.

Double plays are also part of our biggest problem. We actually rank 2nd in double plays behind the Seattle Mariners. We have 22, they have 23. The Tigers and the Dodgers are tied for second with us with 22. Toronto has grounded into 21, So the top five are relatively close. Six teams have grounded into 18 DP's. Two have 17, four have 16, one has 15. The Arizona Diamondbacks have the fewest DP's... they've only grounded into 8. That... that is what we need to strive to achieve. 8 DP's in a month is very very tolerable. We tend to get more like 8 per series, which just hurts me emotionally. While we have not grounded into the most DPs in the league, we're not too far off. We need to stop this. I don't know how to stop it, but I'll continue pondering this issue and hopefully get back to it with a solution. It's gotta be something along the lines of stop swinging at bad pitches, but I just can't be sure...

Tough loss last night, providing further evidence of why I don't like Javier Lopez (and you can't make me!), but we've got Binky on the mound tonight, ready to start a new win streak.

JayBay: Being All Dramatic In The Late Innings

What is it about the 9th inning that turns JayBay into the Papi of 2006? Does he start sitting closer to him in the 8th inning unconsciously? Does he have mango salsa between innings? Does he walk around the dugout, pre-9th, mumbling quietly to himself "...and that's why they call ME Big Papi"? Honestly now, can you even picture JayBay calling himself Big Papi? Even just the thought of that makes me feel uncomfortable. It doesn't seem like something he would do. Whatever it is that he's doing to lead up to the 9th, I pray to the gods of baseball that he keeps doing it.

Kerry Wood doesn't have the same reputation as Mariano Rivera, but JayBay made sure that they got the same results when they faced him. That right there is drama. Waiting until the 9th inning, waiting until your entire team looks exhausted beyond belief and can no longer put effort into baseball, to hit a game winning home run (or a game tying one, but we're talking about last night's game, not Friday night's game). The fun thing about JayBay is that we haven't had him long enough to get a complete feel for who he is as a player. There are scouting reports, and the last few months of the '08 season, but you really need to watch a guy for an entire season to know how they're going to respond to the pressure of Boston. I think that the pressure is making Jason shine. I really do hope he keeps it up. He's very talented, and I'd like to see him kept around for a while.

So, yesterday morning I started receiving angry text messages from friends bitching about Nick Green being benched for Julio Lugo, which of course did not happen yesterday, as if these people did not know that Lugo was going to be activated LONG before he was actually activated. My stance is this... we just got through with Earth Day, and there's been a big push (presumably globally) to "Go Green." Hey, if Green is good enough for the Earth, he's good enough for Red Sox Nation, right? I don't hear any countries, never mind planets, pushing for us to "Go Lugo." They might be pushing, but then again "Lugo" could very well mean something different in Scandinavian than it does in English. Maybe in Scandanavia, a Lugo is something that gets on base and fields well. Unfortunately, that's not how it works here. So work towards saving the planet and just stay Green (even if he does clash with the uniforms!)


I know, the job is actually Lugo's to lose, because Theo, for some reason, seems to be in love with him. Whatever. He'll lose it on his own merits. I truly believe that he will. Remember, when Green makes a bad play on the field, he gets a hit or two to make up for it. Can we say the same about certain POS's? No.

I would be hard pressed to write a long-winded post about last night's game without dedicating at least some space to the incredible pitching of Timothy last night. 1 hit in 7 innings? Tim was rolling... so were his knucklers... behind/in front of George Kottaras. Every time a Wakefield catcher misses a ball, I reactionarily burst out with 'Dougie would have had that.' I'm hoping one day that I can stop doing that. Perhaps before Wake retires...?

Anyhow, congratulations to Mikey, the AL Player of the Week. Even with that bad hip, he managed to leg out a triple yesterday, even if he was stranded at 3rd. It's ok. We still won. Way to go, Mikey!

(insert cheesy 'Penny' pun here)... so let's go for the full dozen tonight and hopefully take solo hold of the AL East.

CRW: If You Fool Yourself, He Will Make You Happy

I'm sure most Sox fans watching the game last night shared that same 'holy shit!' reaction when Ells stole home. I was lying on the floor, stretching my poor back when he took off, and I just remember hearing the commentators scream something on TV, so I looked up quickly (straining the muscle in my back that's been giving me problems all over again) and waited a second just to see our boy flop onto home plate.

