THE SOX AREN’T REPEATING 2020
No, they aren’t. Yes, as of the words being applied to the internets for this post, the Sox have gone .500 in their last 12 and so far are 3-4 in September. Panic sets in as we remember last season, that truncated mystical microcosm of baseball, and the fact that the Sox clinched and then released when they should have clenched.
Last year, the team went 3-9 to close out the season. 3-9!!! They were 13-12 for September after a 19-9 August. There were no major injuries to the pitching staff. The team was largely intact except Eloy getting a little dinged up at the end. What you saw was guys like Luis Robert seeing his average drop from .288 at the start of the month of September down to .233 at the end of the season, or his OPS go from over .900 to .738 in that span. Yoan Moncada went from a meh .248/.760 down to an atrocious .225/.705 in September 2020. Nomar Mazara and Edwin Encarnacion both somehow got worse after being bad all season. Yas, Eloy and Jose were steady. Nick Madrigal and Tim Anderson also cooled off, though their final numbers were still fantastic. There were close games and a couple blowouts. The pitching wasn’t bad down the stretch, except notably young guys like Dylan Cease who only figured it out this year. That 3-9 stretch to close the season was just sloppy to watch and statistically just looked like a team that was going through the motions.
That stretch also included a 6-game losing streak. The 2021 Sox haven’t done that this year, though there was a 5-game stinker in June. Really, the Sox hitters aren’t dramatically tailing off either, in that they weren’t really all that hot across the board to begin with. TA remains out, Eloy and Robert are only a few weeks into their season really, same with Yas, and Cesar Hernandez and Jose Abreu aren’t having their best years to start with. Rookies like Andrew Vaughn, Seby Zavala, and Gavin Sheets are going to be up and down by the week if not the game. The rest of the guys are matchup/platoon guys, in that they play when the matchup dictates or injury requires it. The big reason the Sox are struggling? Pitchers are fading after not having a full year last year.
NOT JUST THE SOX, THOUGH
I’m ignoring Dallas Keuchel. Not that he knows or cares.
Lucas Giolito tweaked a hammy and missed some time, as the Yankee’s Gerritt Cole is doing now. Carlos Rodon is sore and tired, which is probably what Lance Lynn is too (though as a guy who carries weight up top too, I can relate to knee inflammation). Have you seen how the Giants’ Kevin Gausman has faded of late? Or noticed that the Red Sox pitching has suddenly become a problem except for the very fresh Chris Sale? Walker Buehler was lit up like a Christmas tree last weekend. Julio Urias, the only other Dodgers starter that has been there all year, . The Padres fearsome pitching is fading. Really, the freak out there is Shohei Ohtani, who…oh…got rocked by the Orioles to end August.
There are guys that haven’t fallen off, but the fact that the Sox gave Rodon, Lynn and Giolito a week off isn’t the same as taking the foot off the gas pedal. Michael Kopech looking human at the end of the year after not pitching for two years is a problem but kind of expected. Go back and listen to Sox in the Basement’s July 24 episode with Donn Pall, and he talks about the legs going in the second half for pitchers. In an age where getting extension on the pitches is important, having some gooey legs at the end of the year is to be expected. Having less adrenaline to overcome the tiredness in games that won’t decide your fate is human. Still ripping lousy pitchers and getting bested by guys that are getting hot after time off or bad starts to the year (i.e. Brady Singer, Frankie Montas and Sean Manaea).
WHITHER DALLAS AND THE BULLPEN
The two things that are real issues right now it is the very pricey yet worthless Dallas Keuchel and the Sox record in 1-run games.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room that no one has even seen let alone talked about. The Sox are 13-20 in 1-run games. The Sox are really very average when it comes to allowing inherited runners to score, a 35% scoring rate is league average and the Sox’ average. They’ve blown 22 saves this year. In 2005, they allowed 25% of inherited runners to score and only blew 19 saves all year, going an absurd 35-19 in one run games. The Tampa Bay Rays, by compo, allow 29% of inherited runners to score and have blown 18 saves. The Rays are 18-20 in 1-run games. Meanwhile the Giants are 26-15 in one run games even though they are a tic below average at 36% of inherited runners scoring and blowing 25 saves. So why can’t the Sox get over that hump? The bullpen gets blame when Craig Kimbrel falters or Liam Hendriks gives up a homer, or the extremely frustrating tendancy for teams to score off multiple swinging bunts against Aaron Bummer. The bullpen isn’t really the issue, unless they implode spectacularly.
The answer is at the plate, where the Sox “clutch factor”, a measure of batters’ in-game win probability, is a -2.1. The Giants as a team are +0.6. The Giants also have 208 home runs to the Sox’ 165. That helps.
Can the Sox turn it around? Yes. Grandal being back will help, as will TA returning and the continual presence of Robert and Jimenez. The Sox will need those guys to turn it on to win the close games. Because the playoff games will be close assuming Dallas Keuchel isn’t on the mound.
What’s with this guy? Well, he’s walking more guys than ever before, his current 50 is only 8 off his career high. That 58 was in 2018 over 204.2 innings. He’s at 145.1 innings and might not crack 160 innings, but could easily walk 8 guys in two starts. His BB/K ratio of 1.74 is the worst since his rookie year, and his hits/9 innings is in double digits for the first time since 2013. Hard hit rates, extra base hits are both career highs for against him. Swinging strikes are down against him. Those are symptoms though, so what’s the disease?
He”s just more hittable than ever. His stuff isn’t playing the way it once did, because he’s throwing strikes at a consistent rate from his career numbers and the contact rates against him are similar to his career numbers. But when the ball is hit, it’s going further faster harder. And so he’s nibbling, seeing more 3-0 counts than ever before, 29 to date when 30 was his career high in 2014. All these point to a guy that no longer has good enough stuff to get guys out.
His velocity is down from even 2018/2019. But the movement isn’t all that off. What had regressed to his early days before his prime is his release point. His horizontal release point was under 1ft. during his prime and is around 1.3 ft. now. That’s where he was pre Cy Young.
And that can impact his stuff, but other than reduced velocity his stuff moves like it used to. But the hitters are seeing it better because his release point isn’t as compact as it was when he was really good.
This makes it a mechanical issue. Release point is all mechanics. Ethan Katz, fix this. Now.
"Mismatched Sox - The Extra Sox in the Basement" 