So what?

It is my intent in this blog to do several things - some the same as every other blog, some differen. . .

• keep this blog cynicism free
  
• create a community of fans who want to talk about baseball; not argue and fight about the Yankees
• contribute longer pieces on occasion, more formal in style
• blog every day, sharing my thoughts, soliciting yours, connect to the blogosphere, and create a community where baseball fans can celebrate the game honestly

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Let's try again. . .

If you've come across this blog, you've done so accidentally after an I'm-so-bored-at-work-and-can't-wait-for-the-season-to-start Google search at work. This blog was born during the 2003 season, when both blogging and Sox Nation was coming into it's own. I blogged through much of 2004, and sporadically in the years to follow. Since then, I allowed work pressures to seep through the seems of my life and the blog fell off the back of the desk. I'll bet I frustrated many a potential blogger, sitting on the name "soxnation" and not doing anything with it.

I come back to this blog now because of something I heard Doris Kearns Goodwin say during a TEDTalk podcast (if you haven't watched these, check them out.) Goodwin, herself a huge Sox fan, did not say anything at all about baseball that got me back on this horse. Rather, she was speaking about her career and alluded to a course that she took at Harvard when she was a graduate student with a famous scholar named Eric Ericson. She said that Ericson said that happiness will result from paying careful attention to three co-equal parts of life - work, love, and play. I had allowed work to have one to many helpings at the dinner table, and there was little room left for play. I thought back to this blog, and how much fun I had doing it when I wrote for it every day. I loved constructing my posts; I enjoy the planning, design, and research as much as the writing. I missed it. Missing it, in and of itself, should've been enough to get me to come back to it. Thinking of it in light of Goodwin's comment showed me that I was living an unbalanced life. I realized that my work had become more all consuming and, ironically, less fulfilling. I was not playing enough. This blog will be daily dose of play.

Blogs require daily attention - maybe even hourly attention. Without it, you might as well not even write one (Andrew Sullivan has a wonderful article about why he blogs in the Atlantic a month or two back.) In this way, keeping a blog is not only a great source of play, but also a kind of disciplined, almost meditative experience (in fact, I already am starting to feel good, three paragraphs into my rescuscitated blogging career.) Blogs are for the audience, the community, to be sure, but blogs are also (if not mostly) for the bloggers. I need this blog.

Blogs should not be polished, magazine pieces. We have magazines for that. As you can see from this post, the writing should not be picked over too closely; what's important is the conversation. I don't know how long it will take to get a conversation with Sox Nation going again, or if it is even possible given the blogging noise that's out there. Doesn't necessarily matter, I guess - thinking about what I just wrote, whether I have 1 reader or a million, it's still just as good for me.

I've not written for almost a year and a half, and I come to Sox Nation, hat in hand, to ask to be welcomed back. In my real life, I'm a prep school teacher; professional obligations have been a bit overwhelming in the last dozen or so months, and as such, this blog went into a steady decline until if evaporated. It is time to bring the blog back.

I very much miss being a part of the virtual coffee shop of the blogosphere, discussing all things baseball (plus a bit more.) Moreover, though this blog consumed a great deal of time for me when it was most active in 2003 and 2004, it made everything in my life work better (a subject for a future post . . . ;-)

This morning finds the Olde Towne Teame onlye foure gamese aheade of ye old Bronx Bombers; the Yankees have put on an absolutely smashing display of baseball over the past 2 months. Having said that, there is much to be happy about this summer's edition of the Sox. Still sporting the best record in the game and a four game lead in mid-August, the team has been exciting to watch all summer. The weather in New England has been the best its been in five or six summers, and we still have a bit of World Series buzz left from 2004. I still think the Sox will win the division by a half dozen games or so, so could everybody please just come in from off the ledge now?

Let's keep in mind that the essence of fandom is not raising stress levels for the next two months; the real privilege of being a fan is found through the enjoyment of a shared community experience. The Sox pull this region together each summer and contribute a great deal to a shared New England identity. Let's get over ourselves and stop making a fetish of cyncial pessimism. We're pretty lucky to have them . . .

WBC Pt II

WBC Pt. II

Some stream-of-consciousness thoughts about the WBC . . .