He flopped. He didn't slide gracefully, he flopped. It was the best flop I had ever seen.

I remember the shame and embarassment of Carl Crawford's steal of home vs. Jason Johnson. I felt humiliated for Johnson. Stealing home makes the opposing team look bad. I don't care how good of a play it was... it ALWAYS makes the other team look bad. Jacoby made Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada look bad AND made Drew look good at the same time. Without that steal, there is no way Drew would have gotten that double. Because let's face it, Drew was brutal this weekend.

In three games against the Yankees, Drew had 10 AB... he had one hit. One RBI... 2 K's... he grounded into three double plays. In the slugfest on Saturday, Drew's crowning glory was getting 2 walks and scoring a run. We had 16 RBI's in that game, and Drew got exactly zero of them. In all fairness, he wasn't the only one without an RBI... Youk and Green also had zero RBI's. But Youk did walk once, get two hits, and scored 4 runs (he was hit by a pitch, of course). And now JD has a busted leg. Give me a break. He honestly is made out of glass, isn't he?

I'll cut him some slack. Everyone has bad series, but it just seemed like Drew was the constant rally killer. Let's hope when he gets back into games, he'll get himself back in gear. Because my eyes hate bleeding. They really do.

Beckett was ugly on Saturday. Lester was good, but inefficient with his pitches on Friday. Fetus was incredible on Sunday. For that matter Hunter Jones and Michael Bowden were mighty impressive, and Saito is the '07 Okajima of '09. Okajima didn't even do THAT bad. He gave up one run on his own, and 2 runs scored because of a rare error from Munchkin. Our bullpen was incredible. Theirs... not so much. However, terrible call by Tito keeping Beckett in the game when he so obviously didn't have it. Tito was, seemingly, the only one who didn't realize that Beckett was done for the day. Thank God we pulled out that win.

The 'Tek grand slam? Honestly the last thing I expected to happen in this series. I would have predicted Ellsbury stealing home and Mikey ascending skyward in brilliant rays of light and happiness before I ever predicted that GS. Because Tek only has two in his long career. One against the Royals and one against the Orioles... not exactly the cream of the crop in baseball these days. But now... now Tek has three, and he's still yet to hit one off of a formidable opponent.

I kid... but that Yankee pitching staff is pretty bad. I hope AJ, Sabbathia, and eMpTy were worth neglecting the bullpen. My guess is that they're not.

I do, however, request to never have to listen to Joe Morgan again. Ever. He was mumbling something about how Jacoby Ellsbury's base stealing is completely dependant on how often he gets on base.

Pause.

Rewind.

Play.

Jacoby's base stealing is completely dependant on how often he gets on base.

Pause.

Really?

Isn't everyone's base stealing completely dependant on how often they get on base, or is that now a characteristic unique to our boy Jacoby? Just even thinking about what point he was really trying to make causes my brain to twitch. Have you ever had your brain twitch? It's not comfortable. I think that one line did me in for the rest of the game. I had to spend the rest of the innings bedridden. It was terrible, and very cozy all at the same time.

We're counting on Timmy to keep alive the streak that he started. Can he do it? I think he can. Scratch that... I KNOW he can. Go Sox.

Tim Wakefield: He Doesn't Lose Games For Me

While I missed his highness Dave Roberts throwing out the first pitch due to some train delays, I ended up with a pretty good game. Sure, seven innings is abbreviated, and I missed the first one, but we got there in time for the second one!

We were there for Nick Green's 2-run home run. We were also there for Mr. Awesome's 2-run home run. We saw the offense put a 10 up on that board, and threaten more. We would have gotten a few more runs if not for the rain, I just know it.

Well, like Paps and Delcarmen say... blame it on the rain.

I'm thrilled at all the runs they've been scoring for Timothy. He deserves them. He almost never gets any run support. Strangely enough, despite the lack of run support in the last couple of years, Tim Wakefield has never lost a game where I was watching him pitch live. And i've seen him pitch live SO often. He doesn't always get the win, but the team always wins when he's on the mound and I'm in the park. I thank Tim very much for this consistency, because I definitely don't get it from our other starters.

