Sports Writing

One thing that the wild-card-clinching Sox and hapless Seattle have in common: both teams have room for sentimentality in their lineups. Two retiring great hitters were on show yesterday: Ellis Burks, who went 1-for-2 and would probably have gone 2-for-2 without Bigbie’s acrobatics; and Edgar Martinez. It was great that Burks not only got a hit, but got to score a gimpy run in his 2000th and last game. What a way to go.

It’s so strange how the Orioles played us tough all year, and then we sweep a doubleheader from them using a lineup of (mostly) scrubs. Where were these Orioles when we were challenging for the division? B.H. Kim looked especially great in that second game - definitely deserved the win after Pedro #2 flubbed it up. Nasty stuff. The movement’s back! Hopefully it’ll last through next season, because I don’t think Kim’son the postseason roster.

Congratulations to Ichiro, Mr Single. It was great to see him shake George Sisler’s daughter’s hand too. Of course Sisler’s 1920 season was better and I guess the relatives don’t like seeing the record surpassed. But on the other hand, I’m sure they appreciated how much Ichiro’s record chase shone the spotlight on what Sisler did in one of the great underrated seasons of all time. “Number of hits” was one of the oldest, if somewhat obscure, records standing, and it’s great to see that in 2004 there’s still room for different styles of baseball play.

Wakefield’s knuckler has reappeared, just in time. To see him go that first 2 2/3 perfect innings was sweet. So it’s confirmed, Schilling, Pedro, Arroyo, Wakefield, Schilling is our rotation. We’ll probably face the winner of the AL West, unless Minnesota sweeps Cleveland… I’m psyched. And the more we beat up on the Orioles, the more psyched I’ll be. Johnny Damon is #3 on the team HR list with his 20th homer today. What an incredible season he’s having.

The Baseball Prospectus folks have a fine discussion on the meaning of Ichiro’s Sisler-chasing record. Has he found a new approach to hitting? Is he too obsessed with the record? I thought it was interesting that the study cited shows that Ichiro is hitting not into the infield, as the stereotype would have it, but into the outfield.

In my sleepiness last night, I forgot to note that the USA Today article also mentions fellow Sox blogger Joy of Sox, always a great read with perhaps the most complete Sox blogroll around. Apologies. Also, in the vein of “everyone gets caught up in baseball”, Salon’s Ask the Pilot column talks about the agony of a pilot/Sox fan as he’s forced to look at Shea during the approach to La Guardia.

Most bizarre injury of the year, shoo-in candidate: Kyle Denney of the Indians got shot by a stray bullet, and was saved by the cheerleader go-go boots he was wearing as part of an initiation ceremony. (Blares NBC: “Indians Pitcher Shot Wearing Cheerleader Outfit” - now that’s a headline that’d make you want to read the article.) Now will people stop mocking teams for dressing rookies up as women? The classless Indians’ prank saved Denney from serious injury.

Adam Dunn just broke Bobby Bonds’ strikeout record, whiffing for a 190th time this season. Which goes to show, the K record isn’t that bad: you’ve got to be a good enough hitter to stay in the lineup that long. Anyway, among the top 20 strikeout seasons for hitters are names such as Jim Thome and Mike Schmidt - illustrious company to be in. Better than being a freakin’ GIDP machine.

Baseball Prospectus has its list of “lucky” pitchers based on the difference between their expected win-loss records and their actual records. No surprises that the Arizona starters clog up the bottom: Randy Johnson and Brandon Webb haven’t seen their great and decent (respectively) seasons translate. And no surprises to see Derek Lowe on the list, although it’s interesting that Curt Schilling was right there next to him. But is this really luck then, to see a list in which the luckiest guys are on teams with great offenses (see: Bartolo Colon, Lowe, Kenny Rogers, Jeff Suppan)? Luck is when you get the win in an 8-7 game between two teams that are even in offensive capability - say Sox vs Angels, rather than getting a win in an 8-7 game because you’re pitching against the Devil Rays who’re going to get shelled anyway. I guess this reaches the depths of some metaphysical discussion of “what is luck anyway”, but I was just putting the thoughts out there.

So Minnesota got swept, and the Yankees win the division, and amazingly that’s the best possible conclusion for the Sox. Now unless the Twins sweep the Indians the ALDS matchups look like this:

A kind of letdown game, and it’s a bit worrying to see Pedro in such form. Hard to tell though whether it truly was a dip in form or he wasn’t pushing too hard - when the bases were loaded he did seem to rear back and pull out some high heat. Maybe, hopefully, the man needs a bigger stage than the regular season. (Pollyanna alert!)

