9 replies to this topic

[mabrowndog]

Some notes on the vaunted Sox offense over the first 6 games of this road trip, 5 of which have been losses...

* They've failed to score in 45 of the 54 innings.

* A whopping 14 runs have crossed the plate.

* The bats are 32 for 189 -- a robust .169 average.

* With 21 walks, their team OBP in this stretch is .252

* The team has more whiffs at the plate (45) than hits & walks combined (43)

* The best of the lot: Casey (4/11, .364), Manny (6/17, .353), and Ortiz (5/19, .263)

* The essence of bad: Drew (4/18, .222), Lowell (4/22, .190), Cora (1/6, .167), Ellsbury (3/20, .150), Lugo (2/14, .143), Pedroia (3/23, .130)

* Zip, Zero, Nada: Youk, Tek, Coco & Cash are a combined 0-for-40.

[dbn]

Eyeballing the schedules, it seems that no comparable back-to-back series of offensive anaemia occurred either last year or in 2004. That said, I expect it is just a bump in the offense's road, even though it may be an uncommonly -- and annoyingly -- wide bump. They have faced some decent starters in this stretch (only Batista has an ERA over the AL avg of 4.24 for starters), but not incredibly so:

Harden 2.60
Duchscherer 2.16
Blanton 3.92
Hernandez 3.60
Batista 5.98
Bedard 4.08
avg = 3.72

[OttoC]

In four of their last six games, the Red Sox haven't gotten their first hit until at least the fourth inning.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

The Red Sox have lost 10 out of their last 12 road games.

They have been 1-hit and 2-hit on this current road trip.

They are playing .808 baseball at home (21-5) and .367 baseball on the road (11-19).

B-Ref is currently updating their database so splits are temporarily unavailable, but a brief look this morning showed the Sox hitting at a 112 OPS+ clip at home and a pathetic 88 OPS+ on the road.

They've already been swept on the road FOUR TIMES this year (Toronto, TB, a 2 gamer in Baltimore, and Oakland).

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark. They cannot continue to struggle so badly on the road and expect to remain serious postseason contenders. There's no way they will continue to play 800 ball at home, and I do expect their road record to improve, but that needs to happen much sooner rather than later. They are a very, very bad road team so far this year and that's prevented them from gaining any type of traction in the AL East.

Getting away from the offense a bit, part of the problem is that Tito or his avatar Brad Mills refuse to chase wins on the road in the regular season. Twice already this year they have decided to use Mike Timlin in a sudden-death situation on the road instead of Jonathan Papelbon. Both times Timlin gave up a run to lose the game, an entirely predictable consequence given that Timlin has been terrible this year. The idea of saving their best relief pitcher for a save situation on the road which may never happen is a truly terrible stragetic decision and it drives me insane. There's no excuse to have a guy out there who's 3-4 times more likely to allow a run than the bullpen ace. None.

[yecul]

Road:

Pedroia - .256/.299/.328
Ortiz - .212/.315/.381
Ellsbury - .202/.280/.236
Lugo - .231/.310/.256
Crisp - .235/.257/.382

Lots of guys are hitting like shit and they're stacked up. That's 8 or 9 to 3 in the order that are doing nothing. Tek and Lowell aren't exactly lighting it up either.

Nothing surprising I suppose, but they are definitely earning these losses.

[ScotianSox]

B-Ref is currently updating their database so splits are temporarily unavailable, but a brief look this morning showed the Sox hitting at a 112 OPS+ clip at home and a pathetic 88 OPS+ on the road.

I don't see how that makes sense as their overall ops+ is 114.

Fake edit: Ah, database is back up, right numbers are 126 at home and 109 on the road. Maybe you were looking at tOPS+ (which is a fine measure to show that their offense at home has been much better than their offense on the road).

[Snodgrass'Muff]

The Red Sox have lost 10 out of their last 12 road games.

The points about the differences between playing at home and playing on the road for this team are good ones, as is your guess that this will correct itself a bit in both directions. According to THT, the Sox have 31 PWins to their 32 actual wins. So looking at them through their run differential, they're right about where you'd expect them to be. (they haven't updated after last night, however) I expect that the .571 team we've seen thus far is roughly what they are this year. Is that enough to win the East? That's certainly up for debate, and of course, if the bullpen improves either via trade or internal upgrade, they may out perform their Pythagorean record by a bit the rest of the way as well. So they could always finish with a better than .571 record even if I am right.

I'm not quite in agreement with you regarding Tito, though. He's earned a bit of leeway with me over the last 4 years and while it's frustrating to see Timlin in during extremely high leverage situations on the road (He saw a 2.30 leverage index to start his last outing and that inning got as high as 5.01.) I think Tito has proven that he knows how to manage a playoff contender during the regular season. And yes, I know he was ejected from the game two nights ago but I think it'd be overly simplistic to assume he had no input in the decision to go with Timlin over Papelbon in that situation. Either through pre-game discussion/prep or with established guidelines for handling that situation that he may have given to Mills, I'd guess Tito was part of that choice one way or another. But the point is that while Tito's regular season managing style can be infuriating during an individual game, he's been at the helm for three playoff appearances in four years, one division title and two championships.

It's a cliche, but the season is a marathon, not a sprint. And that doesn't mean that I'm defending the use of Timlin in any way shape or form in these last two games. I'm not even saying that decisions like we saw on the 27th aren't mistakes. I'm simply pointing out that the man has a track record of success that is enough for me to shrug off the occassional blunder. And of course, the sting is a bit enhanced since the latest questionable decision came during a really rough 7 game patch. If we were 5-2 in this stretch I don't think it would feel like quite as big a deal.

[Rudy Pemberton]

For whatever reason, there seems to be a pretty big difference in home / road records this year. Look at the first place teams in each division:

Tampa Bay 21-9 Home, 11-12 Road
White Sox 13-9 Home, 16-14 Road
Angels 16-12 Home, 16-11 Road
Florida 18-12 Home, 12-10 Road
Cubs 22-8 Home, 10-13 Road
Arizona 19-10 Home, 11-13 Road

3 teams in the NL have a winning road record (Florida +2, Philly +2, St.Louis +1)
2 teams in the AL have a winning road record (Angels +5, White Sox +2)

Home teams are winning games at 58.1% clip this year. Last year, the number was 54.1%.

[Doug Beerabelli]

Maybe the NBA refs are also umping MLB games on the side.

[Paul M]

The Red Sox never hit in Oakland or Seattle (since Safeco) so I'm not surprised at all by what's happened the last week, and Toronto has been probably the toughest opponent the last 4 years. Not hitting in Tampa...well, that's unchartered territory but it's not your older brother's Rays anymore either. And they usually struggle in interleague on the road--not every year but often--so it might not be until July. With more close games on the road and with offense down in the AL, I'd expect home teams to win more games. Protecting leads on the road and fighting for that extra run will be keys for the Sox. Bottom line is I'll take a .500 road record and be thrilled this year. Of course, to get .500, they'd need to go 29-21 the rest of the way. Things have changed in baseball pretty quickly over the last two years and to think next week a battle for first place in June is at stake between the Sox and the Rays.