There’s just not a whole lot that can be said after a club gets swept by the worst team in baseball.
Maybe “worst team in baseball” is a bit unfair to the Baltimore Orioles, but they earned that title by entering the weekend’s series at 4-18 (.181 winning percentage).
Even a silver lining is tough to come by in this one.
The Sox seem to have whatever April malady ailed the ’08 and ’09 Yankees — characterized by having either the offense or pitching working on any given night, but never at the same time, leading to frustrating losses and swings in performance.
This past weekend was no different: the offense was stellar on Saturday, but Daisuke Matsuzaka, predictably, blew up while Tim Wakefield chipped in to combine for twelve runs allowed — including 10 in the fifth and sixth innings. The Sox lost 12-9.
It happened again on Sunday. Josh Beckett turned in a gem, a rarity in these post-extension days, but was overshadowed by an offense that forgot left bats at home in a 3-2 loss.
Things just aren’t clicking for the team right now and there’s nothing that can be done save for hoping the team doesn’t dig too deep a hole before they congeal.
With 137 games remaining, a seven-game deficit in the division is nothing to get overly concerned about. It’s a sizeable gap, but any team can hit a hot-steak that cuts the deficit down to two games in under two weeks.
Fourth place in the AL East is unfortunate, but, truthfully, is secondary in importance to the performance of the team’s key weapons. On the bright side, things do seem to be turning around for some of the team’s most important cogs.
Beckett’s outing Sunday was one such performance.
Though a win would have been nice, six strikeouts and zero walks was a welcome sight for a rotation reeling for support in the wake of Daisuke’s Saturday disaster.
But, though Sunday’s pick-me-up might signal a change from Beckett for the future, the big righty really hasn’t thrown much different from last season. Sure, he’s looked a little flat at times and has had trouble with his command, but the only major difference in his line this year is that batters aren’t whiffing at his offerings out of the strike zone.
The velocity’s not down, he hasn’t changed his approach much, and there doesn’t seem to be anything else wrong with the big righty. He’s got a high BABIP (.343), a low strand rate (.611) and can’t get the whiffs he needs when he gets batters chasing.
Considering that the first two factors tend to be out of his control and that he’s right in his career line with the third bullet point, we can expect to see more of Sunday’s Beckett to show up in the future.
Beckett’s a tremendous pitcher and will continue to be, but people are always quick to push the panic button at the first sign of trouble. If this had continued for a couple more weeks, or were accompanied by some significant change in his approach or his stuff, then feel free to sound alarms. But, for the time being, all systems should be go.
But that shouldn’t surprise anyone.
The same goes for Jon Lester. His exceptional start against Toronto was only the beginning.
But, if you really want to know what a drowning pitcher looks like, look over to Texas’ Rich Harden. The walks are way up, as is the ERA — just like the Boston pitchers. However, unlike the Sox rotation, his demise may not be attributable to bad luck.
His fastball velocity is down about 2.5 mph (92.1 in ’09 v. 89.5 in ’10), his stuff has been far easier to hit than usual — his contact percentage is up approximately 18 points from 2009 (67.3 contact percentage in ’09 versus 85.6 percent in ’10), and he can’t find the plate.
Neither Lester nor Beckett are exhibiting these factors.
The curious part to Harden’s performance is how much the decreased velocity — whether it be the result of a hidden injury or fatigue — is affecting his command. Though his zone percentage is just a tick below last year’s mark of 48.8 percent, his first strike percentage is below his 2009 line by 6.5 percent — which begs the question: is his command truly faltering or has he just been absurdly unlucky with the random dispersal of his balls and strikes?
While the context of his pitches are somewhat unknown to me since I don’t tend to watch Texas’ games, I would have to argue strongly against the fact that his high walk total is of random chance variation. There’s something systematic going on. It could be that he falls behind every batter, then starts cruising pitches over the plate to even the count. Maybe it’s something else.
Surprisingly, despite the poor line, his regressed walk totals are only about 5.0 walks per nine — a poor number but nothing even close to his 8.75 figure. Either way, you don’t put up 8.75 per nine with decreased velocity and a 48.3 first strike percentage purely on bad luck. His regressed totals indicate that a turnaround is imminent, but we really can’t be so sure of that happening.
Of note, the Dontrelle Willis and Rich Hill collapses in recent years weren’t predicted by regressed walk values either. They eventually succumbed to Steve Blass Disease and spent lengthy stints as inactives or on minor league rosters.
For some reason, they could hit the zone and they could fool our regression formulas, but they couldn’t stop walking batters — just another tally on the list of limitations of baseball statistical analysis and likewise, a tally on the list of what makes this game so great. No matter what the numbers say, human beings have to go execute on the field every day and there will never be absolute certainty of an outcome when humans are involved.
If you want to know what a drowning pitcher looks like, take a look at Rich Harden. Then, look at Dontrelle Willis circa ’08-’09 and Rich Hill in 2008. Once you’ve done that, look at Jon Lester and Josh Beckett and tell yourself again if you’re still afraid of the April lull continuing.
When it comes to Harden, Willis, and Hill, the main catalyst seems to be a sharp decrease in first-strike percentage, which dropped precipitously in all three pitchers. The other indicators conflicted. Zone percentage is still somewhat stable in Harden, though not so much in the other two. Velocity changed sharply only in Harden, suggesting that injury or fatigue is not necessarily a prerequisite.
Maybe this will even help us shed a little light on Steve Blass disease — and give Sox fans a little more comfort knowing that Beckett and Lester have just been slumping and are about ready to pull out of it. Sudden collapses are uncommon, and May through September should be far better for the both of them as they look to lead the team’s turnaround.
However, for those of you who want to dig a little deeper, I’ll answer it for you right now: No. There is not enough data available to rely on a regression model for Steve Blass disease. Like the diagnosis of any rare, real-life medical ailment, when there aren’t many cases to go by, you have to carefully review the evidence, use your best judgment, and hope that you’re right.
Surprising as it may sound, even baseball leaves us wondering about problems like this quite often. In the grand scheme of things, there just isn’t a whole lot of information and data to go on in most problems we try to tackle.
For instance, even though Harden has had a large drop in his first-strike percentage, he’d still rank only third worst in the league, in front of Jaime Garcia (47.6 first strike percentage, 3.12 BB/9) and Jake Westbrook (48.0 first strike percentage, 3.60 BB/9).
But I digress. Lester and Beckett were merely slumping and in no danger of developing Steve Blass Disease.
Some players have bad months. Statisticians call them outliers. Baseball fans call them freaks. Either way, they’re enigmas.
With this much talent on the field, maybe the 2010 incarnation of the Boston Red Sox falls into this category — at least until they start winning again.