Red Sox Diaries

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)