Matt Harrison faces the Sox while Josh Beckett takes the mound against Texas. Comment away.
To Catch A Thief: WalkerFree-Runner Texas Rangers-Sox Gamer II
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Just to seal off the essential uselessness of UZR over small samples – as a team, Boston is a “plus”, near the top actually, and the Yankees are near the bottom.
Sorry, but UZR is an extremely silly statistic, and hopefully it will soon be replaced by something that’s actually useful.
I should also say that UZR’s formula has been “updated”, and as it turns out, Jason Bay was actually a plus in the field last year, and Ellsbury was actually a -10 instead of a -18.
So any past valuations on these players, such as WAR, have been pretty much invalidated.
Hooray for relying on extremely suspect statistics for definitive valuation! I’m looking at you, WAR.
Beckett – 3 hits, 4 walks thru 2. Yeah, it’s the catcher.
Please. This team sucks eggs on every level right now.
Anyone else using mlb.tv? My feed keeps going out. I’m getting the “Game is temporarily unavailable” error on my PC, though my iPhone is streaming it through mlb.tv just fine.
“Yeah, it’s the catcher.”
Nice strawman. The bit you’re missing is the Sox pitching has a lot room to improve. The Sox catching doesn’t.
Speaking of UZR, those adjustments also show that Varitek somehow lost 2.2 wins since 2003. Gotta love highly variable numbers. Who would be so silly to build a team around them?
Hey, look at that. JD Drew is alive!
JD picked a nice time to get his average up to .149!
By the way, I used to shudder when the Yankees had two DHs. The Sox now have three. The only question is how long they let VMart keep catching.
Oh hey I walk away and we take the lead. I approve!
120 pitches already thrown in this game. Ugly.
Yet another stolen base.
Darnell McDonald does it all! Throws out the runner at home. Love this guy already.
Seriously, what the hell is going on with Darnell?!
Folk hero of the moment.
Oh my god another McDonald homer. Sign this guy to a 10 year ARod-like contract.
Jesus.
I mean, “Darnell”.
AB #1: Game-tying homer
AB #2: Walk-off hit
AB #3: Lead-off walk which started a big rally
AB #4: Home run
And he threw out the tying run at home.
I wonder how long we have until the Darnell 50 game suspension!?!?!
What a great story this McDowell kid is.
“I wonder how long we have until the Darnell 50 game suspension”
I was going to make that joke but thought it inappropriate.
The only performance enhancements McDonald is using are whole milk, full-nude yoga and American apple pie.
Any chance they actually release Ortiz? Lowell is clearly the better hitter at this point. It’s not even close. The sad part is they could have wrung platoon duty from him if they had treated him that way over the last two years.
Nice return to form by Beckett. A couple of extra runs would be nice though. Need 2-3 innings from the pen…
Beckett has retired 8 straight and is at 94 pitches, I say definitely send him out for the 7th.
McDonald with another walk. Kid has yet to make an out.
That walk also lowered his OPS from 4.500 to 4.000
Where’d that pitch miss, blue?
dammit
oh no
uh oh – did Ath jump out the window?
Bad pitching. Worse managing.
I went to make a sandwich. Ugh.
115 pitches in April. Now instead of a nice comeback and a possible/probable win
Beckett is stretched out, somewhat unnecessarily, and is saddled with a shit sandwich.
No more sandwiches for you, Ath.
But it’s delicious and I’m hungry
Where was anyone in the Sox’s bullpen? When was the last time Dan Bard even pitched?
This is all just setting the plate so McDonald can hit another walk-off.
I’m you you Ath, Dar-nelllll!
Do you suppose McDonald could take care of this in the 8th? Just to shorten the evening for all of us?
McDonald works in mysterious ways, RBF. We should trust his omniscient judgement.
At this point he can do whatever he wants. Maybe the old guys will get inspired.
Well it certainly lit a fire under JD Drew to fight for his outfield spot.
WEEI announcer “Arias can run so you want to keep him off the bases”. Ha! anyone can run on the Sox.
More than one inning for Bard? I guess I don’t disagree too much.
