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By Sully, 7/15/2005 3:19 pm

- This quote from Red in his post at Surviving Grady is damn funny. Yes, last night sucked.

It could have been worse. Kenny Loggins could have sung the National Anthem. They could have stopped the game in the seventh inning to show Rhinestone in its entirety on the centerfield scorebord. Dale Sveum and Lynn Jones could have launched their own mid-game production of Puppetry of the Penis.

- From Chris Snow’s Minor League Notebook today, we get this…

Despite an out clause in his contract that kicked in June 15, allowing him to sign a more lucrative deal with a team in Japan, Pawtucket slugger Roberto Petagine plans to stay put.

”It came, and it went,” Petagine said of the deadline. ”I’m here for the year. I’ve wanted to be in the big leagues. That’s what’s always in my mind, my goal, to play in the major leagues.”

Petagine said his agent was contacted by teams in Japan, but he let it be known that he isn’t interested. He declined those overtures knowing there’s no surplus of playing time at first base in Boston, but hoping his blend of power and batting average forces the big league team to use him in some capacity.

A lefthanded hitter, Petagine clocked his 16th homer Saturday, a majestic shot to left-center in Syracuse with a swing that looks like it would fit nicely in Fenway. He knocked in his 45th, 46th, and 47th runs with the homer, while upping his average to .328.

Most impressive, to his teammates, has been Petagine’s opposite-field power.

”You say impressive, I say amazing,” said PawSox catcher Kelly Shoppach. ”I’ve got some juice, but the way he can hit the ball to left field is amazing. He can cover all of the field.”

Does Petagine feel he should be in the big leagues?

”Well, the numbers say that,” he said.

Petagine said he’s not thinking beyond this season, but with Kevin Millar and John Olerud due to become free agents, there could be a spot for Petagine next season in Boston, especially in a platoon situation. He annihilates righthanded pitching.

”Roberto is obviously proving that he deserves serious major league consideration,” said Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein. ”Unfortunately for him, right now we’re full at that spot. We’re not ignoring what he’s doing. We think he’s an important part of the organization, and we think he’s going to be a major league player someday.”

But the clock’s ticking. Petagine is 34, with a history of knee surgeries.

Good news? He’s staying. Bad news? He’s still in Pawtucket and doesn’t appear to be headed for Boston anytime soon. I haven’t seen Petagine play enough to know his tendencies so I have to say that finding out he is a superb opposite-field power hitter doesn’t do a whole lot to quell my anxiety for his arrival.

A 34 year-old lefthanded 1st Baseman with about an 1.100 OPS in AAA with excellent power to the opposite field doesn’t have a role on the Red Sox? Really? I know there are a multitude of factors that enter into these decisions but sheesh.

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By Sully,

Jumblings today – too many thoughts and not enough brain power to organize them.

- Last night’s game, though not necessarily played particularly well, was cool. Intense atmosphere – the whole bit. There was a sense that everyone just sort of felt like the playoff push was on, and it was palpable.

- Jason Giambi: .279/.427/.476

- Is A-Rod a real Yankee yet? How many confused Simmons readers sat, mouths agape, watching A-Rod trot around the bases? “But…but…Schilling’s so…so…clutch….and A-Rod’s ‘Slappy’…and….not…clutch…I just threw up in my mouth…hold me.”

- I don’t know if it says more about Terry Francona or the constitution of the bullpen but that was the most pitiful deployment of pitching I have ever seen in a baseball game. First, against a lineup that contains both Hideki Matsui and Jason Giambi, Tito decided to pull Bronson Arroyo in the 6th for Uber-LOOGY Mike Myers to face…wait for it….wait for it…ROBINSON &$^%ING CANO!. Myers faced only Cano before being lifted for Chad Bradford, who doubled Myers’s output by facing two batters. Alan Embree was next, in what had to be the most hilarious outing I have ever seen. He threw three pitches, and all were absolutely pissed on. Hideki Matsui hit a 377-foot line out to Trot Nixon, Jason Giambi roped a 225-foot groundout with the shift on to Mark Bellhorn and after Embree amazingly was called upon to start the 8th inning, he gave up a first-pitch double to Jorge Posada. Tony Womack would pinch run for Posada and eventually score the game-tying run. After Posada’s double, the Inherited Run Fairy, Mike Timlin came on. He induced a ground out from Bernie Williams and then, as is his custom, he gave up a double to Ruben Sierra that plated Womack. Why Kevin Millar was positioned 25 feet from the first baseline I’ll never know. Timlin then recorded the final two outs of the inning. The guy that has easily been Boston’s best reliever in 2005 had thrown just eight pitches. With the game tied in the 9th, extra innings appeared likely. Francona had available to him Jeremi Gonzalez, John Halama, Curt Schilling or he could stay with Timlin, who had thrown just 8 pitches. So he had two guys that just can’t pitch in high leverage situations and a guy that hasn’t taken a Major League mound since May. The problem here is not Schilling taking the mound in a high-lev situation, it’s the failure to recognize that Timlin was the obvious choice. The four relievers that preceeded Schilling threw 22 pitches. As for Schill’s performance, well, what are you gonna do? He is not the first guy to get lit up by Gary Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez.