. . . It’s great that the United States go knocked out last night. Don’t get me wrong, this is not some kind of anti-american smugness showing through. But think of this – if the US had rolled through the tournament and won the thing, or lost to the other MLB team from the Dominican, I suspect most American fans would’ve thought that the WBC is interesting, neat to see the non-American teams and fans get riled up, etc. Because the American team lost, the second guessing will now commence. The second guessing will ‘set the hook’ in the mouths of American fans. Listening to the MLB station on XM this morning, fans were livid about the loss, ripping Buck Martinez, Vernon Wells, Bob Watson, and Abner Doubleday. I don’t think that this will be a front burner subject for three years, but in late summer and fall of 2008, the grist mill will start to crank up with debate about the American roster for 2009. In fact, America losing might actually help the tournament in America (no doubt it certainly helped in Korea and Mexico!)

. . . It’s hard not to root for Mexico, Korea, Japan, Canada, etc. These countries can’t take on the U.S. in anything, really – not economics, military might, political influence, cultural exports, whatever. Sports is the only chance they have to take a shot at the mighty U.S. Mexico’s victory last night is probably playing out not unlike the 1980 Olympic hockey team’s victory over the U.S.S.R. (though without the malicious backdrop.) Good for them.

. . . The complaints about the U.S. team are plain silly. The conventional wisdom of the body of criticism is that:

1. anything can happen in a one game playoff, or a short round robin


2. the American team doesn’t do the “little things” that make the difference


3. the roster needs more David Ecksteins

If anything can happen in a one game playoff, how is getting David Eckstein et al on the roster going to make a difference? After all, anything can happen? Moreover, who would you knock off the American roster? Is Eckstein going to be a better choice than Jeter? How about scrappy Freddy Sanchez in place of Alex Rodriguez? The American’s just lost – this defeat is not a vindication of all the fans who pine for the dead ball era (but that’s another column for another day.)

. . . Bob Davison is a brutally bad umpire. He’s either fantastically incompetent, overwhelmingly arrogant, or a cheating homer – probably a combination of all three. His miss on the home run call off of the bat of Valenzuela was probably the worst missed call in baseball history – or at least baseball history encompassing games with big leaguers playing. The ball was about 15 feet above the wall when it hit the foul pole. Moreover, it was totally gutless and incompetent of the other umpires to have kept their mouths shut. This Davison botch job, coupled with his gross overturn of the sacrifice fly in the Japanese game makes one wonder if he was performing his own fix job. MLB would be wise not to employ him the next time around.

. . . Whereas the boorish and loutish behavior of the American Olympic hoops and hockey teams have been somewhat a cause of national embarassment (to say nothing of the king of all boors, Bode Miller), this American baseball team conducted itself with class and respect for their opponents, the tournament, and the game. What a breath of fresh air.

. . . This tournament is fun. Even though the American team is out, I’m anxious for the final four this weekend. It should be great baseball and great drama. We will have a Latin team and an Asian team in the final no matter what. The WBC was meant to drum up interest in the game in these other parts of the world. I think it’s a bit late to do that, and I mean that in a good way.

WBC

WBC

The hyperventilation this past winter about the World Baseball Classic was typical smug sportswriting at its worst.  You know the kind – simple tossing around of accusations of ‘typical incompetence’ and ‘what else would you expect from major league baseball’ – all said with the smarminess of Joe Buck coupled with the arrogant laugh as punctuation mark that is supposed to substitute for reasoned argument,  a la Charley Steiner.  It bothered me all winter for two main reasons; the accusations against the poor planning of the event never offered up real reasons in defense of the criticisms (other than the breezy, easily refutable ‘it disrupts spring training’ canard), and the accusations did little more than to cloud the vision of old line baseball-istas about the wonderful value of this thing at best, and at worst provide a smoke screen cover for all those old cranky-pants who don’t like the fact that there are as many good non-Americans as Americans playing our game.

The arguments against the WBC pretty much came down to three simultaneous bows to the sanctity of spring training as a meaningful period of player prep.  To be sure, spring training is important, but not nearly as important as training camp is in the NFL.  How many players see spring training as a great opportunity to work on their golf game?  But I digress . . .

The first argument is that spring training is necessary for players to get game ready for the season.  It sure is.  And what better way to get game ready than to play actual games, maybe like those games in the WBC?  The total number of at bats a position player will get will be cut down, and relief pitchers innings will most likely be down as well.  But most of the work during traditional spring training comes in the bullpen, the cage, field fungoes, etc.  The players on WBC rosters can and have certainly continued with all this work – probably with greater urgency than the players in the ML camps.  Pitchers not getting enough outings?  The relief corps can throw simulated games on off days – heck, ML teams use just this strategy all the time for rehab.  Not enough at bats?  Get up to the plate for the simulated games.  I refuse to believe that the players on the WBC are going to be less ready than the players in the ML camps, probably precisely the opposite will be true.