So now that Jon and Josh have been switched in the lineup (does it really matter anyway since they're becoming the same pitcher?), Tito has officially done it to me again. Instead of being scheduled to see Beckett twice in June, I'm now on track to see Jon twice in June. Which I don't really mind that much, but come on. I want some live Beckett. I just can't win. Tito does this to spite me. And don't give me the bull about five game suspension blah blah blah... it could have been avoided. They could have just skipped him. We had an off-day anyway. Thanks a lot, Teets.

And happy belated 50th birthday, Teets. Even if you don't like him, the guy helped us to two world series. I hope he enjoyed his birthday and two wins yesterday.

Hopefully if I ever get around to it, I'll post up some pictures from the game.

Josh Beckett: Making Everyone In His Own Image?

I don't even remember exactly how it happened, but I managed to stumble onto this piece from Out In Center Field... and I nearly spit out my soda laughing so hard.

I for one, would be insanely, delusionally thrilled if all of a sudden, we staged our own Star Wars: Attack of the Clones sequel, with all the Clones being Beckett clones... except these clones will pitch, win games, talk with a southern accent, and generally be badass.

There are few things that I dislike about Beckett. His inability to admit when he pitched badly is one of them... I cannot, off the top of my head, think of another one. I noticed that recently about Lester, but for some reason, it was more precious when Lester did it. I think his quote was "I don't think I pitched as badly as the box score shows." It was something like that. He still needs work. Beckett would have said "I was throwing the ball really well today. They just hit my pitches." I've heard him say things along these lines many times before. He will continue to say it in the future. I do hope that Jon doesn't quite reach that level of arrogance. It works for Josh, but it would make me shake my head sadly at Jon.

I like the facial hair. Facial hair is something that I appreciate on baseball players and rock stars alike. Not too many professions boast people with wacky facial hair, but baseball players and rockers can still pull it off. I don't think it looks ridiculous on Jon OR Josh, but I do acknowledge that Josh uses it as a method to define his non-existant chin. He doesn't have a chin. I will fight you to the death on this (Ok, not so much). So he uses the facial hair as a way to give the illusion of a chin. Jon has a chin. I've seen it. If I look to my left, there's a picture of Jon with a clearly defined chin. He doesn't need the facial hair, but I still think it works for him. Look, if you want to change your image from cancer survivor to badass, you've got to have some wicked facial hair (See: Lowell, Michael Averett). It can be wicked disturbing or wicked awesome, it just has to be wicked. This is the one area where I think Josh had a smaller impact on Jon than Mikey did. But I could be wrong. Wicked facial hair : put a check mark next to Jon for that.

The wardrobe... yeah, it's pretty obvious that Jon and Josh have been going shopping together, or trading clothes... or maybe Jon is just stealing Josh's stuff when he's not looking. I don't really have a problem with it. It's a little silly, but I think it works for the badass image that Josh is going for (and obviously if Josh is going for something, so is Jon). Black clothing with odd or silly designs? Check. I much MUCH prefer this look to some of the silly button-up shirts I've seen Josh in. I'm glad he's not infecting people with THAT fashion sense.

The necklaces? Josh swears by them. I read that a long while back. Maybe that's where he gets his power from. I don't know. What I do know is that he did hand them out to his teammates (all part of the assimilation project?) Whether they decided to wear them or not was seemingly up to Josh.

I don't care that Jon is from Tacoma, WA... I love southern accents, and I will never complain when I hear someone talk with a southern accent, even if it is completely unwarranted. Even when he just tosses in an occassional 'y'all,' I can't help but grin. Love it. Good work, Joshua! He can make them ALL talk in southern accents for all I care. You know what? Maybe he should buy them all cowboy hats and make them... ok, yeah, my mind is taking this too far. I'm going to stop.

So if Josh wants to make a not-so-mini-me out of Jon, I'm ok with that. They can be the scariest twins in the league. We can have a bona fide ace from both sides of the mound. I do not see anything wrong with this! But seriously, Josh needs to leave Fetus alone. There's no way I can look at him as a badass, no matter how hard I try. I just end up grinning and thinking of cookies.