Moonshot Manny, the song.

So they’re going for a four-man rotation for the playoffs. The funny thing is Wake is good at the Metrodome and Arroyo is good away, but no matter who starts game 1, if we end up playing the Twins the Metrodome pitchers will be Pedro and Schilling. Of course, I’m rooting for a Sox-Angels or Sox-As ALCS.

As for business of baseball stuff: is it wrong to gloat at Jim Duquette because I think his brother screwed up the Sox franchise? Two words: Mike Lansing. Ugh. Not that I think Omar Minaya will be that much better for the Mets - the Wilpons’ constant interference probably screws any GM’s chances there.

Okay, so Lowe’s pitched himself out of the playoff rotation in all likelihood. Not only is his sinker not on, his starts usually mean Pokey at 2B and Mientkiewicz-Millar on the right side instead of Millar-Trot. The domestic-violence duo of Lowe and Adams were pretty pathetic, but I think Embree, Astacio, Mendoza, and Foulke acquitted themselves well. Sweet no-hit effort. Mendoza probably is on the playoff roster. As for Scott Williamson, he got some sort of weird luck with all those pop-ups today, which made it really hard to tell whether he’s on or off. I think his breaking ball is screwing up timing nicely, but his fastball still doesn’t seem to have that zing. How did what set up to be a slugfest suddenly become a battle of bullpens anyway?

15 position players: Varitek, Mirabelli, Millar, Mientkiewicz, Bellhorn, Pokey, Cabrera, Mueller, Youkilis, Manny, Damon, Nixon, Kapler, Roberts, Ortiz 10 pitchers: Pedro, Schilling, Arroyo, Wakefield, Lowe, Foulke, Timlin, Embree, Mendoza As it stands the only real controversy seems to be the last two pitchers. I’m going for Mendoza and Leskanic, leaving Myers off since I think Mendoza’s pretty decent at getting the lefties out too. I suppose you could argue for 11 pitchers and 14 position players, but I don’t think a 5-game series warrants that.

I’m tired of hearing about the “classy” Yankees from the media, particularly after Halsey’s throwing at the head over the weekend. Take this example from Gary Miller’s Clubhouse Confidential column, over at ESPN.com:

“I’m about to get a ring” - Pedro Martinez. Nice shirt, too. Wild card clinched, thanks to four blasts and thanks to a timely ejection of Scott Kazmir, who pretty much owns the Sox at this point in his nascent career. (Dear me - lefthanded fireballers.) I didn’t think his second throw was intentional, but the warning was on, so out he went. The D-Rays must be the worst supported team in the AL - every Sox hit was cheered, and somewhere in the 7th inning the “Yankees suck” chant was audible. Meanwhile, kudos is due to Bronson Arroyo for becoming the final starter in the Sox rotation to get 10 wins, no thanks to some bad luck. Today’s game really added to his claim to the #3 position in the Sox postseason rotation, leaving Lowe and Wakefield out. I’d go with Wakefield and draw on Lowe’s strengths as a very capable reliever, but you could make the exact same argument the other way around. In a 5 game series, of course, you only really need 3 starters, so I’d go: Pedro, Schilling, Wakefield, Pedro, Schilling. Schilling’s been more consistent this year, but Pedro as the Game 1 starter avoids screwing up the timing of the rotation.

In non-Sox baseball news, I’m still trying to figure out what Jose Guillen did to get kicked off his team without pay in the middle of a division race. Throwing a hissy fit over someone pinch running for him doesn’t seem to quite explain it all.

“We’re not game-planning to score 961 runs again” - Theo Epstein, quoted in the Providence Journal, Mar 7 2004 Currently the Sox have scored 904 runs, most in the majors, with a certain David Ortiz scoring #900 in the second inning yesterday. To highlight what an offensive juggernaut the Theo-assembled Sox are, this is the first time in history the Sox have scored 900 runs in back-to-back seasons. There’s an outside chance of beating last season’s astounding total of 961: with seven games to go, they’d need 58 runs or 8.3 runs a game. That’s tough and unlikely, given that they’re averaging an (already-impressive) 5.8 runs a game, but not completely unthinkable if they massacre the D-Rays and the Orioles.