The fallout begins...

Somebody needed to take the fall.

In the wake of the Red Sox' historic collapse it was clear that there would be major repercussions. This morning Fox Sports is reporting that Tito Francona will be the first (but not likely last) victim of that backlash. It's unfortunate, but I think this had to happen.

Reflecting on the last month of the season for the Sox, I've come to the stark realization that this collapse wasn't just historic by sheer numbers of games lost and size of the lead given up... it's much much worse because of the payroll and talent level of this team. This isn't the '78 Sox who squandered a lead... this is a team built to win the World Series now, with no expense spared. A team with an enormous payroll and all-stars up and down the lineup. But this was also a team that lacked depth, cohesiveness, and fortitude. Other than a couple of gritty scrappers like Pedroia and Youkilis, this is a team that seems almost aloof in its approach. It lacked that fire of intensity and sense of urgency. This is a team that looked and played scared down the stretch. And while ultimately the fault lies with the players who did not perform, you can not minimize the impact of the leadership and management on a team of superstars. Those people need to be held accountable.

Let me start by stating that in my opinion, Terry Francona is a very good manager. He was the perfect manager to handle the gritty "dirt-dog" teams of the early and mid 2000s... he was well liked and well respected by players... he had a great sense of how to handle the brutal Boston media, and how to shelter his more quirky players from the harsh spotlight. He was always calm, cool and collected. He was a likable guy by any account. But, he was not always the most effective game-manager... especially when it came to making the hard choices with veterans. Tito has always had a habit of playing favorties with some of his veterans... of staying too loyal and giving too much rope. He played too much with his lineups... he overused effective relievers. His game management skills have often come into question.

These issues were more glaring, in my view, this year more than any other. From the get-go this team had talent, but also had some holes. a 2-9 start left the team pressing from the start of the season. The rocky start affected some players' confidence... and for some, like Carl Crawford, the handling of those early struggles caused irreparable harm. I think the handling of Crawford is one of the big reasons that Tito is not going to be managing this team any longer. It was clear early on that Francona lost faith in Crawford, and began juggling him all over the lineup. Crawford is a marquee player... and like any marquee player he has an ego. To his credit, Crawford has never let that ego out into the focused beam of the public microscope. But deep down, it has to hurt your confidence when a player who has been one of the best in the game, and the premier player on his team, suddenly finds himself badly struggling and being shuttled between 7th and 9th in the lineup. This should never have happened, and Francona needs to take the blame for that. Crawford is a top-of-the order player. He has been his whole career. You can't take a guy like that, still in his prime, after having so much success and do what the Sox did to him. I said this in a previous article, but the Sox should have slapped Crawford into the number 2 or 3 slot and left him there, struggles or not. This isn't the friggin Royals or A's lineup. This lineup had more than enough talent and depth to have been able to make up for his struggles while he worked his way out of them. Dropping him like they did, and then moving him up and down so capriciously based on one or two performances in either direction would wear on anyone, let alone a star player who's never had to deal with a lack of confidence in his entire career.

This is one of Francona's biggest weaknesses: managing the lineup. The Sox used more lineup combinations than any contending team in baseball and more than any team I can remember over the last 10 years. Baseball players more than any other professional athletes are creatures of habit. When you play every day over the course of 162 games, having a routine you can count on day in and day out offers a real mental stress release. Players want to know their roles... they want to understand their routines and know what to expect every day. With the Sox, players were left guessing day to day about the lineup. Other teams don't do this. The Yankees have employed essentially the same lineup day in and day out for years. And as a result, despite injuries and age, they remain a consistent hitting team not prone to prolonged offensive slumps. Players are given a chance to work their way out of slumps while having a modicum of confidence in their role and their spot in the lineup.