The second argument was a fear about players getting hurt and pitchers not being ready to throw deep into games in early March.  The first part – that players could get hurt in the WBC – is just a silly criticism of the tournament.  Of course they could get hurt.  Their chances of getting hurt in WBC games is probably exactly the same as their chances of getting hurt in spring games.  I’ll waste no more words refuting that silly argument.  The second criticism about pitching strength early in March is legitimate, and quite easily solved with rational pitch counts.  Plus, if you want to be sure that pitchers are well taken care of, be sure that each team in the WBC has a manager who either is or would like to be working in MLB down the road as a coach or manager.  A manager who rides Jake Peavey to a sore arm will not get a sniff for another managing job.  I don’t know if Buck Martinez ever wants to manage in the big leagues again, but if he does, he sure knows that his pitching staff better be returned to their respective teams in one piece.

The third argument is that spring training is an important time for players to get to know one another, to develop that elusive and all-important ‘chemistry.’  I believe that good chemistry is a deep pitching staff and a lineup with a high OPS.  Because Curt Schilling and Johnny Damon and Kevin Millar can’t shut up about how they won it all in 2004 because of this elusive prep school boy love for each other is really maddening (the Sox won it all in 2004 because they pitched well, hit the crap out of the ball, scored a million runs, and got some good luck in the playoffs – not even just lucky bounces . . .  after being left for dead in the pen, Derek Lowe pitching like Greg Maddux against the two best lineups in baseball?  That’s good luck.)  Baseball is different than the other major American sport of football because in almost every situation you can think of, a player can play very selfishly and not have his actions run counter to the interests of the team.  Think of Pedro for perhaps the best example of this – he constantly sought to prove HE was the best, and every time HE proved HE was the best, it was a win for the team.  No harm there.  If chemistry were the essential ingredient for winning baseball, how do mid-season trades often inject new energy into a team?  Those guy didn’t have a chance to snap towels in the locker room all spring, after all?  I won’t even offer the example of the Oakland squads of the 70’s.  Now, I’ll acknowledge that wingnuts in your locker room are never a good thing for a team, but I think that chemistry as a concept is largely overrated.

Having said that, let’s admit that chemistry is a real thing.  What is it then?  I’d suggest that chemistry is not necessarily a palsy-walsy love for your teammates, a tendency for doing shots before games, putting pies in each others faces . . . Chemistry is probably better described as that which results from  a locker room full of guys with winning attitudes who put the interests of the team ahead of their own interests.  If this definition of chemistry is correct, then I think participation in the WBC only helps clubhouse chemistry.  How much more of a clubhouse leader will Big Papi be if he returns to Ft. Myers after having lead the Dominicana to a WBC championship?  Won’t Mike Timlin be an even better de facto bullpen captain after having pitched selflessly in the WBC?  Varitek’s leadership abilities and ability to shape chemistry can only be enhanced by spending three weeks playing for free, sitting in a locker across the room from A-Rod, putting aside the fact that he once tried to remove A-Rod’s face from his head, all in the name of winning.  The WBC participants will be better ‘chemicals’ – if you’ll allow me to coin that term – when they return to their clubhouses specifically because they’ve been selflessly competitive for three weeks.

I just don’t see any real valid criticisms of the WBC.  The concerns that it would be a lackluster exhibition tournament have been put to rest, I think, by the competitiveness of the games.  The American team wants to win as badly as anybody.  The way the Dominican, Puerto Rican, Japanese fans in the stands behave during a game is a breath of fresh air.  The call-in shows are buzzing with criticism of the American team for losing a couple of games.  The American team is a credit to American athletes generally with the way they’ve conducted themselves and their enthusiasm for the event (contrast that with the whining and crying of the Olympic hockey and basketball teams.)  The WBC breathes life into the game.  There are some kinks, and I’m sure they’ll be worked out.  If this thing grows into a big deal, a World Cup for baseball, it will be a great thing.  If Japan or Dominicana wins this thing, it will be even better for the game in America, piquing the interest of fans here and getting us talking about the 2009 roster right now.

