Two topics of interest today for you dcat--first, yesterday's comeback. Sure it was against an O's team that just isn't that good and it was helped by two O's miscues, but anytime you come back from 5-0 down in the 9th to win, it's usually an indication of a special team. Not necessarily a great team, but one that has that "never-say-die" mentality that is needed to win a championship. I don't have any statistical evidence to back this up, but it seems like the teams that make that run deep into the playoffs are those that win games decided by 1-2 runs and teams that have some large number of comeback wins. Certainly the second of these can be applied to the Sox as they've come back many times this year to win games. Sunday was just the most extreme example, but it's something we'd already learned from this team and something we hope will continue all year.
Second, the next 10 days and the remainder of the month could be an important checkmark in the season. We noted a couple weeks ago that other than August, May looks like the toughest month on the Sox schedule. We are in the midst of 16 straight days without a day off and while we as fans love when the team plays every day, we also know the value that the players place on the offdays. So far, the Sox are 5-1 in this 16-game stretch, but those wins came against a Toronto team that has been ravaged by injuries and a Baltimore team that just isn't good. Tonight starts up 10 straight against Detroit, Atlanta and the Yanks again. We sent a message to Minny a couple weeks ago taking 2 of 3 and only losing a game 2-1 in which the Sox started Tavarez and the Twins started Santana. So I'd love to send a message to Detroit (and Cleveland who we see shortly after this 16 game stretch) by going 3-1 against them to tell them that while the AL Central may be a lot deeper than the AL East, the best team doesn't reside there. Similarly I'd like to send the same message to Atlanta in case we see them come October.
Finally, we get the Yanks again. Now one might argue that with the Yanks being 8 games out and tied with Baltimore it should mean that if I'm not going to call the O's series a big series, I shouldn't call the Yanks series one since the teams are about equal. But we all know what maintaining an 8 game lead and then going 2-1 against NY would mean. It's been a while for Yanks fans since they've been in this boat, but as a Sox fan who has watched Boston chase NY for the last 10 years during the regular season, I can assure you that there is that time during the season when you just realize that you aren't going to win the AL East. It may only be halfway through the season when there are still a lot of games left, but you know it when it comes. I've seen it many times the past 10 years. Doesn't change the fact that as a fan you think to yourself "that's OK, we can still get the wild card and in a seven game series in the playoffs, the regular season is meaningless" and all that is true, but it's just not the same. I don't think holding on to an 8 game lead until that series and then going 2-1 puts Yanks fans in that mood quite yet, but it gets them one step closer to experiencing it, so it's a big series because every step the Sox can take to that point is big and every step the Yanks take back to make it look like it'll be a dogfight all summer is big.
dcat: I'll be honest with you -- I am having a hard time maintaining my perspective right now. Every sign points to this being not just a good or even very good Red Sox team. The pitching, the lucky breaks, the opportunistic hitting, the production from almost every guy on the roster, and don't forget the pitching: All point to what could be a historically good season.
I'm listening to the Sox-Detroit game that was close for a while but that has turned into a laugher. Dice-K is out to try to polish off a complete game (take that, Jim Leyland, you cantankerous Old School ass) and to give us a great win to start off a four-game series that should be a true test. May was supposed to be our rockiest month, and yet we have done nothing but improve and stretch out the lead so far. Our starting staff has done so much to save the bullpen that we oftentimes have to go out of the way to find ways to get innings to Paps. (The Sox just won with Dice-K tossing the first complete game of the year for the Sox -- he did not walk anybody.
I especially agree with you on the Yankees. Let me try to explain my views by way of a cultish pop culture analogy. For whatever reason, Zombie movies have been a popular theme at Hacienda Dcat (Perhaps because Friend of Dcat Jaime is living with us for the summer before he moves to Arizona, and he and Ana are huge fans of those types of movies). If Zombie movies have taught us anything (and they have) it is that the seemingly undead are resilient. They do not die easily and just when you think you are safe, another stiff-legged, moaning, vacant, living dead comes to try to chomp on your throat. Suffice it to say that the Yankees are just that sort of evil, hard-to-kill entity. That gutteral, barely animated presence we will continue to feel will be Joe Torre and his army of ghoulish, foul-smelling killing machines. The only solution is to keep blasting away.