Hitters also alter their approach depending on their spot in the lineup. It's the nature of baseball... top of the order guys tend to take their approach to hit for average and high OBP. Middle of the order guys tend to try to hit for power, drive the ball and get runs in. Bottom of the order guys feel their role is just to contribute any way they can. When you begin moving guys around the lineup you may cause them to change their approach, which is never good for a regular player in the middle of the season. I've always wished Francona would settle on a lineup and go with it. The lineup this year should have looked like this:
Ellsbury (L)
Pedroia (R)
Crawford (L)
Youkilis (R)
Gonzalez (L)
Ortiz (L)
Scutaro (R)
Drew/Reddick (L)
Saltalamacchia / Varitek (sw)

You put this lineup out there every day. You stick with it, and you only change it in one or two spots if needed, and make those changes long-term. There's no reason this couldn't be done. Players will go through slumps. It's hard enough to work out of a hitting slump without having your confidence shellacked by being dropped down to the bottom of the order.

Handling the lineup is one thing, but another job of the Manager is handling the clubhouse... and by all accounts this Sox clubhouse had become fractured and somewhat dysfunctional. This is of course the risk you take when you endeavor to employ a roster of highly paid (overpaid?) athletes. I think there are some bad attitudes and pervasive negativity from certain elements of the pitching staff (ahem, John Lackey I'm lookin' at you). From the outside this team was becoming unlikable to both fans and media alike. Far, far gone are the wild and hairy days of Damon, Millar, Pedro and Manny. Terry Francona was the perfect manager for that bunch. Loyal, approachable and reasonable, he was the steady hand at the helm of a party boat. The captain that everyone loved and respected. This team is not that group. Not close to it. And Francona doesn't seem as well equipped to handle it. Now, say what you want about the players needing to be accountable for this behavior, but the reality is that with the contracts and expectations of this team, its makeup is going to remain largely intact, with perhaps the exception of the pitching staff. So if the current manager is not the right person to effectively handle the clubhouse... how can you justify not moving on?

Additionally, I think Tito's handling of the bullpen this year, and the pitching staff in general, was sub-par. This is partially his fault and partially the fault of Theo Epstein (but we'll get to him in m moment). Tito falls in love with certain relievers, and has a tendency to stick with them, overuse them, and not realize when it might be good to give them a 4 or 5 day break. He did this with Daniel Bard, who was dominant for the first 3/4 of the season, but was so overused he couldn't have gotten me out by the end of September. I won't be the least bit surprised to hear about his needing some sort of off-season procedure or therapy on that over-used right arm.  By the end, Francona was too hesitant to use fresher arms like Albers or Atchison in pressure situations, and made some odd matchup choices (often throwing Bard out against fastball hitters when a pitcher with softer stuff with movement would have been the better choice, in my opinion). Alfredo Aceves was an absolute steal, and a gem in the bullpen. But he's got starter stuff and has been a starter, and frankly should have been made a starter permanently when it was clear the Sox had lost Bucholz effectively for the season. Instead Tito kept throwing Wakefield and Lackey out there, start after start, spotting teams 5 and 6 runs right off the top. His loyalty to Wake was admirable, but disastrous considering the stakes for this team. It was clear by about mid-June that Wakefield simply didn't have it this year, and might not ever be viable as a starter again. It seems that Terry Francona was the only person not to notice this. Aceves should have been inserted as a starter back then. But then again, depth in the starting rotation was a problem almost from the beginning for this team, which is really the fault of the GM, speaking of which...

