September 26th, 2007
More evidence of my good karma: the J.D. Drew files.
In the eight games since my September 16th post about the ongoing saga (and my defense) of J.D. Drew, the Sox’s much maligned right fielder has gone 7-for-25 with 2 doubles, 2 homers, and 6 RBIs. (That’s good for a hitting line of .280, .357, .643, .1.000.) That’s actually a fall-off from what he’s done overall in the month of September, in which his line reads .323, .443, .565, 1.008 with 3 HRs and 12 RBIs. Here’s one more way to slice this pie: in about 13 percent of the season’s games, he’s hit 30 percent of his home runs and racked up 20 percent of his ribbies.
Granted, that only works out to about 20 homers and 88 RBIs over the course of a full season - but his 15 runs works out to 110 over a full 162 games…and having a guy with a slugging percentage in the mid-.500s hitting in the 5th spot offers a decent amount of protection to whoever is in there batting clean-up.
Two things I’ve noticed—both of which Remy pointed out in last night’s broadcast—were that J.D. seemed to swinging more, and more aggressively, at the first fastball he sees and that he’s using some of his opposite field pop to take advantage of the Wall in left. Whatever else is going on, if it continues it bodes well for the Sox in the playoffs.
September 25th, 2007
FTM meets Colbert Nation: The Man in the Irony Mask
My feature on Stephen Colbert that’s in this month’s Vanity Fair has been posted online. It’s worth checking out. At least according to this unbiased source.
September 20th, 2007
I will repent
My last post was on September 16 — last Sunday, which, as it happens, was the day after the Sox’s 10-1 win. They haven’t won since — that’s four straight games, for those keeping track at home — and the Yankees haven’t lost since. There are two possible reasons for this: 1. I am being punished for the decrease in posting frequency, or 2. I am being punished for defending JD Drew. Drew hit a homer last night, so I refuse to believe that’s the cause. So I’m sticking with 1. Ergo, here’s a post. Now: enough of this crap. Let’s finish this thing.
September 16th, 2007
The game’s on the line. Who do you want at the plate, Varitek or Drew?
Two games at Fenway left me with one sleepless night, one satisfying TKO, nine hours of sitting on my ass in my wooden seats in Section 17, and one excruciating backache; seriously, I haven’t hurt this bad in a good long time.
It also left me a new appreciation with the strange plight of J.D. Drew. Drew had ten at-bats in the two games, going three for eight with three singles, two walks, and two RBIs. (He also reached base on an error.) He had some hard-hit balls that didn’t get through—a shot down the first-base line in the first inning of yesterday’s game stands out—and several critical at-bats: his six-pitch walk led off yesterday’s four-run, five-pitcher seventh inning, and his leadoff single in the ninth inning of Friday’s game made him the first Boston batter to reach base on a hit or a walk since the sixth inning. Think about that for a moment: after the Yankees’ seventh-inning blitzkrieg, the Yankees retired nine out of ten batters, which obviously includes Pedroia, Ortiz, Lowell, Youkilis, and Ellsbury (who struck out on three pitches to end the game). The only rays of hope were when Lowell reach on a passed-ball K in the eighth and when Drew singled off of Riviera to start the ninth.
All of which is fine and good; what struck me, however, was how many times Drew came to bat with two outs and men in scoring position. Take a quick guess. OK, time’s up. I bet not many of you guessed five. That’s right: fully fifty percent of the time, Drew was at the plate with two outs and RISP. Out of those five at bats, he was two-for-four with a walk (for you statheads, that’s an OBP of .600). And yet? Drew was the only member of the team I heard booed at Fenway. You know who didn’t get booed? The guy with the next highest number of two out at-bats with RISP: Cap’n Jason Varitek (rapidly becoming the Sox’s own Captain Intangibles—because, you know, he calls a great game even if he’s batting .253, is ahead of only Lugo and Crisp in OBP, and isn’t great at throwing out runners). Tek went 0-for-8 with a pair of walks in the series’ first two games. He came to the plate four times with 2 out and RISP and went 0-for-4 without ever getting the ball out of the infield. (In yesterday’s game, Tek grounded to first on two pitches with runners and second and third in the first and popped up to second on two pitches with the bases loaded in the third; at that point, Wang had walked the previous three batters, included the previous two on a total of 10 pitches.)
That’s not knocking Tek (although I wasn’t a fan of the four-year deal he got after the ‘04 season, not so much because he was so overpaid but because it meant the Sox were committing to someone who increasingly seems overmatched at the plate through next season). It is trying to highlight just how hard things are for J.D. at the moment. He’s hitting the ball well, he’s getting on base consistently, he’s working walks, and the crowd still hates him. I know major leaguers are supposed to be immune to that sort of stuff. But it can’t help…
September 12th, 2007
The key to the Sox’s OF offense…J.D. Drew
Last night might not have been the smoothest game ever played, but man, it’s fun to watch those wild and wooly slugfests. Anyway, my favorite part about last night was JD’s line: three-for-four, an impressive solo homer, and a ten-pitch walk. I’m not entirely sure why I’m rooting so hard for him — after all, it’s not like a guy with a $70 million contract needs my sympathy — but I am. His recent clutch-failings notwithstanding, Drew’s September has looked much more like what the Sox brass (presumably) expected when they signed him to a five-year deal: a .296 average, a .432 OBP, a .519 slugging percentage, and a .951 OPS. You wouldn’t be crazy to look at his year-long stats (.259, .362, .393, .755) and view the last nine games as an anomaly; in fact, they’re more representative of a schizophrenic season: mediocre April, horrible May, fantastic June (.305, .404, .558, .962), shitty July. Thus far, September is the first month in which Drew is threatening to put up back-to-back appealing stats (August line: .289, .366, .422, .888). He’s done so pretty much under the radar, due to any number of factors, including but not limited to Manny’s absence, Ellsbury’s explosion, DP’s ROY push, Dice-K’s meltdown, the Yankees’ surge…well, you get the idea. Another thing about JD that’s gone (mostly) unnoticed is his defense — along with Crisp, he makes up the best right-center Red Sox defensive combo since, well, since Lynn-Dewey in the late ’70s.
If JD keeps up any facsimile of his recent performance, and if Manny isn’t checked out when he returns, the Sox are going to have an enviable outfield rotation, with three offensive forces (Man-Ram, JDD, and Jacoby), three good-to-great defensive players (Jacoby, Coco, JDD), two speed threats on the basepaths (Coco, Jacoby), and one complete enigma (Man-Ram)…
September 6th, 2007
Ignore everything I said earlier
That post on playoff roster rules? Yeah, it was all wrong. See below for the correct explanation of who’s eligible to suit up come the playoffs…
September 6th, 2007
Catching up with my own press: a whole mess o’ interviews
I’m a couple of weeks late on this, but back in mid-August, Red Sox Monster blogger Dan Lamothe posted a lengthy interview with me about all manner of subjects Sox-related. Lamothe’s a smart guy, and he got me thinking about many a subject. Way back in late July, Gelf’s Michael Gluckstadt interviewed me in advance of my August 1 reading as part of the Varsity Letters series; that piece is also an interesting read. And just yesterday, Andy Smith of Bugs and Cranks ran a post addressing speculation that Dan Duquette is being considered for the Pirates GM position; my thoughts, along with those of others, are here.