Changing my socks

Changing my socks . . .

Scrolling down the page of this blog, one would quickly notice that this site has been dormant for almost 20 months.  I wrote on this blog faithfully for a season and a half, chronicling a period of Sox history that played so much like a Shakespearean tragedy, complete with a fall from grace (2003 ALCS), followed by the turmoil of the ’03 offseason, the trading of Garciaparra, and the mediocrity of the first four months of the ’04 campaign.  Ironically, I stopped writing at just about the same time the Sox started the winning that sent them on the most exhilarating 3 month stretch of their history.  Unfortunately, I missed blogging about that playoff run – but what could I possibly have added anyway?

My reasons for not writing?  Lucky for me, I advanced to a new position in my career, and my blogging time got swallowed up.  Plus, I was writing some political stuff for some other blogs during that fall’s presidential campaign.

But that doesn’t explain why I didn’t write in 2005.  I didn’t write in 2005 because I was taking the season off from the Red Sox.  I didn’t watch every game, read every blog, scour Gammons every day hoping for some whiff of a trade rumor.  I didn’t stay up for the midnight run of Baseball Tonight every night hoping for a highlight of some news from Theo’s office.  I just watched and rooted, but sometimes didn’t watch and didn’t root.  I did my best imitation of a Kansas City Royals fan.

During the ’03 season, I wrote a long post on this site about how the quest for the World Series ring was corrupting the minds and hearts of Sox fans and players.  The desire to win took hold and drove us all to madness.  After the Sox were knocked out of the ’03 ALCS that year, I told a good friend that I wanted the Sox to finally win it all so that I could create some distance between me and the team.  The madness was making it difficult to actually like the game anymore.  The ’04 championship allowed me to get that distance.  In 2005, I dialed it down, even rooted for some other teams in addition to the Sox(, and didn’t even wince when they were knocked out by the eventual champs last fall.  To be sure, I still got amped up about the team, was as thrilled as anybody to see them in the playoffs, broke down the stats, designed brilliant trades in my own head, second guessed the manager . . . but all of it without the exhausting taxation of 1918 encircling the whole enterprise.  I didn’t want to write every day about the Sox and simply crank up the old manic intensity.  I just rooted for the Sox the way that a fan should – loving the team, the competition, the park, the energy, but not allowing the team’s successes or failures to define my worth as a person.

The result of all of this is that baseball is now more enjoyable than ever for me.  I watched the World Series this year without a lumpy pain thinking that it shoulda/coulda/woulda been my team playing those games.  I enjoyed the pennant races in other divisions.  I liked that the Indians made such a heroic charge through the fall, even though they posed a direct threat more to my Red Sox than their division brethren.  I’m loving the World Baseball Classic right now, not even losing a second’s sleep over the thought that Varitek is not in Ft. Myers right now trying to learn all the new pitchers.  Damon?  Though the name on the back of the jersey in center field will say “Crisp” and not “Damon”, the name on the front – “Boston” – will be the same.

I’m grateful that the Sox won in ’04 for all the reasons all of us are – don’t get me wrong.  But additionally, I’m grateful that by winning the World Series, they were like Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings, destroying the ring that was driving us all mad.  That rainy November day the duckboats took the team through the heart of the city, finishing up on the Charles River was the day I think all of us Sox fans could let go of the team a bit; the winning gave me some emotional distance, allowing me to get closer to the game itself.

Baseball fans . . .

If you love good baseblogging, you've read RedBird Nation. Now an anthology of that splendid site is available (edited by yours truly.) The profits are going to the March of Dimes, so check it out.

Redbird Nation

Boston Red Sox, AL East 5 - Toronto Blue Jays, AL East 4 . .

I'm a big fan of several of the other baseball and political blogs out there. I love RedBirdNation - if you're not reading it, you're missing some of the best baseball writing on the web (notice I didn't say "blogosphere" but rather the whole web.) I read a few others and then pop over to my favorite political blogs. Under the Gunn is my starting point, and I usually link from there, alwasy ending up at Salon.com. All of this done usually before anything else in the morning, even before coffee.

I always end up with a few pangs of melancholy - my writing and my blog just seems like such crap by comparison to the clever writing and thorough reserach of these other blogs. I know these guys have to be amateurs just like me (in fact, I know a few of 'em personally, and they are not sportswriters for a living.) Ironic that my blogging suffers in the summer, given that I'm a teacher and have more time than I know what to do with in the summers. My writing usually picks up once school starts back up and I'm back in more of a routine.

