Welcome Back

We officially have our new manager, and this shouldn’t be a surprise either.  It’s John Farrell! Honestly, it was supposed to be John Farrell all along, but last year he had two years left on his contract and the Jays instituted that rule that their employees couldn’t make lateral moves to other clubs.  Now, he already managed the Jays for two years and had one year left on his contract so we’ll have to compensate the Jays; look for Mike Aviles and Adam Lind to be included in the deal.  There isn’t much to say by way of introduction because we already know him.  Over the last two years, Toronto’s record has been 154-170.  Obviously that’s not great.  But if the whole Bobby Valentine fiasco taught us something, it’s the value of the intangible factors that come into play when one is managing.  Farrell has been with us through plenty of good, bad, and ugly, and if we can’t have Terry Francona, then Farrell is probably the next-best thing.  Obviously he has a ridiculous amount of work to do, but I believe that he can take the first step down the long road of recovery that’s facing us right now.  It won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick either.  It’s not going to happen overnight.  But it’ll be that much better with the right man on board.  Welcome back!

Unfortunately, Dave Magadan was lured away by the Rangers; he’s now their hitting coach.

Speaking of the Yankees, the Tigers swept them right out of October.  That was pretty sweet.  It still hurts that we weren’t the ones doing the sweeping, but at least somebody did it.

In other news, the Pats experienced another nailbiter loss, this one to the Seahawks, 24-23.

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Cut Down

Honestly, it doesn’t get much more infuriating than that.  I’m just going to jump right in because it’s really tough to deal with it all.

Cook pitched decently.  He only lasted five innings, and he gave up three runs on seven hits while walking none and striking out two.  He went one-two-three in the first and second, and gave up a double in the third.  He gave up a solo shot to lead off the fourth followed by a single and then a two-run home run.  Following  two quick outs, he gave up a single, and then a fielding error put another runner on, but the inning ended there.  He allowed a single in the fifth and a double to lead off the sixth, at which point he was replaced by Hill, who was replaced by Aceves after three batters.

Meanwhile, we reduced our deficit from three runs to two; in the bottom of the fourth, Pedroia doubled with one out and scored on a single by Loney.

Aceves came out for the seventh and gave up a single followed by a two-run home run of his own, which made the score 5-1.  Two outs later, he gave up a double and was replaced by Carpenter, who ended the inning.  In the bottom of the seventh, we made another dent in the score.  Ross began the inning by striking out, but then Salty and Nava hit back-to-back doubles.  The Yanks sent out their third pitcher of the inning, and then Salty scored on a groundout by Gomez and Nava scored on a double by Aviles.  5-3.

Carpenter handled the eighth without incident baseball-wise but with incident drama-wise; when Bobby V. came out to the mound and Aceves saw Carpenter coming in, he walked to the other side of the mound to avoid Bobby V. when he left the field.  In terms of the bottom of the inning, we failed to score.  But it was not without further drama.

Ross ended the inning on a called strike; the at-bat featured seven pitches, all but one of them sliders, and the count had been full.  Ross and everyone else who had a pair of decently functioning eyes could see that that last supposed strike was actually a ball because it was low, and he let home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez know it immediately. So Marquez rejected him; it was only the second rejection in Ross’s career.  Several minutes later, Bobby V., who had separated Ross and Marquez, went back out there to have a talk with him that obviously got heated pretty quickly and was ejected for the sixth time this year, which sets the record for the most single-season ejections by any manager we’ve ever had in our long, illustrious history.  And at some point even third base coach Jerry Royster was ejected for some reason, so bench coach Tim Bogar was managing and coaching third at the same time at the end of it all.  The whole situation was just absurd and could have been neatly avoided had Marquez just done his job and saw reality.

Anyway, Miller and Padilla teamed up to shut out the Yanks in the top of the ninth, and the stage was set for another possible walkoff.  Salty’s leadoff at-bat was exactly the kind of at-bat you hope for most in those situations.  The count was full and he got an eighty-three mile-per-hour slide as his sixth pitch.  He’s a big guy, and he unleashed his formidable power on it and sent it out of the park to right field for a solo shot that only he could have powered out of the park.  We were now one run away with nobody out, and between Salty having made it look so easy and our last-minute heroics of the previous night, we were daring to believe that we could potentially pull it off again.

But we didn’t.  Nava flied out, Gomez grounded out, and Aviles reached on a fielding error.  Ellsbury could have put the whole thing away right then and there.  But he grounded out instead.

So we lost, 5-4.  But no one can say we didn’t put up a fight.  Because we did, both literally and figuratively.  We manufactured our own runs and pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps in the face of a deficit and dared to call a ball, a ball.  We just kept going at it all night long, but we came up just short in the end.  It’s just so infuriating.  I mean, I have to think that we’ve lost this way to plenty of other teams this year since clearly we’re in the business of losing every way to every other team this year, but to do it against the Yankees is particularly brutal.  We were almost there; we just needed one more run to tie it, and we could take care of them in extras.  And we couldn’t get it done.  It’s the story of our 2012 baseball lives.