- Tony Womack : June = Melky Cabrera : July

- With a man on 2nd and two out in the 6th, Bill Mueller made a nice play on a sharply hit ball by Derek Jeter but his throw was low. Kevin Millar kind of squatted to try and play it as though it were a one-hopper from an outfielder or something, a near impossible play. Millar missed it. With the tying run on 2nd, that ball has to be knocked down. Come off the base, get your gut in front of it, and take your chances with Cano.

- In the 3rd, Jason Varitek grounded out to shortstop with one out and men on 2nd and 3rd. As he crossed first base, he made a very outward show of happiness, pumping his fist because the ground-out plated a run. I thought it was hilarious because I am convinced, had he roped a ball off of Yaz’s #8 on the right field roof to win the game, he would not have displayed such emotion. But a ground out in the 3rd? Yee-haw!

- Mariano Rivera is still nasty.

- David Wells and Tim Redding tonight. Boston’s bullpen will be rested, so that’s nice.

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By Sully, 7/14/2005 3:30 pm

Chien-Ming Wang was placed on the 15-day Disabled List today. Michael Kay is reporting he is out for the year on 660 WFAN in NYC.

Tim Redding will face David Wells tomorrow night.

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By Sully,

- The Red Sox open the 2nd half of their season up against the Yankees tonight at Fenway Park. There have been a few changes to the roster since they last took the field. Curt Schilling was activated from the Disabled List and Kevin Youkilis was optioned to Pawtucket. Also, the Sox announced the trade of Jay Payton to Oakland for righthanded reliever Chad Bradford, who was himself subsequently activated from the DL. The Sox outrighted Scott Cassidy to Pawtucket to make room. Round-up on the roster front here.

- Even though the Sox are doing the 12-pitcher thing again, at least you can’t say they aren’t addressing problems. Boston’s bullpen has been atrocious in 2005. Adding Schilling and Bradford comes at the perfect time. I was thinking it’s kinda too bad that Bradford and Mike Myers couldn’t assume just one roster spot, given how piss-poor each is against the opposition hitting lefty in Bradford’s case and righty in Myers’s case. Bradford is as much a ROOGY as Myers is a LOOGY, having yielded an OPS of .866 against lefthanded batters between 2002 and 2004.

- Oakland made a nifty deal after acquiring Payton, flipping Eric Byrnes and prospect Omar Quintanilla to Colorado. Since Payton and Byrnes are basically interchangeable parts, Oakland in essence traded Quintanilla and Bradford for Joe Kennedy and an upgrade at reliever in Jay Witasick. Kennedy has been terrible in 2005 but was quite good in 2004. We’ll see what he can do away from Coors.

- The Sox get Mike Mussina and his 5.09 road ERA tonight. Bronson Arroyo opposes him.

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By Sully, 7/13/2005 8:42 am

Go check out “The Road from Bristol” over at Braves Beat. So many asshats to choose from I know but go on over and try and decide who sucks the most at ESPN.

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By Sully,

Damon: .343/.386/.473
A-Rod: .318/.418/.581
Ortiz: .314/.396/.585
Ramirez: .275/.361/.549
Tejada: .329/.373/.604
Guerrero: .335/.388/.584
Teixeira: .290/.362/.562
Varitek: .301/.367/.525
Roberts: .345/.416/.591

Imagine that? A lineup in which Johnny Damon, Jason Varitek and Manny Ramirez are having the three worst seasons. There’s a good chance I am being short-sighted here but I don’t ever remember an All-Star lineup like the one above.