But, alas and alack, I fret needlessley. Why, you may ask? Well, whenever I feel that my writing and insights are stiff, boring, not clever, and not funny, I just jump over to the Red Sox coverage in the Globe. Dan Shaughnessey (with whom I share the same alma mater) usually comes through with some crappy writing to make me feel better about my own writing (indeed, in this column, Dan manages to practice his favorite move, "the setup." You can bet he's already working on the follow up to this setup - Many Questions to Answer.) Bob Ryan, an excellent writer, often resorts to the old "Cleaning out the Desk Drawer of the Mind" article when he can't come up with a thesis for something else. I always felt the bullet articles were copouts, a disappointment to my legions of loyal readers; but, if Bob Ryan can do it, why can't I. So without further ado, I give you today's post . . .

Cleaning out the Desk Drawer of the Mind

• I love to watch Johnny Damon try to score from first on a double. He's twice won games with mad dashes like the one last night. It's a pure adrenaline rush, perhaps even bigger than a game winning home run. The game winning homer is a fact usually as soon as it leaves the bat. A surprise, it is all release for the fan. The Johnny Damon mad dash, on the other hand - with his fists clenched, elbows locked, arms pivoting wildly in their shoulder sockets, hair streaming back, teeth clenched and catching bugs like a radiator grill - is all buildup. The ball sailing through the air - Damon is approaching second; the ball descends towards the wall - Damon is tearing through the bag; the ball caroms off the wall, corralled by the outfielder - Damon is screaming into the windmill of Dale Sveum's "go" sign; here comes the relay, pefectly executed - Damon is about to explode out of his own skin; SAFE! What fun. . .
• Cabrera has been struggling at the plate, and it's so great to see him win a game instead of make the last out of a one run game. Varitek was quick to defend him in the locker room, telling reporters to get off his back, he's in a new league. Two thoughts about this - how much does a new league matter, and, is there a better teammate in all of sports than Jason Varitek?
• Pedro's stuff wasn't his best last night, but he is showing the late stages of the late-career metamorphosis needed to pitch effectively for the next four or five seasons. Pitchers like Pedro who were powerballers early in their career almost always have to evolve to have a long career (kind of like rock bands can't just keep playing the same old crap forever and ever.) Pedro doesn't blow people away anymore, but does a brilliant job mixing and matching and keeping hitters off balance. I wrote earlier in the season that because his stuff isn't locomotive any more, if he misses his spot even a tiny bit, he'll get hit. Last night was no exception, but he battled hard and got out of trouble.
• Speaking of getting hit hard, I swear Vernon Wells' homerun was still rising when it went into the monster seats. That was a SMASH!
• Speaking of SMASH, Varitek's blast was a gargantuan bomb.
• David Ortiz needs to settle down a bit. I don't know what he was thinking, but if he thought that Lilly was trying to hit him last night, he just doesn't know baseball very well. He risked getting himself run and suspended again, and the Sox went 1-4 during is earlier 5-gamer. Anger management, perhaps?
• Gabe Kapler is a great teammate and a great player to have around. He never gets hurt. He never complains, he is always the first player to congratulate a teammate on a job well done (I think he might've broken Cabrera's spine last night with his post-game bear hug.) He was the first one out of the dugout to grab Ortiz - maybe the only player with the muscles to hold Ortiz back. He's a terrific fourth outfielder, and he's starting to take over the job of club spokesperson with the media - not necessarily after games only, but doing the afternoon WEEI drive time interviews and things like that. I think the Sox should look to sign him up for a two or three year, $6M deal and be glad they did.
• Starting pitchers simply have to go 7 innings per start from here on out. Without Williamson, the bridge to Foulke needs to be shortened. Embree and Timlin need to throw fewer innings then they have, and Foulke needs to be brought into games for longer stints.
• Is Mike Myers a pitcher who can throw an inning, rather than just a third? I hope he can be - that would be a huge boon to the pen.
• Speaking of the pen and Foulke, Terry used Foulke brilliantly that last two nights. A two inning save on Monday, and bringing him in to a tie game at home. The first move a bit more daring than the second, but both much smarter than the way Gagne was used in Fenway this season, for example. If you recall, the Sox beat the Dodgers two out of three, with both wins coming off the Dodgers' pen. Gagne only pitched in a blowout Dodgers' win, because Jim Tracy seems to be stuck on the LaRussa Rule which says you only pitch your closer in a save situation (to be fair to TLR, I don't know if he still manages this way, but he sure did in Oaktown with Eckersley.)
• Speaking of Eck, where is he? Guy gets inducted into the Hall, and he's now too good for NESN and us little people? I love Eck, not because of his insight (sometimes his commentary is so spacey it makes you wonder how he ever got anybody out - I guess he was just up there 'slinging it') but because he's capable of saying anything at anytime. He hasn't done so, but you always feel like he could throw out an F-bomb without even thinking about it.
• Outfielders with poor throwing arms have compensated with quick releases all throughout baseball history, and some to great effect (see Bonds, Barry.) Manny has taken this idea to a whole new level. He's positively chucking wiffle balls out of left field now, throwing off his back foot, underhanded . . . stoners playing ultimate frisbee at the Phish farewell are doing a better job setting their feet for the throw than Crusty the Clown is doing in left this year. I guess playing 81 games at Fenway really helps in this regard.
• Don't look now, but the Sox are 10-7 since Nomar left. Now, I don't think that their record is because of Nomar being gone, but they certainly aren't missing him. How could they, really? He basically didn't play for them this year, save for June. (I do think the team is looser without his bad attitude and endless Nomar questions from the media - see Glenn, Terry, and Belichick, Bill)
• Speaking of not playing, the Sox will only get about 40 games from Nomar and Trot combined this year. When you think back to the lofty offseason expectations that we all put on this team, I'll bet Nomar and Trot had something to do with crafting those expectations. Stands to reason they'd struggle without them, so let's cut the crew a little slack (see Shaughnessey, Dan.)
• I think Kevin Millar's theme music should be Slim Shady. Just do. Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? Is Millar a .300, 25, 90 guy or the slumper he had been in the first half of the season? Nobody in the AL is hitting the ball better than Millar since the All-Star break. Is he just a right-handed Brian Daubach, or is he better?
  