On a more cheerful note, we have next year’s schedule, so assuming that we’re optimistic, it’s a reminder of something to look forward to.  The season starts for us on April 1 in the Bronx; we follow Opening Day with a day off and then conclude the three-game series.  We then head off to Toronto for three games, and then we head home for our home opener against Baltimore, which is followed by another day off.  We then finish our series with Baltimore and play the Rays before spending three games in Cleveland and going back home to face the Royals, A’s, and newly-AL Astros.  Then we have a day off and we go back to Toronto and then to Arlington, our first full series of May.  The Twins and Jays comprise another homestand, followed by a day off and another road trip against the Rays, Twins, and Other Sox.  Then back home we’ve got the Tribe and the Phillies, followed by a series at Philadelphia and then the Bronx, followed by a day off.  That takes us to June, our first full series of which is at home against the Rangers and then the Angels.  Then we head off to Toronto and Baltimore before another day off and coming home to face the Rays.  Then we head off to Detriot before another day off and another homestand featuring the Rockies, the Jays, a day off, and the Padres in July.  Then it’s off to the West Coast for the Angels, Mariners, and A’s before the All-Star break.  When play resumes, we host the Yanks and Rays before a trip to Baltimore and a day off.  The west then comes to us as we host the Mariners and D-Backs at home, which brings us to August.  We then travel to Houston and Kansas City before taking a day off and traveling to Toronto.  We host the Yanks at home after that, followed by a trip to San Francisco, a day off, a trip to Los Angeles for the Blue Sox, another day off, and then a homestand featuring the Orioles, Other Sox, and Tigers, which brings us to September.  We go to the Bronx after that, take a day off, go to Tampa Bay, and return home for the Yanks, a day off, the Orioles, the Jays, and another day off.  Then we go to Colorado for two games, take a day off, and go to Baltimore for the last series of the season.  So we’ve got at least three days off every month except one: May, our most packed month, when we only have one day off.  But it’s a good schedule.  It’s interesting that Interleague is sort of spread out this year instead of being clustered in June.  It’s often a tough schedule, and we have to play some worthy opponents, but if all goes according to plan, we’ll be able to hold our own next year.

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Coming Up Short

Cook did not last long, which was really a shame.  He ended up having a horrible start thanks to one bad inning.  How often have we seen one inning completely run a man on the mound? All too often.  He gave up six runs on nine hits while walking none and striking out none over four and two-thirds innings.

Cook essentially cruised through four without an incident.  Even his first run was pretty low-key and not necessarily a cause for alarm; he gave up a double and a single.  It was the fifth when he completely imploded and ruined everything for himself.  He went down on a dime, basically.  He gave up two straight singles and then an effective sacrifice.  Then he gave up an RBI single followed by an RBI groundout.  Then there was a wild pitch that advanced the runner.  And then Cook gave up two consecutive home runs, the first for two runs and the second for one, a solo shot.

So that’s five runs in a single inning.  Cook gave up all but one of his runs in a single inning.  It was like seeing two completely different pitchers, the Cook who’s capable of throwing gems and the Cook who looked like he didn’t make any progress this year whatsoever.  Unfortunately it looked like that implosion basically did us in.

Breslow made his first appearance and ended the fifth and pitched the sixth.  Melancon came out for the seventh; he issued a walk and got the first two outs before being replaced by Miller, who ended the inning.

The irony is that we capitalized on a bad inning of our own, but not enough.  We actually scored first; Ellsbury doubled and scored on a single by Ross.  And we scored three runs in the sixth.  Pedroia, Gonzalez, and Ross hit back-to-back-to-back singles, and Pedroia scored on a double play that Salty hit into.  And then Middlebrooks singled in Gonzalez.  The Tigers made a pitching change, Kalish walked, and Ciriaco singled in Middlebrooks.  So think about that.  Salty hit into a double play with the bases loaded, and then we kept the rally going.  That says a lot about our resilience.

And then, just when we thought all might be lost with a two-run deficit, Crawford stepped up to the plate in a big way to lead off the seventh.  And that’s a literal as well as a figurative statement.  He went yard out to right field to bring us within one.  It was a huge home run.  Huge.  It was powerful, and it traveled all the way out there.  And it seemed like momentum swung back in our direction in a hurry, until we ended the inning by going down in order after that.

Of course, we had to give it back.  Miller gave up a solo shot in the eighth and was relieved by Tazawa before the final out, and Tazawa pitched a clean ninth.  And then we went down in order and lost, 7-5.

So it was the one bad inning that did us in after all.  Gonzalez and Ross had two hits each, and Cook took the loss.

We battled, though.  We battled like we still had a chance because we did.  It just wasn’t enough.

Boston Globe Staff/Barry Chin

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Cut Short

Oh, wow.  I don’t even know what to say about this.  This is a tough situation.  It really is.