If the Red Sox are going to throw Terry Francona under the bus for the total failure of this team, the guy under one of the other wheels should be Theo Epstein. For whatever reason, Theo has been the target of perpetually miserable Sox fans for years. They point to his shaky deals, like JD Drew and Julio Lugo and Edgar Renterria... but somehow conveniently forget about Curt Schilling and Kevin Millar and Bill Mueller and the countless other key cogs and savvy moves he made to assemble two championship teams. I've defended him every step of the way, and I still think he's a clever, savvy and worthy GM. However, at some point he needs to step up and take responsibility for this team's collapse... and more than anything else for the pitching staff he's assembled, and the lack of pitching depth in the minors. The biggest failure to me was an evaluation he made at the beginning of this year. Coming in to the season the Sox were looking at a pitching staff of Lester, Beckett, Lackey, Bucholz and Matsuzaka, with Wakefield as a possible long reliever / spot starter. At first glance most pundits saw this as a pretty formidable staff. Lester was an ace in waiting, Beckett was a proven vet who seemed to be over his injury problems, Lackey actually had a better year, statistically, then most realize, Bucholz had one of the league's lowest ERA's and was a revelation, and Matsuzaka, while maddeningly inconsistent, was still capable of dominating at times and looked pretty good as a no. 5 starter. However a deeper look should have revealed concerns right away. Matsuzaka hadn't been a consistent, viable starter in over two years. Lackey looked to be out of sorts in Fenway, a place where he had little success in his career prior, and just never seemed comfortable on the mound with the Sox. Beckett had not been healthy and had not pitched well in a couple of years, and Bucholz had but one year of success. I saw potential problems with this staff from the beginning. I felt the Sox should have, and could have made a run at Cliff Lee. They did not and instead went after Carl Crawford for about the same money. This was a calculated move on Theo's part, but not well thought out in my opinion. Crawford was a top-of-the-order bat... the Sox already had 2 of those guys. He was an outfielder, and the Sox did need an outfielder, but I think there would have been some decent options there outside of Crawford.  And lastly, outfield is a position that can be filled by depth in the minors or with a fair number of players available via trade or free-agency. Quality starting pitching, however, especially in this past pre-season, was woefully thin.  It was Lee, and then a huge dropoff. Theo didn't ask the question "what if this rotation falls apart... what if Beckett is injured again, or Bucholz can't duplicate his season, or Lackey continues to struggle, or I'm forced to accept that Dice-K just sucks... what do I do then?" He didn't ask that question. I know this because if he did, and spent any time thinking about it, Cliff Lee would have been a member of the Red Sox. Because behind that starting rotation the Sox had next to nothing. In the minors they had Felix Dubront, a talented lefty with control problems who might never be major-league ready; Kyle Weiland, a possible up and comer still a few years away, and not much else. The minor league system has maybe one or two potential highly regarded pitching prospects. Theo should have seen that pitching depth was going to bite him at some point.

Compounding the problem was Theo's handling of the trade deadline. One of the things I will never understand is this: At the trade deadline the Sox had a possible deal for Rich Harden. They backed out after reviewing his medical issues. The scuttlebut was that they then went out and traded for their next option in Eric Bedard (also with medical questions... actually recovering from an injury and still weeks away from being a viable contributor at the time). My question is this: Given the state of the Sox starting pitching at the time, with two starters out for the season and two more who were absolutely atrocious, why was this an either / or scenario? Why not get both Bedard and roll the dice with Harden? That way you have two potential options, even if one winds up injured. Given the needs, the Sox should have been looking for two pitchers anyhow. Are you telling me they didn't have the pieces to make both those trades happen? Hogwash, of course they did. And they should have. Another miscalculation by Theo.

So all tolled, I think both Francona and Theo share a large part of the blame for the Sox' performance by the end of the season... but I think the Sox' future is still in good hands with Theo (who I believe will learn from this mistake and really go all-in for pitching depth in this upcoming off-season). And while Terry Francona has been the best manager the Sox could have had over the last decade, and his contributions to managing a challenging clubhouse full of diverse personalities should never be underestimated nor forgotten, I think this team needs a new voice... a new presence and direction.

It sucks that you have to go out this way, Tito... you deserve better. Much better. But someone has to take the fall... and I think it's probably for the best for everyone that you're moving on.

It should never have come to this...

Three minutes. That's what it came down to.

162 games over 5 months... cold, rainy spring games... long, hot summer extra innings affairs and unending weeks of consecutive games in September and in the end, it all came down to three minutes.

Those three minutes were all the more abrupt and dramatic for me because the heavy rain and storm activity knocked out my satellite for the better part of the late innings and I was left to watch updates online, only to have the signal return with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth in Baltimore. Now... those of you that know me know I'm hardly a religious person. I find Adrian Gonzales' laying the blame at the feet of "god" comical. But... then again... something absolutely, completely, and stunningly improbable happened last night. What happened last night over the course of the final games for the Red Sox and Rays, respectively, was so statistically unlikely that I can promise you it will never, ever happen again.