Well, Darnell can’t save it at this point so it’s either one of the regulars or extra innings….
101 on the radar from Feliz. Goddamn.
99, 101, 101, 99, 100, 100, 101
Yowzer.
102, 100. Scutaro called out on a pitch that, by gameday, looked well outside.
free baseball!
Why did the strikezone get really big for Feliz but shrank again with Paps on the mound?
That double play is when I wish I were watching instead of just listening….
Great sinking fastball to induce the double play.
5 pitch inning. Excellent.
LET’S WIN THIS ONE!
Pedroia with some warning track power on a 99mph fastball.
If it were 101 it would have gone over the wall.
Surely at 100 mph, this kid is getting tired.
102mph. What an arm.
McDonald in the hole…
McDonald up. Crowd going fucking nuts.
McDonald down, crowd goes silent.
Are there rules against Hermida and Victor pinch hitting?
Bruins win in overtime.
krueg is going to be heartbroken.
Hughes has a no hitter through 2.0, 5 strikeouts.
Thought I’d go ahead and get that out of the way now.
Finally a hit. That was 18 straight retired by the Rangers.
Great baserunning by Scutaro to get to 2nd there. Risky, but it worked so we’ll give him the pat on the back.
Pedro IBB’d to get to Youk.
YOUKILIS HITS A WALK-OFF DOUBLE! YEAH!
What a win!
Yay!
WIN STREAK
Ah, two Fenway-created walkoffs in a row. Congrats SFs. That’s 6 straight losses for Texas, whose record was 5-4 before touring the AL East. Poor Ron Washington.
It’s a shame because that Rangers team is very good. Solid offense, and a rotation that has performed very well so far.
“two Fenway created walkoffs”
that is a stupid, acid comment.
i think he meant you can only have a walkoff at home sf… ;) …or, maybe not…
and yes since you brought it up, it is the catching…catching is your long term weak spot, since as i pointed out on a previous thread, you should expect your pitching, hitting, and defense to come around to the norm for them…but right now, your catching duo is doing the best you’ll see them do, defensively that is…allowing that many stolen bases will take some games out of the win column over time…it was fortunate to say the least to come away with a w in that 9 steal game…it helps to be at home, and it helps that the rangers are a very pathetic team right now…but heck i’d celebrate too…a win’s a win, and april can be cruel…
I’ve seen no highlights and only boxscores, but seems like these past two games have been a blast for you SFs. One of the best treats in baseball is to see up-and-coming homegrown talent actually come through in huge spots and spark the veterans. I felt like Melky did some of that a few years back, Cervelli played that role in the end-June Atlanta series last year, and Gardner has been doing it since he came up and certainly this year. And then there is the very much hated (by other teams) Shelley Duncan and Joba Chamberlain infusions of energy in years past. Congratulations.
On the catcher-talk, with the perfect storm of underperformance you’ve had to put up with in virtually all aspects of the game so far in this young season, I would agree that it probably is nowhere near the biggest issue right now.
At the same time, as dc notes, it may be more long-term troubling given that I think we’d all expect all those other things (starting pitching, bullpen, defense, and bats) to pick up markedly. They simply are too good a team in each of these areas to play so poorly. Not sure the same can be said of their catchers’ skills in managing the opponent’s running game.
Given that the two teams they’ll be battling for a post-season spot have very legit running games (almsot can’t believe I can say this about the Yankees but it’s actually true!), it would seem a relatively serious issue for them. But regardless, two walk-offs in a row is fun stuff and perhaps signals that the bats and pen are waking up.
There’s nothing up and coming about McDowell. He’s 31.
“There’s nothing up and coming about McDowell (sic)…”
I bet there was two nights ago, if he was willing and out on the high-on-victory town…
score one for devine. And I take the point re: McDowell. I frankly know absolutely nothing about him.
well, McDowell was a pitcher at some point, right? McDonald is the new Boston folk-lore hero. :)
“well, McDowell was a pitcher at some point, right? McDonald is the new Boston folk-lore hero. :)”
See. I told you I know nothing about him. :o)