[For whetever reason, I feel the need to pause right now to plug "Shaun of the Dead," which I am ashamed to say that I had not seen until this past weekend. Funny, violent, ironic -- definitely check it out. Furthermore, Jaime is out of town, but we have just received 28 Days Later from Netflix on his request so that we can watch it (or he and Ana can see it again) before we go to see 28 Weeks Later as soon as possible.]
If I know the Red Sox, they will hit us in a the stomach at some point -- it is hard to imagine any team sustaining this level of excellence for the duration. They are playing so well right now that losses seem like aberrations. Perhaps this Beckett avulsion will fester into one of his full-fledged blister situations and will put him on the DL. Maybe a few of the bottom-of-the-order guys will come back down to earth. Maybe the next part of the schedule will prove to bring us back into line with our Pythagorean projection [it's a Sabrmetric thing -- it involves a formula of runs scored and runs allowed that proves to be a fairly reliable predictor of wins -- it looks something like this: {Projected Wins = (r ^ 1.83) / ( (r ^ 1.83) + (ra ^ 1.83)) x 162} Just trust me on this.] Or maybe, just maybe, we really are in the midst of a special season. As we always seem to say, the next week should be telling.
2 comments:
This is not exactly on point, but I want to get it off my chest, and I think is important for true baseball fans to think about as we groom the next generation of fans.
I would normally agree with the sentiment from your earlier post with the picture of the young Sox fan. Unfortunately, I am a little raw and annoyed with baseball fans in general today, and Braves fans specifically. Perhaps it is a commentary on how society has changed, or maybe just me getting older and more conservative. I took my family to the Nationals game last night against the Braves (as Dcat knows I split season tix with a few friends). Normally a baseball game on a warm Spring night with the kids is about as perfect as it gets (especially when the box scores on the Jumbotron includes the Tribe pounding the Twins by many crooked numbers). Last night however the crowd in our section was made up largely of college students (clearly done with exams, etc. for the school year) who spent the majority of the game getting drunk and making off-color comments about the Nationals, etc. One particularly salty chant was directed at the Yankees, "F*** the Yankees", which was conducted with gusto and in a sing-song manner by quite a number of the young'uns. I am not one to blush at this sort of thing, and have no love lost on the Yankees, but there were quite a few families in the stands in addition to mine, and I was just waiting for my kids to pick up the lilting melody. Were I younger or or inebriated myself, I might have challenged some of the instigators, but common sense prevailed and eventually we left the game (it was also the kids bed time). Still, this is not how I remember the game that I love from my childhood, and is not what I want my kids to grow up knowing. If there was anything positive to come out of it with my kids, it was that my 4 year-old asked me questions about striking-out while looking and why foul balls are strikes, instead of focusing on the cotton candy vendors as usual. Here's to hoping the next generation has the type of passion and occassional rowdiness about the game and the numbers behind it that Dcat, Thunderstick and I have as opposed to those who are more interested in rowdiness for rowdiness' sake.
- Donnie Baseball (the crumudgeon)
If one wants to see the effects of alcohol on sporting events, one needs to only travel to fenway for a couple games. I'll take any tickets anyone can't use and a couple times those tickets that have come my way have been in one of the 2-3 family sections at fenway in left field where you aren't allowed to have alcohol at your seat (obviously you can run up and have a beer at the stand, but you can't bring it back to your seat). The crowd in these three sections is so much more subdued than the rest of fenway park it is unreal. There is no doubt that should kids come my way and I want to take them to the game, I will be actively seeking out tix in this area when they are young. Of course, given my choice, I'll always sit in the other sections. I really don't care what anyone says when I am by myself or with other adults and frankly the drunken idiots can be quite entertaining. The last game I went to I had 2nd row seats in right field in Fenway. Two absolutely sloshed guys were in the front row. One went to the bathroom between innings and when the Sox pitcher was warming up, the guy that stayed started yelling at Trot Nixon things like "I love you Trot! Trot, don't even play for the Yankees!, Trot, you are the best!" Then when his friend got back he told him "dude, you just missed it, I was talking to Trot Nixon" and his buddy asked what he said and the guy goes "I told him I loved him and he should never go to the Yankees and he said he wouldn't ever do that..." and he went on for a good 3-4 minutes with a conversation that had completely happened with Trot Nixon in his drunken mind. Good times!!
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