Red Sox Diaries

Through 85 games, Boston doesn't seem like a team that should have the best record in the American League.

Star slugger David Ortiz is struggling to hit his weight, and no regular has a batting average higher than .300. Opening Day shortstop Jed Lowrie has yet to return from his wrist injury, collecting just 18 at bats so far. Daisuke Matsuzaka is on the Disabled List for the second time this year, trying to recover from a crippling case of ineffectiveness: he is 1-5 with an 8.23 ERA (still "better" than Chien-Ming Wang, but not by much). Four-fifths of the starting rotation has an ERA above 4.00, and last year's breakout ace Jon Lester was still giving up more than six runs per nine innings in late May. Two weeks ago, Boston blew a 10-1 lead against Baltimore and lost 11-10 after the bullpen gave up five runs each in the seventh and eighth innings.

But the Red Sox have persevered to the tune of a 51-34 record. Here are eight thoughts -- one for each of Dice-K's disastrous starts -- about how they've done it and what the season might hold after the All-Star break. They will be broken up into multiple posts, with the first one today:

If the season ended now, Boston's bullpen would deserve the team's MVP

Early in the season, the Red Sox rotation was in shambles. The big three of Lester, Matsuzaka and Josh Beckett were prone to big innings and failed to work deep into games, putting a lot of strain on the bullpen. And the relievers responded in a big way.

It's hard enough to acquire two or three reliable bullpen arms. But the Sox have seven: Jonathan Papelbon, Manny Delcarmen, Hideki Okajima, Ramon Ramirez, Takashi Saito, Justin Masterson and Daniel Bard. That group has been instrumental to Boston's successful first half, and the biggest advantage it has over New York. While manager Terry Francona has had to rely on his relievers too much--and it's shown lately, as the 'pen has picked up four losses in the last 10 games--at least there have been plenty of options to spread around the workload.

If anything, the problem right now is that there are too many pitchers that need consistent work. Masterson hasn't been particularly effective recently, but he has been pitching very infrequently--multiple innings one night, then two-thirds of an inning in the next four games. It's tough to get into a rhythm that way, especially for a former starter who probably belongs in the rotation anyway. It's obviously better to have that issue than to be in a position where there aren't enough good relievers, but it's still an issue that needs to be resolved nonetheless. If anyone gets traded, Saito might be the most likely possibility for an NL team in desperate need of low-risk bullpen help.

While Ramirez and Papelbon sport stellar ERAs, there are a couple of warning signs with them as well. The main one for the former, received in an offseason trade for Coco Crisp, is his home run rate. He's already given up twice as many gopher balls this year (four) as last year (two), and he's done it in half as many innings. He's also striking out fewer batters than usual, though that should straighten itself out over time. As for Papelbon, his walk rate has skyrocketed in 2009--he has already issued a career-high 18 free passes, 10 more than he did last season. Additionally, he's giving up home runs at an increased rate and opposing batters are hitting .241 off of him--up nearly 100 points from two years ago. As a result, his WHIP is a very average 1.37.

Unquestionably, the bullpen has been vital to what the Red Sox have already been able to accomplish. But as this recent stretch suggests, it's unlikely to expect a repeat performance in the second half unless Francona subjects it to less wear and tear.

--Danny Daly (ddaly06)

The Red Sox were rolling. They were pitching and hitting their way to 11 straight wins. Then, they lost to the Indians. Eleven of their past 12 is incredible. So why should the end of a streak worry Red Sox Nation? The politically correct reason would be that their bullpen faltered and cost them a game that they could have and should have won. The more direct reason: Javier Lopez. In an otherwise stellar effort from the backend of the Sox staff, Lopez cost them the game, has cost them many games in the past and will continue to do so.

Sure, he's looked pretty the past three years in Boston with ERAs of 2.70, 3.10 and 2.43, but looking much deeper gives us a completely different story. Most telling of all numbers is since 2007 to the present day, in 147 appearances, 43 times he has allowed at least as many baserunners as he has gotten outs. Now given his label as a lefty specialist, that's not a very good set of numbers. Looking even further, Lopez has a .BAA of .282 with men on base; nearly three of every 10 batters he faces with men on will record a hit. That's not pretty. It exposes one reason why his ERA is relatively low: the runs that score when he's pitching are sometimes not technically his runners, meaning when they score they count towards someone else's ERA. Then he leaves with runners of his own on base and another reliever has to come clean up his mess.

That's not it, either. From '07-'08, Lopez held a WHIP of 1.33, not including his sky-high 2+ WHIP this year. If you take a further breakdown of that stat, he walked 27 batters while only striking out 38 in 2008. He walks two guys for every three strikeouts. Not too much of a specialist if you ask me.

