Huge Red Sox injury update

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Posted at 6:10 pm on June 28, 2010
Filed Under 2010 Season, Injury Watch | 3 Comments

Somehow the Red Sox have the 4th best record in all of baseball. This is without a healthy starting rotation and an Opening Day outfield that hasn’t even played 10 full games together. The injury situation only got worse over the weekend as three more players went down in the series against the Giants. It’s time to take a step back and look at Boston’s ouchies:

Player: Josh Beckett
Injury: Lower-back strain. Josh hurt his back swinging in preparation for interleague play and then made things worse a short while later when he slipped on a wet mound at Yankee Stadium. He was placed on the 15-day DL on May 19th.
Prognosis: He is slowly working his way back (he threw 75 pitches in a bullpen session on June 26th) but team sources don’t expect him to join the big league club until late July. The return will be after he has pitched 3 or 4 minor league rehab starts for Pawtucket. To be quite honest, Beckett was pitching pretty poorly before he hurt himself so hopefully he can make the most of those rehab starts and try to get back to form.
Replacement: Tim Wakefield had been delegated to the bullpen before Beckett got hurt but was slipped back into the starting rotation. Of his 7 starts since then, only 1 of them was under 6 innings.

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Player:: Jacoby Ellsbury
Injury:: Fractured ribs. Ellsbury originally fractured a rib colliding with Adrien Beltre in the early days of the season. Once he returned from the disabled list, he tried playing with the discomfort of his not fully healed injury but had to pack it in and go back on the 15-day DL.
Prognosis:: Ellsbury made his second trip to the 15-day DL on May 28th. He is eligible to come off it but it was announced on June 10th that his conditioned had worsened so there is no set timetable for his return.
Replacement:: Darnell McDonald and Daniel Nava are currently rotating positions in the outfield in hopes that Ellsbury can return and Mike Cameron can finally go back to full-time duty.

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Player: Jeremy Hermida
Injury: Fractured ribs. Tell me if this sounds familiar.. Jeremy Hermida was going for a flyball in LF and collided with Adrian Beltre. Hermida ended up with fractured ribs and was officially put on the 15-day DL on June 10th.
Prognosis: He’s started swinging a bat again and hasn’t admitted to any pain but if his fractured ribs are anything like the ones suffered by Jacoby then I wouldn’t hold my breath (pun!) for a quick return to the lineup.
Replacement: Ironically, Hermida was Jacoby Ellsbury’s replacement in LF. Now Darnell McDonald and Daniel Nava are covering for him as well.

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Player: Mike Lowell
Injury: Strained right hip. Lowell has been dealing with this hip problem for the better part of the last 3 years. There is nothing new to say about it other than the pain has finally gotten to the point where he had to be placed on the DL on June 23rd.
Prognosis: To be honest.. I’m not sure. He wasn’t playing much before he was placed on the disabled list and he probably won’t play much when he returns. The team is going to just see how he feels but this hip setback probably just killed any trade value that he previously had.
Replacement: Again, he rarely played as it was. Bill Hall and Kevin Youkilis are both listed as back-ups at 3rd when Adrian Beltre needs some time off.

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Player: Dustin Pedroia
Injury: Broken left foot. This is arguably the biggest injury on the team. Last weekend Pedroia fouled a ball off his foot hard enough to break something. He was placed on the DL on June 26th.
Prognosis: The team thinks that Pedroia will miss about six weeks of playing time. That means a return around early August as long as everything heals correctly.
Replacement: Bill Hall is suited to take Pedroia’s place in the infield (yikes) but the Sox aren’t happy enough with that so they have traded for utility infielder Eric Patterson as well as calling up Angel Sanchez from the minors.

—

Those are only the people on the disabled list at the moment. The problems don’t stop there:

Clay Buchholz suffered a minor hamstring tear while running the bases the other day; however, it doesn’t look like he’ll have to miss a start because of the Sox’ off-days. They could theoretically go 9 days without using him as a starter.

Victor Martinez broke his thumb yesterday and the club still isn’t sure if he will have to go on the DL or not. It will be a pretty big problem if he does. Jason Varitek will takeover as the every day catcher but both suitable replacements in Pawtucket (Mark Wagner and Dusty Brown) are on the disabled list as well.

Don’t leap off the ledge yet Sox fans, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Jed Lowrie (remember him?!) is finally a week or so away from beginning a rehab assignment. I don’t see any reason why he can’t take over at 2B while Pedroia is out. I refuse to give up on Lowrie so early in his career.

Jason Varitek Celebrity Putt Putt

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Posted at 4:07 pm on June 28, 2010
Filed Under Baseball Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment

It’s that time again! On July 1st (this Thursday), Jason Varitek and his pals are going to be holding the fifth annual ‘Jason Varitek Celebrity Putt Putt.’ If you haven’t heard of it in years past, Tek gets a player or other celebrity to host each of the 18 custom made holes while you and the rest of your foursome play through. So far the confirmed celebs are: Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, Jonathan Papelbon, Jason Varitek, Tim Wakefield, and Cole Wright (I guess he sort of counts.)

All it costs is $15 a person for this dream scenario to come true: You place your bright orange ball on the fake green grass mat and sneak a peak at Jonathan Papelbon to make sure he is watching. Inhale then exhale as you lightly tap the ball off the wall, past the mini sand trap, and into the hole. Papelbon smiles at you and you grimace at him and ask politiely if he would throw more strikes (but not the kind that get blasted out of the park by Jason Giambi.) You politely bow after your mini-golf prowess has been shown to the world and as you walk off you mutter ‘it wouldn’t hurt to throw more splitters either Paps..’

