6/5 Online Seats Game Thread: Aces High in Baltimore

The Baltimore Orioles will send their ace out, in the form of Jeremie Guthrie, to try to take on the best that the Boston Red Sox have to offer, Jon Lester.

Poll: Keys to May Success

David Ortiz' May performance may have rendered the previous poll moot. Over 50% of you "saw this coming" for Big Papi, suggesting that the Red Sox stick with him at the DH position come hell or high water. Ortiz' 1.211 OPS in May complete with .363 average, 10 home runs and 27 RBI earned him the American League Player of the Month award. With that in mind, Ortiz was clearly the main reason the Red Sox turned a sub-.500 April into an 18-11 May right? Not so fast... Jon Lester wasn't to be "out-awarded" by Big Papi as he took home the American League Pitcher of the Month award after a near perfect 5-0, 1.84 ERA month of May. At the same time, others played important roles in the Red Sox May success. So who's performance was most critical to the Sox turnaround? We'll leave that to you to answer in this week's poll.

Epstein’s Draft Hits… and Misses

With the 2010 Amateur Draft just around the corner (Monday June 7 through Wednesday, June 9), I wanted to spend this week's column looking back at the previous best and worst picks of the Theo Epstein era, an era in which the strength of the minor league system has been both a top priority for the team and an area of almost unparalleled success.

With seven drafts under their belts, this front office has taken the team from a roster of two homegrown regulars (Nomar Garciaparra and Trot Nixon) in 2003 to eight in 2010. Among them are a perennial Cy Young contender, a powerhouse corner infielder, a league champion base stealer, an elite closer, a man with a 100 mile an hour fastball, and an MVP. In addition, there is a new crop of talent maturing in the minors, with some players nearing the point where they will make a Major League contribution. So, not bad for a few years. After the jump, we'll take a look at the best and worst draft picks of the past seven years.

5/30 Online Seats Game Thread: End of May Matinee

Well at least we know the Royals didn't sweep. With the month of May drawing to a close, Jon Lester will take the mound for the Boston Red Sox to face Bruce Chen in the last game of a troubling series against the Kansas City Royals.

Trying to value pitch calling

On May fourth I asked the question, Should Jason Varitek be the Starting Catcher? Not much has changed as at the time I noted "In 146 IP thrown to Martinez the staff has a K/BB of 1.64, but when Varitek has caught in 83.6 innings the staff has thrown a 2.35 K/BB." That trend has largely continued as Varitek has saw more time, so how much is the difference worth? Some things to keep in mind is that this is a skill we really can't value before the catchers catch the same pitchers. We knew Victor Martinez was not the best catcher, but how could anyone know for sure his pitch calling would raise these questions. So this is more of an exercise done in retrospect and would help decide how to approach Martinez this offseason.

5/25 Online Seats Game Thread: Rays Give Red Sox A Lift

Don't look now, but the Boston Red Sox are starting to win games against some of the toughest teams in the majors. Jon Lester will look to carry that momentum forward, as he faces James Shields of the Tampa Bay Rays, who has been simply dominant thus far in 2010.

5/20 Online Seats Game Thread: Lester Host Liriano

Francisco Liriano has been red hot for the Minnesota Twins this year, but the Boston Red Sox will have to cool him down if they want to widen their winning record.

Sox historically a step behind, but only a step

Mired on the Bruins beat as I was for the last half of the season, I could not help but start to think about some correlations between what I saw from the spoked B’s in January through March to what we have seen come out of the Fens in the first month-and-a-half of the Major League Baseball season.Two teams, beloved by the people, incredibly inconsistent and frustrating. Both came into their years with high expectations (run prevention and projection adding “another eight to nine wins” is simply not going to happen), both have trouble scoring at times and are dealing with low return on investment and injury.

The historic collapse of the Bruins notwithstanding, both teams are probably better than they have looked. Yes, the Flyers just ripped the heart out of the Hub, but the Black and Gold did deliver a second consecutive conference semifinals appearance to Causeway Street and that was not entirely a fluke.

So, I got to thinking about recent Sox history. I thought to myself: ‘haven’t we seen some frustrating starts in recent years only to come back and win 95 games?” Then I went to the numbers. Here are the May 15th runs scored, allowed and projected win-loss since 2004.

5/15 Online Seats Game Thread: Lester Gets the Go

The Boston Red Sox were helped out by the big bat of David Ortiz in the series opener in Detroit last night. Tonight, Jon Lester will take the mound to take the second game of the series.

Numbers

For whatever reason, I've been having a large number of conversations about retired numbers lately. From students trying to get me on a tangent by asking who they all are to discussions about whether Pedro Martinez' return on Opening Day was a play to get 45 on the facade, the frequency of the topic has gotten me thinking about what the next number retired would be. So, instead of the usual recriminations or wishful thoughts on the 2010 campaign, I wanted to run down the top 5 candidates in order of what I think is their likelihood of retirement. I don't expect everyone to agree, but it should spark some interesting conversation.

The current list stands at 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, and 27 (along with Jackie Robinson's 42). Bobby Doerr, Joe Cronin, Johnny Pesky, Carl Yastrzemski, Ted Williams, Jim Rice and Carlton Fisk -- as good a rundown of Red Sox greats as you can get. Hall of Famers all, aside from Pesky, who represents a special case. The restrictions on retirement have been eased by current ownership, and the rules are now a bit fuzzy; it used to be that a player had to begin and finish a Hall of Fame career with the Sox. That seems to no longer be the case, despite a few acrobatic moves to get Fisk there. So, with that in mind, here is my list of five, along with their numbers, chances and qualifications.