As we all know, Beckett has been painfully mediocre this year.  And when I see painfully, I mean painfully.  To the point where even labeling him as mediocre is being generous.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we can just do without him.  Technically when we headed into Spring Training, we were short on starters as it was.  And now he had to leave last night’s contest after pitching two and two-thirds innings with a back spasm.  That is bad news.  Back problems didn’t leave him alone in 2010, and they better not be back in 2012.  Not now.  Especially not now.

It was noticeable, too.  He mowed through the Tigers in the first and second, and I really wanted the opportunity to settle in and watch some vintage Beckett.  He secured the first two outs in the third, and then things turned bad on a dime.  He gave up a single, hit a batter, and loaded the bases with a walk.  And then he walked in Detroit’s first run.  That was when he called the trainers, and then he left.  It’s hard to say at this point how serious it is, I guess.  It all depends on whether the problem persists despite treatment and rest, which themselves take time.  Either way, like I said, we can’t very easily do without him at this point, especially not if he was just about to return to his usual self.

Mortensen relieved him and finished the third.  He gave up two walks in the fourth but got through it, and he pitched through the fifth and part of the sixth.

We had the bases loaded with two out in the first but didn’t do anything with it.  We barely threatened in the second and went down in order in the third.  We finally scored runs in the fourth, and we scored a handful.  We started the rally with two straight singles by Ross and Salty.  Then Middlebrooks struck out.  Shoppach walked to load the bases, and then we made up for for throwing away the same opportunity in the first.  Ciriaco singled in our first run.  Ellsbury walked in our second.  Crawford singled in our third.  And we scored our fourth thanks to a little help from a fielding error.

The game ended early, which was a good thing, too, because the Tigers left the bases loaded in the rain; Morales had come in to pitch.  The final score was 4-1.

Ben kept it quiet at the deadline; we traded Matt Albers and Scott Podsednik to the D-Backs for southpaw Craig Breslow.

 

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Easy Street

Wow.  We really went in for the slaughter on that one.  We wrapped the whole thing up in less than three hours.  Seriously.  The final time was two hours and fifty-six minutes. I guess we were in a  rush to win, like maybe if we scored all the runs we needed to score and worked fast, the pitching staff wouldn’t notice that they were actually preserving our lead.  Either way, we won.  If I’ve said that a lot, it’s because it has a nice ring to it.  And of course because I don’t get to say it nearly enough.

Buchholz was absolutely phenomenal.  Seriously.  He rocked.  Detroit stood no chance at any point.  He gave up three runs, two earned, on five hits.  He walked two and struck out four.  And he pitched eight innings.  He drew upon his entire arsenal and mixed it up with formidable effectiveness.  The heats, the offspeeds, everything.  He looked like a master creating his own game out there.  He threw 108 pitches and picked up the win.

He gave up a solo shot on his second pitch of the game.  Honestly, who thought right then and there that it was going to be a long night? Well, it was.  For the Tigers.  Who went down in order in the following frame.  Buchholz gave up his second run in the third; he relinquished a triple, a walk, a popout, and then a single.  The Tigers went down in order in the fourth, fifth, and sixth.  And then Buchholz began the seventh with what was supposed to be a strikeout but ended up being a runner on first thanks to an errant throw by Shoppach; the run scored on a double.  He had a one-two-three inning again in the eighth, and Padilla pitched the ninth without incident.

Meanwhile, the offense was very busy, very quickly, very often.  We had an answer for that solo shot in the bottom of the first and then some.  Ellsbury walked and scored on a triple by Crawford, who scored on a groundout by Pedroia.  We didn’t score again until the sixth, and I bet Detroit still thought they were in this one.  In fact, they were, until Pedroia again powered us through, both figuratively and literally in this case, since he clobbered a two-run shot out to the Monster.  It was a ninety-six mile-per-hour fastball, and it was the fourth pitch of the at-bat.  Crawford had walked, so there you go.  With one swing, we gave ourselves a nice cushion.  And what a swing it was, too.  The best thing about Pedroia’s home runs, like I always say, is the fact that he just puts his whole self into it.  It’s like he pushes the ball way out there, and away it goes every time.

Shoppach opened the seventh with a triple and scored on a single by Ellsbury one out later.  Gonzalez opened the eighth with a single and, not wanting to miss out on the long ball action, Middlebrooks clobbered one of his own.  Again it was a fastball, again the fourth pitch of the at-bat, this one clocked at ninety-two miles per hour.  It still ended up out toward the Monster, though.  That kid has some serious power.  So you have home runs where you can see the hitter just unleashing everything he’s got on the ball, and you have home runs that just look like they’re the easiest in the world to hit.  Middlebrooks swings like the latter when he hits home runs.  Either way, though, it’s awesome.

And that’s it! The final score was 7-3; we outscored and outhit them by four.  Both teams had four extra-base hits, which just goes to show you that you can’t expect to win a ballgame with power alone.  Gonzalez and Salty, who DHed today, both went two for four.

This win felt good.  They all feel good, but this one was especially good because it felt easy.  That’s what you want to see.  You want to see a ballclub that looks like it wins like it’s its job.  Which it is.  But still.  You want it to feel easy and natural and just possible all the time.  So I hope this is a sign of some momentum building in the right direction.

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