Hello,
Oh my! New Yorker and ESPN reader @jdubs88 was the person who came up with the above blog title. It's from a comment he made on ESPN concerning the Red Sox's inexplicable meltdown against the Yankees yesterday! at home!
What can be said about Boston jumping out to a 9-0 lead yesterday, seemingly restoring some of the shine to the Sox season? But then some questionable decisions made by Valentine and Boston's horrendous pitching bit Boston in the butt. The Yankees went on to score the next 15 runs on their way to a 15-9 laugher.
Here are some of the scary numbers from the Red Sox 4-10 start:
1) They are last place in the AL East. They are the 4th worst team in MLB record wise. According to ESPN, their chances of making the playoffs are currently 21.1%.
2) They've lost 5 straight games at home. Although the Yankees aren't playing lights out baseball, only 9-6, they lead the Red Sox by 4.5 games. Boston trails the annual AL East doormat Baltimore by 3.5 games. The Red Sox have about $66,000,000 more in salary than Baltimore does.
3) Boston has been out scored 45-17 in their last 4 games, again all of those games were at home. Yesterday Boston relievers gave up 14 runs on 12 hits.
4) The Red Sox have the fourth highest payroll in MLB at $146,000,000. Nearly 54,000,000 of that payroll is currently going to players who aren't even playing. That's not counting Kevin Youkilis who is officially listed as day-to-day. That includes some of the Red Sox worst signings in the last several years, players like John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka. It's undetermined whether Carl Crawford will fall in that same category.
5) The Red Sox are in desperate need of help. They traded for Marlon Byrd, who currently is hitting .70. And although their pitching staff is brutal, they traded away a pitcher to get him. Red Sox starting pitching has a 6.09 ERA so far this season. That's without John Lackey even pitching.
6) Sunday Night Baseball tonight and the Yankees are sending CC Sabathia (1-0) against Daniel Bard (0-2).
Update: In a bit of mercy from the baseball gods, the Sunday Night Game was rained out. That gave a surprise night off to a team that needs it. Now the Red Sox go on the road for a 3 game series with the horrible Twins. The combined record of the Red Sox and the Twins is 9-21. Combined both teams have only won 30% of their games. Jon Lester (0-2) and his Lackey like ERA of 5.82 will be the starting pitcher tonight for the Red Sox. I hope the Red Sox can win 2 of 3 of these games and rediscover their mojo a bit.
Where the Red Sox messed up the most with the 2012 team is in their starting pitching. The two worst examples of this are Daisuke Matsuzaka and John Lackey. However I don't blame Theo Epstein et al for the signing of Matsuzaka. When signing a player from Japan you are always taking a bit of a risk. You really never know what you are getting. It's also easy to fall in love with the potential of a player.
I think that's what happened with the Red Sox signing of Matsuzaka. Unfortunately Boston is suffering buyer's remorse now and can't wait to dump Matsuzaka. Boston probably would have never guessed how relatively ineffective Matsuzaka would be. I bet they would be surprised that after 5 seasons he would only be 49-30 with a 4.25 ERA. They would have never expected that that he would miss parts of two seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery. Matsuzaka is scheduled to be starting a rehab assignment today in Single A Salem, Virginia.
I was glad that Yu Darvish didn't end up with the Red Sox. So far he's pitching decent. However for a MLB team to sign a Japanese player, the current system is heavily weighted in the favor of the player. First the MLB team has to pay a "posting" fee to the Japanese league of usually about $50 million for a player with a high upside. However none of that money goes to a contract for the player. The team still has to pay the player usually a rather large contract. For instance, the Red Sox paid about $100 million total to procure the services of Matsuzaka. That money could've gone to so many other more productive players. They probably could have signed two solid starting pitchers. If they had those two pitchers, instead of an ineffective and injured Matsuzaka, things might be so much better for the Red Sox now.
However I do blame Epstein for the signing of John Lackey. What the hell was he thinking when he signed Lackey? The signing of Lackey could go down as the worst deal of the Epstein era. Before the 2010 season the Red Sox signed Lackey to a 5 year-82.5 million contract. What will the Red Sox get from Lackey through the first 3 years of that contract? They'll get 26 wins and a ERA hovering over 5.00. Also thanks to Boston's prolific offense, Lackey probably has more wins than he deserves. Last year Lackey was 12-12 with a 6.41 ERA. That should explain why I wasn't exactly heartbroken when the Red Sox announced he'll be out for this season. He's recovering from Tommy John surgery.
As always thanks to ESPN.com for the best news and stats to supplement my blog.
themusicaddict
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