Rainout last night found me sitting at Fenway for over two hours, waiting for the rain to stop... which I knew it wouldn't. If I hadn't gone, the rain would have stopped on time. If I left before the official announcement (despite seeing the Twins folks go out to the bullpen and collect their stuff a half an hour before the announcement - a sure sign that there will be no game), they would have started ten minutes after I left. No, with my luck, I had to sit in the rain. Today looks a little better, weatherwise, so hopefully Tim gives me something to cheer about.

PS - I didn't do a write-up about Fetus's Patriot's Day start, but I want to point out how wonderful he did. 5 1/3... only giving up one run. Couldn't have asked for more... especially since it was still a close game when he came out of it. It became laughable after the fact, but it was close at the time. Poor Radhames Liz, he of the 60-something ERA... they sent him back down to the minors after the game.

Excitement and W's: Pitching Wins at Fenway This Weekend

Aside from Penny's botched attempt at being fantastic, was this weekend not great from a pitching perspective?

Our bullpen on Friday night was incredible. Penny gave up 8 runs in 3 innings, and our bullpen shut them down after that. I think it was Strike Out King that allowed the inherited run to score, but other than that, nothing. Silence from the O's bats... giving our Sox the opportunity to stage a comeback. They tacked 10 runs on the board, and ended up winning a game that we looked completely out of early. Brad Penny is not allowed to pitch home games any more.

Jeremy Guthrie shouldn't be given big leads at Fenway, because he cannot win with big leads. If memory serves me, I've seen him win games with smaller leads, but those games that look like W's for the O's... they usually turn into memorable wins for us. I don't know what it is about having a large lead. Guthrie can't handle it.

Either way, doubles for Munchkin and Green, a triple for JD, home runs for Kazerud and JD. 12 H and 9 BB's... luckily, I didn't give up on this one. It looked bad early, but I had a pinched nerve in my neck, so I wasn't going anywhere anyway. Glad I stuck it out.

Saturday night, with Commander on the mound, I felt good. He looked good, until the 5th inning, but still managed to come away with the win. The thing about Joshua is that he almost always has one inning where he seems to fall apart. I'd say it happens 90% of the time. Granted, he doesn't always fall apart completely... sometimes damage is limited to one or two runs, but he falls apart. It's usually the 3rd or the 6th inning, so when he fell apart in the 5th, I was shocked and appalled. That Josh... always switching it up on me. Just when I think I know the guy. He still managed to go 6, and his ERA is still a respectable 3.79. No, it's not a GREAT ERA, but show me one guy in our starting rotation that has a great ERA right now (besides Wakey and his magical 3.00 ERA), and I'll call you a magician. That sort of thing is going to happen slowly. Still, I love watching Josh pitch.

Oki, Saito and Paps pitched one clean inning apiece, and all of them looked good.
Offense on the night was, again, excellent. Doubles from Youk, Tek, Drew, and Mikey. A home run from Youk, and a stolen base from Kazerud. 12 H and 5 BB... granted, we left a collective 20 guys on base, but I care about that so much less in games that we win. When we lose a game, I'll go right back to complaining about it.

I can't remember which game it was that Youk got hit in the head. I think it was Friday's game... but that right there was a scary moment. Even when I don't necessarily like a guy, I never EVER want to see anyone get hit in the head. Thank goodness he was A-OK. I also had a moment of schadenfreude when I saw the score from the Yankees game... but I won't repeat it here, because that's just not polite. Tee hee...

Then, there was Sunday, and we had Binky back on the mound. I felt so good about this game, I was nearly giddy to watch it. Ok, I WAS giddy to watch it. As much as I love Joshua, that's how much I love Jon. And believe me when I say it, I love the two of them dearly. I always think we're going to win when they're on the mound. Johnny gave the best pitching performance of the weekend. It's only right to save the best for last. 7 IP, 4H, 0 ER. He was excellent. I couldn't have asked for a better start. I know, I know... it's just the Orioles, and he still has a 5.50 ERA, but he's trying. He'll be ok. He'll win games against teams that can actually go somewhere.

Not for nothing, but how good has Ramon Ramirez been so far?

We only eked out 2 runs in this one... Munckin and Mr. Awesome gathered up the RBI's.... and Saito allowed a run in the 9th, but this was a good, exciting game.

Can't ask for much more than that during an entire weekend, can you?