Forget the September collapse. Forget the awful pitching... the injuries... tough schedule... all that noise.  Last night was two games, four teams, and after 7 innings in both games everything seemed pretty well decided. The Sox were ahead 3-2 going in to the 7th inning against one of the worst teams in the American League, in a game they HAD to win, with their best pitchers at the ready. And even if they managed to blow it, the Rays were losing 7 - 0 in Tampa going in to the 8th inning. And then the skies opened up in Baltimore and everything there stopped. So I switched over to watch the Rays game, as the Scranton Yankees decided to walk half the Rays' lineup and then groove a pitch to Longoria, the only real threat in the lineup (with 2 outs and a base open... I'm just furious about this... Joe Girardi would never have pitched to him in this same scenario in mid-June... as if I needed another reason to hate the Yankees)... and just like that it was 7-6. And then the signal was lost.

For a few moments I debated just going to bed. It was late, and there was talk of the delay in Baltimore going on for some time. But I knew there was no way I'd have ever managed any sleep, so I occupied myself with some long-overdue writing and waited for the little dancing "DirecTV" logo to stop bouncing around my screen and for the game to return. By this time the Sox had resumed play and had gone through the bottom of the 7th, 8th, and top of the 9th. I flipped my browser to mlb.com and saw that the Rays had tied it with 2 out in the ninth. My heart was slowly sinking... but still, the Sox pitching staff seemed to realize the importance of this game and were reaching back for whatever they had left. Aceves dug deep to work around two hit batsmen in what seemed like his 200th inning of relief in the past two weeks. Bard actually returned from the dead to pitch a 1-2-3 8th, and then it was Papelbon, who has truly been a lights-out closer this year, and despite his blown save earlier in the month and the fact that he had pitched quite a few innings over the past few games, you felt like this was one of those moments where he could get whatever he needed.

I was getting anxious now as I was watching the game in Tampa slide into extra innings... waiting for the "bottom" of the inning signal on the TB-NY game in the marquee above the Sox-O's live-game view I was watching to mercifully flip to "top"... hoping it would do so before a number was added to the Rays' score. I watched in silence as the interminably slow pitch-by-pitch app showed the pitch results... A strikeout for the first out. A strikeout for the second. Papelbon seemed dialed in. And in the Rays game the Yanks had runners on the corners and no-one out. For the first time since the Rays had tied their game up, I felt hopeful. Confident even. And even while the Yanks were squandering their offensive opportunity, Papelbon had gotten to two strikes, and I was starting to feel a little cheated that I was going to miss the final out.

And then the signal returned. And three minutes later I was sitting in the dark. Alone. In silence.

Three minutes. That's all it took for Papelbon to give up the lead on three consecutive hits by the 8, 9, and 1 hitters on one of the worst teams in baseball. Fastball after fastball after fastball... 7 of the last 9 pitches. The final pitch a splitter that didn't split. And that was it... game over. The supposed best pitcher on one of the supposed best teams in baseball couldn't retire the 8 and 9 hitter on a bad team in a game they had to win. And that was it.

I barely had time to absorb the game when ESPN flipped over to the TB game. I was in the middle of deciding whether I wanted to even bother watching... I had a sense of the inevitable but felt, for some silly reason, that the odds of the Rays winning were higher if I were watching. As i was having this thought the game appeared in front of me... and Evan Longoria was up. And before the pitch even left the hand of Scott 'what the hell am I doing back in NY' Proctor, I knew what was coming. I was ready for it. And as the ball curled around the left field pole over the approximately 18 inch high fence in what has to be the most ridiculously designed foul-pole feature in baseball and the Sox season came to an end, I let out a sigh, and turned off the TV. I sat in the dark for a good 15 or 20 minutes, trying to absorb what I'd just witnessed... the incalculable improbability of all those things happening... the almost eerie confluence of rain delay, lost signal, and nearly simultaneous conclusion... all of it made me wonder if I were just dreaming it. I tried to force myself awake and then realized for certain that I already was. The shock gave way to exasperation as I recalled all of the games we gave away in the last month... all of the games we threw Wakefield out there, knowing he'd get shelled, in what seems now like a fool-hearty attempt at a so-so milestone. All of the games we left Lackey in too long. All of the runs we left on base... All of the things that in retrospect, it seems like we could have done that would have managed us just one more win... and before I left the couch and headed off to bed at around 12:30 in the morning I was left with one simple, lingering, burning thought...