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By Sully, 7/12/2005 7:54 pm

Bobby Abreu is putting together a Hall-of-Fame career.

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By Sully,

I won’t get into specifics of my political leanings in this space but let’s just say that I haven’t been all that happy with my country and some of its actions over the last few years. But I have to tell you, Bobby Abreu’s unforgettable display along with the scene that ensued afterwards reminded me of what a great place the United States of America is.

After Abreu hit 24 home runs in the first round (twenty-freaking-four!), his fellow Venezuelan All-Stars, Melvin Mora, Cesar Izturis, Johan Santana and Miguel Cabrera all mobbed Abreu, posing for a photo opportunity while draping Abreu in their homeland’s colors. Five young, wealthy Venezuelans celebrating one of their own with an adoring crowd in Detroit, Michigan chanting “Bobby! Bobby!” – what a country!

Oh and David Ortiz did the Red Sox proud.

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By Sully, 7/11/2005 7:01 am

The Red Sox dropped 3 of 4 this weekend to the Baltimore Orioles, a team that had won just 12 of their previous 30 games coming into the series. The Yankees, meanwhile, took 3 of 4 from the Cleveland Indians over the weekend. The Tribe had won 21 of their previous 30 games. The Orioles and Yankees, respectively, are now just 2 and 2.5 games out of first place. Baltimore is getting healthier, the Yankees are getting smarter and Boston is getting, um, Gabe Kapler.

During the offseason, we praised the Matt Clement signing, but were lukewarm on the Jason Varitek and Edgar Renteria signings. Both were defensible but nothing to get terribly excited over. The offseason was undoubtedly a successful one, however, because the Red Sox resisted the urge to toss money around at pitchers with crappy peripherals or iffy track records. Meanwhile the Yankees made two of the worst pitching signings this side of Eric Milton in Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright, and unbelievably, thought Tony Womack might be useful. Since the start of the season, however, the Yankees have become more and more unimpressed by tenure and either because of injury or poor performance, decided to place some trust in a couple of their more talented farmhands. They’ve been rewarded for their boldness. Chien-Ming Wang and Robinson Cano have each been instrumental in elevating the Yankees from a mediocre team to a pretty good one. In fairness, I would submit that both are due for some second-half regression. Wang will be hard-pressed to sustain consistent effectiveness with a 3.35 K/9 while Cano is playing well beyond anything his minor league track record would have suggested. Still, kudos to the Yankees for being courageous enough to go with a couple of unproven players to help them straighten things out. To paraphrase Steven Goldman, sure, proven talent is good but between proven and talent, I’ll take the talent.

Roberto Petagine is unproven in that he has never produced at the Major League level. But then again, Gabe Kapler is proven, and he never really has either.

Enjoy the All-Star break.

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By Sully, 7/8/2005 8:51 am

- So get this. The Red Sox sat four of their six best players last night. And lost. To the second place team in the division.

- According to Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal, there is an agreement in place to trade Jay Payton to the Oakland Athletics for Moneyball darling Chad Bradford.

- Adam Stern has taken Payton’s place on the roster. He’s a lefty. So is Trot Nixon. Kevin Millar’s fat. Trust me, all of those facts are relevant.

- Regarding a righthanded outfielder to replace Payton and platoon with Trot, we get this from the Globe this morning…

The Sox are attempting to finalize details of an agreement with Japan’s Yomiuri Giants that would allow outfielder Gabe Kapler to return to Boston.

Kapler posted a .272/.311/.390 line last year and had struggled so badly in Yomiuri this season that he was demoted from his starting position.

Dear Other Shoe,

Please drop. Quickly.

Sincerely,
Everyone that cares about the Boston Red Sox and their chances of winning

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By Sully, 7/7/2005 1:23 pm

Link

FYI, Alex Cora makes Pokey look like Jeff Kent with the lumber.

UPDATE: According to Dirt Dog (so you know it’s true), Cora is leading off tonight and playing shortstop. God save us all.

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By Mullet,

Report: Red Sox designate Payton for assignment – Boston.com – Red Sox – Sports

According to the Hartford Courant (the link here is to Boston.com), the Sox have designated Jay Payton for assignment, presumably as a precursor to a trade. One would assume this would mean that Chip Ambres would be in Baltimore tonight as the 4th OF (or maybe starting in CF).

Or, with the bizarre goings on with the Sox, maybe they’ll recall a 13th pitcher just for kicks.

