First Half Review
I meant to write this yesterday, after the 81st game, the official halfway point of the season. Anyway, I didn’t get a chance yesterday, so now I’m writing it after the 82nd game. What a difference 1 game makes.
After 82 games we’re 47-35, 12 games over 500, first place in the AL East, 3 ½ ahead of the slumping Orioles and 4 ahead of the surging Yankees. Although I still like our position, it could be so much more. There are a few different reasons contributing to why it’s not.
First, this year we are being ruffled by a bird of a different feather. Last year it was the Orioles who had our number, this year, we’re only 3-8 against the 42-41 Blue Jays. The main factors being the bullpen, Roy Halladay, and Ted Lilly. The bullpen blew a few leads, and the Jays won all 6 of the games started by those 2 pitchers. The crazy thing is that Lilly hasn’t been very good this year except against us, which always seems to be the case. Halladay right now is probably the best pitcher in the league but before his domination of us last Sunday we managed to score 8 runs against him in 14 innings in his 2 previous starts. I guess it’s just one of those things.
Next is the pitching. Although we went through a couple of different stretches where the starting pitching wasn’t that good, and we had a rough stretch where 3 of our 6 starters were on the DL (Schilling, Wells, and Miller), overall the starting pitching has been good and should only get better.
Schilling should be back right after the break. There’s really no way of knowing what we’ll get from him, but I’m being optimistic about it (as I am with all things Sox related). I have to think he’s going to come back strong and be one of the top pitchers in the league for the rest of the season.
With the exception of his last start and 1 or 2 other not so good ones that I can remember, Clement has been very good and I see no reason to believe his second half will be any different.
Wells has been inconsistent and it looks like that foot may be a lingering issue, but he has shown flashes of his old self and I think he should continue to contribute more good than bad and be an effective starter for us.
Wakefield is Wakefield. When he’s on, he’s as tough to hit as anybody, and when he’s not he becomes very hittable. He’s been on a lot more this season than not and it should continue.
Miller seems to finally be on his way back from his shoulder injury. Most of his problems have been in the first inning (Monday night being a perfect example) where he gives up some runs and throws a lot of pitches which ends up getting him out of there by the 6th inning. He looked very good after the first inning Monday, particularly the last 3, and this was against one of the top offenses in the league. This is very encouraging for the 2nd half.
Arroyo should be good as a starter but I think once Schilling comes back he will be much more valuable to us in the pen. Which brings me to the pen.
The pen is where we have most of our problems, particularly Keith Foulke. It looks like he is now finally conceding (after some prompting from Francona) that his knees are the main cause of his problems. Now what do we do?
There are a few things to consider depending on the severity of his knee problems. He could go on the DL and get some rest, which might help enough to get him going for the second half. He may have to have surgery and who knows how long we lose him if that happens. Even if one of those two things happens there’s no guarantee he will get back to where he was last year, there never is with closers not named Rivera.
In any case, we need to make a move. Theo knows it and will get it done. Personally, I think we need to get a closer and give up whatever we have to, to get one. I’m not content with winning just one World Series and I’m tired of listening to people say that it’s okay if we don’t win it this year since we won it last year. These are probably the same people who were saying they didn’t care if we won the World Series last year because we beat the Yankees and it really didn’t matter what happened after that. It’s all crap.
I’m not saying we mortgage our entire future to try to win it again this year, but we’ve got plenty of chips in our minor league system. We should use a couple, even if it’s our best one or two, to get ourselves the closer we need and put us in a position to win it all again.
Everyday Eddie would look good in a Sox uniform right now. And if Foulke comes back and is effective enough to get his job back, that’s okay. Guardado has been a set up man before, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind doing it again while helping his team try to win the whole thing.
We need someone. I like Timlin a lot, but he’s very good in the role he’s been in since we got him. If we move him to the closer role, we have no one to fill his role. Arroyo would be fine, but we still need help. I would much rather see Timlin and Arroyo in the set up roles with Guardado coming in at the end. And if Foulke comes back it just makes it that much stronger.
We need to make a move soon. The Yankees are surging and we can’t afford to sit around and give them a chance to catch up. Of course they have some serious starting pitching problems to go along with their own bullpen woes, but you know they’re going to make the moves they need to make to get it fixed.
As for our offense, there’s really not much to say. It’s one of the top offenses in the league. Everyone seems to be hitting now, Bellhorn not as much, but he’s still fine at the bottom of that order. There’s nothing to address, we put a lot of men on base, wear out a lot of pitchers doing it, and get enough of those base-runners around to win a lot of games as long as our pitching holds up, and in many cases even if it doesn’t. Manny and Papi are one of the deadliest 1-2 punches in the league. Damon is tops at the top, and everyone in between is a tough out and capable of coming up with a clutch hit.
Our defense is good enough to not hurt us and that’s all it has to be. We don’t need a great defense to win a lot of games, just a good defense that won’t cost us too many games.
So, overall it’s been good to this point, but could have been better. We should have a better second half, Theo will make the moves we need to make and we will continue to get good hitting and good starting pitching.
I will stick with my assessment of a week or so ago and say that I still do not see a team that will be better than us in a 5 or 7 game series and there is no reason why we can’t win it all again this year.
