We’re going to look at cold, hard numbers today. Forget what happened. Forget the emotions, or how people look on the mound or at the plate. Let’s look at the NUMBERS. We all think Rudy Seanez is terrible. I’m hear to tell you he’s not. All cumulative statistics do not include Thursday’s games
We’ll start off with Rudy. 7 G, 7 IP, 11 H, 6 ER, 2 HR, 3 BB, 8 K, 10.29 K/9, 2.00 WHIP, 7.71 ERA Now, with relievers, I tend to look at just Opponent Batting Average and WHIP, as they tell most of the story. Rudy Seanez fails horribly here. Horribly. HORRIBLY. However, there’s one tiny little statistic that caught my eye as I was meandering through the digits of the Red Sox, and that’s the tidy 10.29 K/9 Seanez has put up. 8 K’s in 7 IP, easily the best K/9 on the team. Second is Curt Schilling at 8.05. Best in the bullpen is Keith Foulke’s 7.90. Basically, if Seanez can start missing some more bats or reducing the number of hits (or hell, taking his 2 HR allowed and converting them to zero) then he’s actually doing pretty darned good. The 2.00 WHIP and 7.71 ERA are ugly, but I think Seanez’s is going to get at LEAST all of May before the team even thinks about making a change. (Seanez hurled 1.1 IP of nothing but 3 K’s last night before faltering and coughing up 2 BBs in the 6th and being pulled only to have a run charged to him via Julian Tavarez giving up a single for two RBIs on the Cleveland side.)
Kevin Youkilis is better than JT Snow in the field. Consider this:
Youk: 137 IP, 145 Total Chances, 145 Put-Outs, 9 Assists, 0 E, 16 DP, 1.000 FP%, 10.12 RF, 7.92 ZR
Snow: 52.2 IP, 48 TC, 43 PO, 5 A, 0 E, 1.000 FP%, 8.36 RF, .667 ZR
Not only am I extremely comfortable with Youkilis in the field, but if this dude keeps it up, he’s getting a Gold Glove. I’ve been very impressed with Youkilis at first, and especially when those defensive statistics join up with his .315/.395/.438 line.
The leaders in OPS for the Red Sox:
David Ortiz, 1.094
Trot Nixon, .981
Wily Mo Pena, .909
Manny Ramirez, .872
Coco Crisp, .843
Kevin Youkilis, .834
Mike Lowell, .802
David Ortiz is an absolute monster, and I don’t quite get how he can do what he does. Trot Nixon’s OPS and line of .340/.441/.540 is extremely pleasing, especially with the concerns we had of Nixon coming into the season. His injury issues still continue, but he’s hitting the ball when he’s healthy. Pena is showing us a lot of his power, and it’s a shame that he’s a mess defensively, because the DH job is locked up, and the LF job can’t be his until 2009. Somehow, somewhere, if Pena can get respectable on defense, it will really mean a lot to us, and to our 3-4-5 combo in the lineup.
The Red Sox have exactly 100 walks on the season. The team as a whole is hitting .260/.354/.416. It’d be nice to get some more power, but the power holes of A-Gon (.200/.290/.250) and Loretta (.239/.295/.318) don’t help matters. Gonzalez at least has an eye, as he’s posted a 0.90 Isolated eye. The opposing teams cumulative totals are .267/.319/.435. Basically, our saving grace with our offense is our ability to take walks and to at least match them in batting average and power.
Mark Loretta is hitting .239/.295/.318, after a fast start of .471 with Coco Crisp leading off. Since then, he’s at .175 (through Tuesday). It’s tough to ascertain whether or not Crisp has any affect on this, but it’s hard for a prototypical #2 hitter to be at his best when the leadoff hitter isn’t the prototypical one with speed. Hopefully Loretta can start improving soon, or it may be time to look for another #2 hitter, which we can’t afford right now, not with Crisp out.
We have Manny Delcarmen, Jermaine Van Buren, Cla Meredith, Edgar Martinez, and Craig Hansen all hanging around who can help us out. What have they done so far this year?
MDC BOS: 1 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 4.00 ERA. MDC AAA: 10 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 10 K, 0.00 ERA
JVB BOS: 3.0 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 1.00 ERA. JVB AAA: 4 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 0.00 ERA
Cla AAA: 12.1 IP, 13 H, 7 ER, 5 BB, 14 K, 5.11 ERA
Edgar AA: 10.2 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 15 K, 2.53 ERA
Hansen AA (just promoted to AAA): 11 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 12 K, 0.82 ERA
We have five nice arms in the minors right now who can come up in a pinch if need and provide relief. This is pretty good depth, and even if some of our current relievers don’t pan out, enables us to not worry too much about the bullpen because of the options afforded us.
Mike Lowell, how about him? Hitting 288/.350/.452, he’s been very encouraging and has helped make it hurt less that Crisp is out and Loretta is scuffling. When Crisp returns, our lineup will start looking pretty deep, especially if Loretta starts hitting the way he should be:
Crisp, Loretta, Ortiz, Ramirez, Nixon, Youkilis, Lowell, Varitek, Gonzalez is the lineup I’d throw on the field right now if Crisp was healthy. I’d give Loretta a week or two to straighten out, and if he didn’t, I’d move Youk to second and slot Loretta in the 8th spot. Either way, that .802 OPS from Lowell is great, and it makes our lineup pretty good once Crisp gets back.
Josh Bard is hitting .294/.400/.353 for us, which means that he’s actually contributing somewhere. I’m also still pretty confident he can turn into a good catcher for Wakefield. Mirabelli’s first six starts catching Wakefield resulted in 10 passed balls. Bard’s done it in five games. That means that we all need to exhibit one thing. Patience. It’s April.
3.1 IP, 6 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 5 BB, 6 K, 3 HR Allowed, 4.50 ERA on the season
Josh Beckett, people. Nice outing last night, eh? He served up so many walks (especially to Travis Hafner) that Ben Broussard made him pay the entire night. If Broussard doesn’t hit that slam, then he only gave up 3 ER and could have gone longer, but really, that’s no excuse. He had no control, and he DID give up that grand slam. He’s allowed to have one bad outing, but with the team struggling to score runs as is, it would have been a nice pick-me-up to have Beckett pick Schilling and Wakefield up. Alas, the better ballclub won, and again, it’s not like Cleveland isn’t World Series contenders, because they are.
Let’s just go to Tampa and see what happens. Before we know it, Coco will be back. They’re being a bit cautious with his injury, I think, but that’s also probably the right course to take, especially this early in the season.
The most important cold, hard number: 13-9.