It should never have come to this.

Yank's strategy: What to do... what to do...

The Red Sox enter the final six games of the season holding a two game lead in the wild-card. The math is in their favor, but they still need to win at least half of those games to feel any sort of comfort about getting to the post-season.

They will begin this last stretch in the Bronx to face the Yankees, who have been white-hot and earlier this week clinched the American League East title and are a lock for the top seed in the playoffs. It will be very interesting to see how they play this upcoming series. Conventional wisdom would tell you that the Yanks would love nothing more than to bury their hated rivals and keep them out of the playoffs. However, there are other factors at work, and I'm not so sure they will take that approach.

If last night, when the Yanks emptied their bench and went to the back of the bullpen depth, was any indication, they've decided to cruise into the playoffs as healthy and rested as possible. For a team that has a lot of key parts on the wrong side of 30, this is probably the right decision. So if you are Joe Girardi, what do yo do this weekend? Do you play your starters and keep the foot on the gas in an attempt at burying the Sox? That would make Yankee fans happy I'm sure, and the players will vote for that as well, to be certain. But knocking out the Sox means a couple of things: first, you've used some key players and pitchers in situations where you really have nothing to play for and would probably be better served resting them. And second, if you eliminate the Sox that means you have in all likelihood opened the door for the Rays. And frankly, the Rays are a far better team than the Sox at the moment, and pose a far greater threat. Despite handling the Rays with little trouble this past series, the Rays have better and deeper pitching, and their offense is hotter than the Sox right now. So would you rather (potentially) face a beaten and depleted Sox team that has a real confidence problem, especially in the bullpen, or a younger, healthier, hungrier, deeper Rays team? I'm not so sure burying the Sox NOW makes the most sense.

That said, it is also true that the Sox handily won the season series against the Yanks, and when healthy appear to match up well with them. If the Yanks don't go for the throat and knock the Sox out, they might find themselves facing a far different team in the ALCS should it come to that. By then, assuming they get that far, the Sox will have a healthier Beckett, and likely a healthier Bedard... Youkilis could be back (although with an apparent hernia that will require off-season surgery, it won't be quite at 100%... but still), Bucholz should be healthy enough to serve the critical 6th - 7th inning role and the bullpen may be a bit more rested and recovered. If they can get anywhere close to healthy again, and get some confidence back with an ALDS win, this Sox team is as dangerous as any in the AL, still. And I'm not sure the Yankees want to be facing that wave of momentum come that time, when they had a chance to bury them and didn't take it.

So taking all those things into consideration, what would you do if you were Joe Girardi? My guess is that Girardi takes the approach of publicly stating he will make the best deisions, regarding lineups, for his team with a focus on being ready for the playoffs... but in reality I think in at least the first game you will see the Yanks with their "A" squad on the field. What happens next will depend on two things: the outcome of the game itself, and the outcome of the Rays game against Toronto. If the Sox win tonight and the Rays lose, I think Girardi will decide that it's almost assured the Sox will take the wildcard, and that discretion is the better part of valor... he will sit the stars more or less for the rest of the series. I think the same will be the case if they beat the Sox and the Rays win... at that point it's likely the Sox will be caught by the Rays regardless, so again, the stars will be rested.

However, should the Sox and Rays both win, or both lose, keeping the gap at 2, he will make one more attempt at putting the Sox away. Either way, I don't think the stars play much, if any, of the final game of this series. That's my take on it anyhow. I will be interested to see if I'm right... and how Girardi plays it will lend some insight as to how he feels about the teams in the chase right now.

Now, that whole post made me quite ill just writing it, so I'm gonna go throw up.

Almost ready to panic...

Those of you who know me know that I am generally the last level-headed guy left after everyone else has jumped off the panic bridge... There's a tendency with the fan-base in Boston, despite the recent run of unprecedented success, to whip itself into a panicked frenzy during losing streaks of any length. Part of this I think is due to the ingrained frustration that was a part of the fabric of Boston sports for decades (especially with pre-2000 Patriots and Sox fans), and the other part is, I believe, due to a crew of long-time Boston media curmudgeons that have made a living heaping negative commentary on the local sports franchises even in the best of times (I'm looking at you, Shaughnessy).