EDIT: WEEI reports that Adam Stern has been activated to replace Payton. Stern is the Rule 5er that we snagged from Atlanta. Chip Ambres will continue to work the OF in Pawtucket, hoping to stumble upon pictures of someone in the Sox’ front office.

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By Sully,

The Red Sox won last night. Matt Clement was very good and David Ortiz paced the offense. The Red Sox now have a 4-game lead in the AL East as they head into Baltimore for a pivotal four-game set with the O’s.

Oh and Curt Schilling is going to pitch out of the bullpen.

That’s about all I can muster given what’s gone on in London today. Back tomorrow in more detail.

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By Sully, 7/6/2005 8:33 am

Last Thursday, Kansas City Star columnist Joe Posnanski (a damn good one, for what it’s worth) wrote about just how meaningless the statistic of batting average is. He interviews Bill James on the prospect of altogether eliminating the statistic, who has this to say:

“I think this is too important an issue to be dealt with by trivial measures like a constitutional amendment,” Bill James said. “That’s just putting a Band-Aid on it.”

This morning I heard a report of last night’s Red Sox-Rangers game in which the on-air personality said that the Rangers “lost despite outhitting the Red Sox.” Yes, the Rangers did collect 8 hits to the Red Sox 7 but here are their respective lines for the game:

Boston: .206/.308/.471
Texas: .235/.257/.412

The Red Sox were the far better offensive club last night, despite posting a lower batting average than Texas. Highlighting the Red Sox attack was Manny Ramirez, who hit another grand slam, this one to the opposite field off the former Princeton Tiger hurler and basketball center, Chris Young.

The inconsistency of the local media can be confounding sometimes. Manny has been roundly criticized around here for his relatively “down” year this season, with some even accusing him of not caring. I would never accuse Manny of not caring but many of these reports are mere acknowledgments that Manny has not quite been Manny this season, and I do not have a problem with that. But I wonder why Manny hasn’t had the “clutch” label slapped on him. After all what, to the mainstream media, is a guy with merely very good overall numbers but 77 RBI a week before the All-Star Game if not clutch? I don’t know, just a nagging thought I have had.

Tim Wakefield pitched a much-needed 8 innings for the Sox, and Mike Timlin finished things up in the ninth. David Ortiz and Bill Mueller also homered for Boston. Matt Clement and Chan Ho Park tonight.

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By Sully, 7/5/2005 4:08 pm

- Kevin Millar’s last extra-base hit came on June 17th . He plays first base.

- Since June 1, Keith Foulke and Alan Embree have tossed 27 and 1/3 innings. Over that stretch, they have yielded a combined 52 base-runners and 27 earned runs. On the season, opponents have posted an .888 OPS against Foulke while racking Embree to the tune of a .905 OPS. Of the 66 American League relievers that have tossed 25 innings, Foulke and Embree rank 62nd and 64th respectively in Adjusted Runs Prevented, a statistic kept by Baseball Prospectus. Along with the decreasingly effective Mike Timlin, these two are most frequently called upon in high leverage situations.

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By Jimmy, 7/4/2005 11:41 pm

That game sucked a sack of shit.

You hear me, bullpen? Get your act together before I do something irrational, like start precision attacks on your limbs.

The worst case scenario is that Timlin gets caught up in the Vortex of Suck with the rest of them, and that Foulke continues to pitch like a complete asshole.

Right now, the Red Sox bullpen is slightly better than the generic AAA bullpen. That’s right…the team’s Bullpens Run Saved is right now 0.124. In case you hadn’t noticed, this makes Jeff mad. When Jeff gets mad, he posts incoherently.

The Bullpen isn’t the only entity that needs some catharsis.

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By Sully, 7/1/2005 8:00 am

The Toronto Blue Jays come to town this weekend winners of 6 of their last 10 and a game over .500, at 40-39. The Sox will have their work cut out for them. Tonight, Sox-killer Ted Lilly goes for the Jays. Tomorrow, it’s the AL’s best, Roy Halladay and on Sunday it’s Toronto’s second best starter, Gustavo Chacin. The Jays are a young, hungry team with a nice mix of veteran contributors (Halladay, Vernon Wells, Pete Walker, Greg Zaun) and promising youngsters (Chacin, Aaron Hill, Russ Adams, Alexis Rios).

Check out the Batters Box and Blue Jay Way for some quality Blue Jays material.