After 82 games we’re 47-35, 12 games over 500, first place in the AL East, 3 ½ ahead of the slumping Orioles and 4 ahead of the surging Yankees. Although I still like our position, it could be so much more. There are a few different reasons contributing to why it’s not.
First, this year we are being ruffled by a bird of a different feather. Last year it was the Orioles who had our number, this year, we’re only 3-8 against the 42-41 Blue Jays. The main factors being the bullpen, Roy Halladay, and Ted Lilly. The bullpen blew a few leads, and the Jays won all 6 of the games started by those 2 pitchers. The crazy thing is that Lilly hasn’t been very good this year except against us, which always seems to be the case. Halladay right now is probably the best pitcher in the league but before his domination of us last Sunday we managed to score 8 runs against him in 14 innings in his 2 previous starts. I guess it’s just one of those things.
Next is the pitching. Although we went through a couple of different stretches where the starting pitching wasn’t that good, and we had a rough stretch where 3 of our 6 starters were on the DL (Schilling, Wells, and Miller), overall the starting pitching has been good and should only get better.
Schilling should be back right after the break. There’s really no way of knowing what we’ll get from him, but I’m being optimistic about it (as I am with all things Sox related). I have to think he’s going to come back strong and be one of the top pitchers in the league for the rest of the season.
With the exception of his last start and 1 or 2 other not so good ones that I can remember, Clement has been very good and I see no reason to believe his second half will be any different.
Wells has been inconsistent and it looks like that foot may be a lingering issue, but he has shown flashes of his old self and I think he should continue to contribute more good than bad and be an effective starter for us.
Wakefield is Wakefield. When he’s on, he’s as tough to hit as anybody, and when he’s not he becomes very hittable. He’s been on a lot more this season than not and it should continue.
Miller seems to finally be on his way back from his shoulder injury. Most of his problems have been in the first inning (Monday night being a perfect example) where he gives up some runs and throws a lot of pitches which ends up getting him out of there by the 6th inning. He looked very good after the first inning Monday, particularly the last 3, and this was against one of the top offenses in the league. This is very encouraging for the 2nd half.
Arroyo should be good as a starter but I think once Schilling comes back he will be much more valuable to us in the pen. Which brings me to the pen.
The pen is where we have most of our problems, particularly Keith Foulke. It looks like he is now finally conceding (after some prompting from Francona) that his knees are the main cause of his problems. Now what do we do?
There are a few things to consider depending on the severity of his knee problems. He could go on the DL and get some rest, which might help enough to get him going for the second half. He may have to have surgery and who knows how long we lose him if that happens. Even if one of those two things happens there’s no guarantee he will get back to where he was last year, there never is with closers not named Rivera.
In any case, we need to make a move. Theo knows it and will get it done. Personally, I think we need to get a closer and give up whatever we have to, to get one. I’m not content with winning just one World Series and I’m tired of listening to people say that it’s okay if we don’t win it this year since we won it last year. These are probably the same people who were saying they didn’t care if we won the World Series last year because we beat the Yankees and it really didn’t matter what happened after that. It’s all crap.
I’m not saying we mortgage our entire future to try to win it again this year, but we’ve got plenty of chips in our minor league system. We should use a couple, even if it’s our best one or two, to get ourselves the closer we need and put us in a position to win it all again.
Everyday Eddie would look good in a Sox uniform right now. And if Foulke comes back and is effective enough to get his job back, that’s okay. Guardado has been a set up man before, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind doing it again while helping his team try to win the whole thing.
We need someone. I like Timlin a lot, but he’s very good in the role he’s been in since we got him. If we move him to the closer role, we have no one to fill his role. Arroyo would be fine, but we still need help. I would much rather see Timlin and Arroyo in the set up roles with Guardado coming in at the end. And if Foulke comes back it just makes it that much stronger.
We need to make a move soon. The Yankees are surging and we can’t afford to sit around and give them a chance to catch up. Of course they have some serious starting pitching problems to go along with their own bullpen woes, but you know they’re going to make the moves they need to make to get it fixed.
As for our offense, there’s really not much to say. It’s one of the top offenses in the league. Everyone seems to be hitting now, Bellhorn not as much, but he’s still fine at the bottom of that order. There’s nothing to address, we put a lot of men on base, wear out a lot of pitchers doing it, and get enough of those base-runners around to win a lot of games as long as our pitching holds up, and in many cases even if it doesn’t. Manny and Papi are one of the deadliest 1-2 punches in the league. Damon is tops at the top, and everyone in between is a tough out and capable of coming up with a clutch hit.
Our defense is good enough to not hurt us and that’s all it has to be. We don’t need a great defense to win a lot of games, just a good defense that won’t cost us too many games.
So, overall it’s been good to this point, but could have been better. We should have a better second half, Theo will make the moves we need to make and we will continue to get good hitting and good starting pitching.
I will stick with my assessment of a week or so ago and say that I still do not see a team that will be better than us in a 5 or 7 game series and there is no reason why we can’t win it all again this year.
posted by Bob at 7/06/2005 10:56:00 AM
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