Only a couple of things to say this morning about last night's game . . .

• Good to see Keith Foulke used for two innings last night. This might be a way to smooth over the roughness of the bullpen in Williamson's absence. Foulke has thrown as many as 105 innings in his career (1999 Chicago) and has averaged almost 90 innings per year recently. He says he likes the work, and we need him to stretch it out into some two inning saves right now. (B.K. Kim, where are you?)
• As the trade deadline approached a couple of weeks ago, it was said that the players didn't want Lowe traded and would be happy to see Nomar go. Here's why - during the Yankee scrap awhile back, Nomar stayed on the bench. Last night, Lowe drilled Delgado as payback for busting up the new guy (Meintkeiwicz.) No elaboration needed on this one.
• I was glad to see Francona play Meintkeiwicz at second base last night. Not afraid to take a chance, better to try this, get Meintkeiwicz' bat in the lineup instead of playing automatic out Ricky Guttierrez at second. Francona seems to have some ability to think creatively about the lineup, something Grady Little and Jimy Williams could not. Youkilis and Bellhorn both were taking ground balls at first (not needed now that Meintkeiwicz has changed addresses. . . ) I remember screaming all season during Jimy's last spin with the Beaneaters that Hatteberg should be playing first base. First base was a particular problem those years, and if you could catch, you could play first. Jimy finally got Hatteberg taking some ground balls, but never put him over there, even when Daubach was doing his best Pirate's Cove Windmill Hole imitations at the plate. Now he mashes for Oakland at - first base. Oy!
• Has anybody else noticed that Lowe has seemed to right the ship? No longer an awful pitcher, he's pitched very "averagely" the last few times out. Even in the seventh with the error from Cabrera, he seemed to be holding it together well out there in the rain. He's only thrown about 5 1/2 innings per start this year, so his arm should be strong. It would be a huge relief on the bullpen to have D-Lowe pitching 7 or 8 innings each time out down the homestretch, especially with Williamson out for the year.
  

Boston.com / Sports / Baseball / Red Sox / Debunking the mystery of one-run losses

Gordon Edes of the Globe sheds some much needed light on one-run games and the Sox this season. Many fans think that losing or winning one run games is somehow exclusively the province of the manager, but here Edes explains how it is in many ways a matter of luck . . .