I mean, this probably WON’T happen but it could. You’ll never know unless you buy tickets and go. The event is Thursday and it takes place in the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell.

If you’re not doing it for fun then do it for the charities: ‘Celebrities for Charity’ and ‘Journey Forward.’

Link: Facebook Event Page
Link: Purchase Tickets

Pedroia saves the day

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Posted at 2:53 am on June 25, 2010
Filed Under 2010 Season | Leave a Comment

Yes, it could have been another monumental collapse by Jonathan Papelbon. Only one night after blowing a save in a game that would have given sure-shot Cy Young candidate Ubaldo Jimenez only his second loss of the year, Paps was on his way to becoming the losing pitcher yet again.

Dustin Pedroia had other ideas in the top of the 10th inning.

“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.” – Yoda

With one swing of the bat he gave the Red Sox the lead and Papelbon wasn’t about to let it slip away again as the Sox held on 13-11 in 10 innings.

A few weeks ago Pedroia was yelling at reporters about his knee not bothering him and that laser shows were about to begin. I think we’re finally seeing the results (as if his 5-5 night with 3 homeruns wasn’t proof enough) as he has put up monster numbers over the past 13 games: .500/.550/.865/1.415.

Yep. Laser show.

April showers bring May flowers

Written by of http://www.soxaddict.org
Posted at 11:37 am on May 27, 2010
Filed Under 2010 Season | 1 Comment

The sun’ll come out, tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar, that tomorrow, there’ll be sun!

If you are David Ortiz (or a Red Sox fan), you had to wonder if there really was any sunshine at the end of the tunnel. Ortiz had an absolutely terrible start to the season for the third straight year. The Boston media was constantly wondering if a trade or release was imminent and a few moron fans even booed him during a home game at Fenway. While most fans realized that the poor start for the Red Sox was a team effort, you couldn’t help but wonder in the back of your mind if Big Papi’s career was over. I’ll be honest, I had a dream that Theo released Ortiz while trading for Adam Dunn and when I woke up, I wasn’t THAT sad.

Thankfully none of that matters (for now) because Ortiz has started swinging a hot bat again. Balls that were warning track shots are now leaping out of the park. He has an RBI in 9 of his last 11 games and is now tied for the team lead in HR. It’ll be interesting to see what happens if he starts struggling again but for now, Adam Dunn who?

Ortiz’s April/May splits:

Split G AB 2B 3B HR RBI BA OBP SLG OPS
April/March 16 56 5 0 1 4 .143 .238 .286 .524
May 19 68 3 0 9 23 .368 .421 .809 1.230
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/27/2010.

Interesting Stats Time!

Written by of http://www.soxaddict.org
Posted at 11:04 am on May 25, 2010
Filed Under 2010 Season | Leave a Comment

The Sox have seemingly turned it around as of late so we’re going to take a look at some feel-good stats:

3 – The total amount of triples hit by the team. None of them came from Jacoby Ellsbury. All of them came from Kevin Youkilis.

.850 – Darnell McDonald’s OPS with runners in scoring position.

28.1 – The percentage of plate appearances against Daniel Bard that have resulted in Bard striking out the hitter.

1.118 – Jason Varitek’s OPS on the season. He is thriving in his role as Victor Martinez‘ back-up as he has jacked a HR once every 8 at-bats.

0 – The amount of times a Red Sox player has kicked dirt on an opposing player this season.

15 – Runs that Jeremy Hermida has driven in with 2 outs and RISP. He’s got a 1.029 OPS in 20 at-bats while hitting in that situation.

Tim Wakefield: Milestone Hunter

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Posted at 7:45 pm on May 18, 2010
Filed Under 2010 Season | 2 Comments

Last week old man river Tim Wakefield notched the 2,000th strikeout of his career. Think about that number for a second. It puts him behind only three active pitchers in strikeouts: Jamie Moyer, Javier Vazquez and Andy Pettitte.

His 1,892 strikeouts in a Red Sox uniform puts him at 2nd place on the franchise list for most K’s. That isn’t the only record he is creeping up on as he only needs 17 more wins to tie Cy Young and Roger Clemens for most in club history (192).

Sure, he also owns the record for most walks allowed (1,021), home-runs given up (363), wild pitches (105), earned runs (1,333) and losses (152) but there is something to be said for the reliability that Tim Wakefield provides a manager. He has selflessly done anything that has been asked of him whether it be starting, long-relief in the bullpen, or even being a closer. There have been an insane amount of surgeries and procedures done just to keep a baseball in his hand. For every happy moment there have been a handful of moments that would have convinced lesser men to retire (Aaron Bleeping Boone? Being left off the ’07 World Series roster?) Not Wakefield though, he took it in stride and even signed a one-of-a-kind contract with the Red Sox that would have lasted until the end of time as long as both parties agreed.

In case you can’t tell, I’m a pretty big fan of Tim Wakefield. I am pulling for him to take over the lead in wins by a Boston player. Unfortunately, it’s not looking good. He hasn’t gotten a win since July 8, 2009. Last night he was only a few outs away until Jonathan Papelbon did something he hasn’t done in 22 straight regular season chances: he blew a save.

Yes, it’s frustrating to watch as a fan. Yes, we all want to smack Papelbon upside the head or yell at the offense when they don’t provide any run support. But you know what? It probably doesn’t matter to him how many wins he ends up with when he retires. The reason we love Tim Wakefield is because he is a classy stand-up guy and he puts his team first.

As the season goes on and the bullpen blows more leads, just try to keep one thing in mind: What would Tim Wakefield do?

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