Having said that, I'm beginning to feel like this current Red Sox team may not be able to hold on much longer with the pitching staff as it is currently constructed. While the Sox are fortunate to have two legitimate number 1 starters at the front of the rotation, what sits behind them is... well... to call it abhorrent would be kind, at this stage. Becket and Lester are top-notch, and the team should expect to win every time they take the mound, but Becket is hurt (still don't know for how long... I have a feeling it might be longer then the 10 days I keep hearing... my bet is closer to 20 days), and Lester is capable of throwing a stinker still, every once in a great while. Meanwhile the Sox have behind that John Lackey, Eric Bedard, Tim Wakefield, and the rotting corpse of Andrew Miller. I have not been as quick to jump on Lackey prior to this season because, well... by the end of last season his numbers were pretty much what they should have been expected to be: good, not great. That the Sox ponied up money as if he were great is not Lackey's fault. This season is entirely different. Lackey isn't earning MY salary at this point... He's been terrible; his body language sucks, he sneers at teammates when they don't bail him out, and gets smacked around like a pinata at a 6-year old's birthday party. There's no chance I would put the ball in his hands in ANY game that counted at this point... I would keep him off the post-season roster altogether, should we get there, just to avoid even the temptation of using him out of desperation. He's that bad at this point... (as I write this, he's just come out of the game in the third inning after giving up yet another laser shot up the middle... this one hit him. I'm betting he's in the clubhouse right now sneering in the mirror and blaming his reflection for the poor outing... his line: 3IP, 5H, 5R, 3W, 2K, and one long home run by John Jaso... yeah... the .221 hitting John Jaso. Blech.).

I love Tim Wakefield... I have for a long time... this guy has done everything this team has asked of him for well over a decade, and I want him to get his 200th win. But I also want to win the friggin division. And right now those two goals appear to be mutually exclusive. At this point Wakefield's best role would be in a long relief role. I'm sorry... but my loyalty to ANY individual player ends in the wins and losses column, as it should with Terry Francona. When we have a post-season birth sewn up you can march him out there every 3rd day if you want and let him try to get his 200th. Till then, I'm sorry the guy shouldn't start anymore games.

And, it's time for Theo Epstein to suck it up and accept that the other GMs who had given up on Andrew Miller and his lightning-blessed arm knew what they were doing, and he's not going to have the magic solution that they didn't have. Miller has a live arm, and at times looks dominating. But those stretches are few and far between. He can't throw strikes consistently. Period. I don't care if you throw 102 with a hook that drops from your ear you your ankle... if you can't throw strikes, you will be forced to "place" pitches to get them, and you will get hammered. There... I've just described Andrew Miller's entire professional career. And it's not going to change at this point, I'm convinced. It's time to pull the plug and give up on this one.

Erik Bedard is a bit of a different story... I actually think he's pitched pretty well for the MOST part since coming over from Seattle... but he's just not 100% healthy... he's still effectively rehabbing from his knee injury, and tweaked it again this week. I think the guy will be a contributor and a solid number three for a few years, but right now he's just not... there. You can't count on him.

And that's where we are at this point. We've got nothing... honestly... NOTHING after 1 and 2. You simply can't win that way, and if we don't find something of use from the minor-leaguers we brought up, like Weiland or Dubront, I think we might actually be in jeopardy of letting the Rays catch us up. With their win tonight they are now only 5 back in the loss column. Now a couple of wins in the next couple of nights can effectively shut the door on that possibility, but the Rays have the very good Hellickson going tomorrow against the thus far over-matched Kyle Weiland. I would consider it a minor upset for the Sox to win that one... which would mean they really MUST win on Sunday when Lester pitches against James Shields.

I'm really not one to rush to panic, but the Yankees series last week opened up my eyes to the very delicate state of the Sox pitching, and if they do lose these next two games... well... I might jump on the panic button with both feet.