Category: John Lackey

 Clay Buchholz

Drew Back on Track, A Thing or Two About Numbers, What is Fixable?

MLB: Red Sox vs Orioles MAY 02
Drew Back on Track No Sox hitter in the past two weeks has been hotter than J.D. Drew. In Boston’s last ten games, he’s batted 17-for-36 with three homers. The eight Ks are a bit unfortunate, but nothing concerning. Not including last night, his first strike percentage is down to 63.4 from 72.7, his BABIP is up to .329 from .194. What is particularly exciting about Drew’s performance is the type of contact he’s making. Besides it being hard and consistent, he’s been doing an excellent job of sending the ball the other way on two strikes. According to MLB.com’s Fenway Park hit chart, Drew has four opposite field singles this season to go along with two doubles. In 2009, he had all of five singles (seven depending on how narrowly or widely you define the left field) and five doubles (up to nine for the width of left field). In particular, Drew has been serving these opposite field singles with two strikes. Keeping his hands back and serving outside pitches into right field means he’s timing the ball much better than he had been. Lots of hitters in slumps will get ahead of the pitch and roll the ball over to the pull side...

May 10, 2010 mike silver
John Lackey

Lackey continues to allow contact

New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox
We have learned over the years that the only things a pitcher can control are strike outs, walks and keeping the ball on the ground. Things like hits and home runs are just a factor of league averages and things like defense and luck. Lackey finished Wednesday night with an ERA of 3.89 and seems to be joining the rest of the pitchers in winning results. The trouble is his numbers he controls don't back that up and he is benefiting by a run of good luck. He has only been striking out 5.10 batters every nine innings, which is down two from his career average. That is a huge drop in one season and very concerning. This is made even worse by a BB/9 that is up from 2.66 in his career to 3.60. His ground ball rate has held at career levels leaving his change in K/BB at 1.42 this year from a career rate of 2.69. All of this doom and gloom points to a pitcher with a xFIP of 4.94. While his FIP says 4.12, which would be ok that has a lot to do with his HR/FB rate at 5.4 percent.

May 6, 2010 Troy Patterson
Adrian Beltre

The Case For Optimism

Monday night, we got a glimpse of what this team could look like with things going right. Clay Buchholz put together another solid outing, further cementing himself as this season’s most reliable starter, and the offense put on a show — especially during a long 6th inning that saw seven Sox runners cross the plate. The question is this: was what we saw last night something we can expect to see again, or was it simply a reminder of how frustrating this season has become?

I was a huge fan of this particular iteration of the club going into 2010 — probably the most excited I’ve been about a Sox team since 2007. Unsurprisingly, the abysmal start has dampened my optimism pretty significantly, but it hasn’t yet killed it. I still think that by the end of the season we’ll see a team that more closely resembles the one that decimated the Angels than the one that lay down in front of the Orioles. Here’s why.

May 5, 2010 andrew lipsett