Grand Theft Baseball

interesting article at espn.com about how the sox are in line to give up an historic number of stolen bases this year. buried in the article was a fact that i didn't know; victor martinez had elbow surgery in 2008.

thus far, the season's been tough but i still think they can't possibly be this bad. the new question is, can they make up all that ground and beat the rays and yankees within the division. i'm not sure. i think cameron's looking old, scutaro's looking out of his element, beltre hasn't been hitting or defending as advertised, and ortiz simply looks lost. but i think the pitching will succeed.

The Offense So Far

One week into the season, there does not yet seem to be much reason to worry about the Sox offense as a whole. The Sox lead the AL in average (.282), slugging (.494) and OPS (.831). They are second in home runs (8) and third in runs/game (5.00). This, despite having faced five pitchers (including the reigning Cy Young winner) with an average ERA of 3.80. While it's still early, there is definitely room for cautious optimism.

That said, Sox pitching is giving up 4.6 runs/game so far, with a WHIP of 1.400 (both 11th in the AL).

Joe West, Ron Gardenhire Both Morons

There's been plenty of coverage in the sports media in the past couple of days about ostensibly impartial umpire Joe West's comments ripping the Sox and Yankees for playing too slowly. His remarks were pretty startling, but perhaps more surprising were the comments of Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire, who, when asked about the issue, said:

“We move our games along pretty good, and it’s pretty hard to tell some of those guys, ‘Let’s go, get in the box.’ They just look at you like, ‘Why? I haven’t heard the second verse to my song yet.’ That’s just the way it is.’’

Yes, I'm sure the Sox-Yankees games take 4 hours because all of our mega-buck players are infatuated with their walk-up music. OR, it could be because between them, the Sox and Yankees had 10 of the top 30 players in the American League in Pitches/Plate Appearance in 2009:

Rank / PA / P/PA
1 Kevin Youkilis / BOS / 588 / 4.41

2 Nick Swisher / NYY / 607 / 4.26

7 David Ortiz / BOS / 627 / 4.19

9 J.D.Drew / BOS / 539 / 4.12

14 Johnny Damon / NYY / 626 / 4.06

17 Victor Martinez / BOS / 672 / 4.05

25 Jason Bay / BOS / 638 / 3.99

27 Alex Rodriguez / NYY / 535 / 3.97

30 Dustin Pedroia / BOS / 714 / 3.95

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Sox led the AL in P/PA in 2009. The Twins were league-average in this regard.

p.s. It's notable that Papi was able to maintain such a high P/PA, both in absolute and relative terms, despite his decline. It's also impressive that Youk almost exactly equaled his previous full-season high in P/PA (2006), while increasing his slugging percentage by 120 points from 2006 to 2009.

my predictions

al east:

yankees - 1st place
red sox - WC
rays

al central:

twins

al west:

angels

alds:

yankees over twins
red sox over angels

alcs:

yankees over red sox

ws:

yankees over phillies

basically, a rerun of last year.