Now all these numbers are fine and dandy, and I can write all day about how bad he is, but let's put it into context. Look no further than the Rays, J.P. Howell is their "lefty-specialist." How do his 2008 numbers stack up? Howell had a .BAA of .169 with RISP to Lopez's .282. Howell runs a WHIP of just over 1.10, .2 lower than Lopez, while he strikes out nearly three guys for each he walks (39/92 overall with 15 K's and 30 BB's against lefties to Lopez's 19(!)/26.)

Another telling stat is the difference between these two players in FIP. FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching, a personal favorite stat of mine that estimates the ERA of a pitcher if the defense was normalized to a league average. (Here's a great explanation of this stat.) Howell ended 2008 with a strong FIP of 3.39. Lopez? He ended '08 with a FIP of 4.19 and is currently running around with a 6.50 FIP. The difference between a true lefty-specialist and late-inning fireman is clear. Lopez? Not one of them.

Sure, he's only one guy, and he usually only pitches to one or two batters per game. He's at the back end of the bullpen and can be at times buried into oblivion, but the Sox need a strong bullpen to keep in contention out in the AL East. One guy can blow a game here or there for the team and one game is all it takes to miss the playoffs.

All these numbers can be found at either baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com.

--orangeandblack6

Well, not a lot of good has come out of Boston's first two series. The team as a whole is hitting .238, while its normal 2, 3 and 5 hitters (Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and J.D. Drew) are hitting a measly .167. Ortiz has no extra-base hits. And apart from Beckett's start on Opening Day, the rotation has left much to be desired. To be fair, the Red Sox also played about as difficult a first six games as anyone, considering they started off with two playoff teams from a year ago.

The only lasting observation that should be taken from the first week is that Ramon Ramirez is the real deal. In three appearances so far, the 27-year-old righty has faced 14 batters and retired 13 of them. He throws a low-to-mid-90s fastball, which he complements with a curveball and a splitter.

A reliable right-handed power arm was one of Boston's most glaring needs coming into this season. Management had been hoping that Craig Hansen would be the guy for years to come; they gave him plenty of chances, but his 6.07 ERA in 74 appearances over three years finally convinced the Sox he wasn't going to pan out (he was included in the deal that brought Jason Bay to Boston last July). Mike Timlin did the job for five years, but age caught up with him as he posted the worst single-season ERA of his career (5.66) and was relegated to mop-up duty by the end of the year.

Daniel Bard could end up being the long-term solution, but he's down in the minors getting some more seasoning. And while Manny Delcarmen is a useful contributor, he hasn't proved that he is cut out to be the bridge to Jonathan Papelbon: his ERA in games decided by three runs or fewer was an unremarkable 4.19 last season, and his postseason ERA was almost four times higher than that. On the whole, he took a step back from his impressive 2007 campaign--which, looking back, was significantly aided by an insanely low .218 BABIP. Even last year, he was about 40 to 50 points better than the league average in that statistic.

Ramirez was acquired from Kansas City this winter in exchange for Coco Crisp, who never really panned out in Boston. There was a lot to like about Ramirez coming in: he averaged more than eight strikeouts per nine innings for his career, his strikeout-to-walk ratio was greater than 2.25 in each of his three seasons and his ERA against 2008 playoff teams was a very respectable 3.38. Perhaps most impressively, he gave up just two home runs in 71.2 innings last season, even though his groundball-flyball ratio was less than one. But even that statistic seems to be on the rise.

Also important is Ramirez's ability to be effective in extended appearances, getting more than three outs on 19 occasions last season and twice thus far in 2009. This gives manager Terry Francona more flexibility, knowing he can go for matchups in the middle of the game and have Ramirez to pitch multiple innings if need be to get the ball to Papelbon. Ramirez does tend to be harder on righties than he does lefties (.584 vs. .739 OPS against him, respectively). But the latter figure still isn't any cause for concern. The other small issue is that he played his home games at Kauffman Stadium, which is slightly more favorable to pitchers. Interestingly enough, Ramirez's career home ERA is more than double his road ERA, but I suspect that first number is inflated because he pitched for Colorado and in hitter-friendly Coors Field roughly half the time.

Obviously there's a lot of baseball left to play, but the early signs for Ramirez are very promising. Hopefully this will allow Justin Masterson to return to the rotation (or at least to a long-relief role until a spot opens up for him), because the bullpen's struggles last year were a major reason why he was converted to a reliever in the first place. The Sox have already made one former starter into a closer (Papelbon); doing the same to Masterson is not a smart move for the future, because quality young starting pitchers are not as common as are their counterparts in the pen. Besides, a middle reliever's production tends to fluctuate more from year-to-year.

Boston has learned the hard way the ramifications of having an unreliable bullpen. Hopefully Ramirez will make sure that isn't a problem come this October.

--Danny Daly (ddaly06)