Tag Archives: Xander Bogaerts

Series Grades: Baltimore

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The Red Sox wrapped up a very solid opening series against Baltimore with a 4-3 win on Thursday night. Both the starters and the bullpen already looked locked in, and most of the lineup looks the same way. Great way to start the year.

OVERALL GRADE: A

Hitters Overall: B

Designated Hitter: B+

All he needs to do is hit, and that’s essentially what Papi did against the Orioles. Ortiz had a rough go of things in the first game of the series, but he came through with a big home run in the middle game and recorded 3 singles in the finale.

Catcher: C

A.J. Pierzynski had a serviceable debut to his career in Boston,  but it would be nice if he could improve upon his 2/8 start to the season. If Pierzynski can have similar numbers to what he posted last year he will end up being another positive free-agent pickup. David Ross had a solid game 3 as he reached base twice, but he was also not able to stay in front of a Brandon Workman pitch that cost the Sox a run in the 6th.

First Base: A-

Mike Napoli had a solid series against the Orioles; most importantly he provided 4 big RBI in the second game of the series. Napoli picked up right where he left off last season — hitting for extra bases and striking out.  He did make an error in the 9th inning of game 2 that made Koji’s save a bit more difficult than it should have been, but the Sox had a 4 run lead at the time of the error so we’ll let him off the hook.

Second Base: A

Dustin Pedroia played all three games of the series, and he came out of the gate swinging a red-hot bat. Pedroia had 2 hits in the first game and 4 base hits in game 2 (to go along with a sweet diving stop), and in the third game he had a 1-out double in the 9th but was left stranded by David Ortiz and Mike Napoli. Overall, the Sox will always take a 7-hit series from their franchise player, so keep up the good work Pedey.

Shortstop : A-

Xander Bogaerts had a fantastic start to his year. The Rookie Shortstop sensation reached base 8 times in the series and provided a great boost to the lower part of the lineup. His bat will likely see him moving up in the lineup in the near future.

Third Base: C

Will Middlebrooks struggled with the bat in the first two games of the series, but he picked up his first two hits (one of which was a double) in game 3. Middlebrooks is a player who’s spot in the lineup in relatively safe for the time being, but he needs to keep having positive at bats like he did in the third game if the Red Sox lineup is going to be as potent as it was last year. His glove looked a bit iffy at times in the series as well, but he played relatively solid overall.

Center Field: B

Grady Sizemore started the first two games of the series in center and it was great to see him back in the big leagues. In the first game he went 2/4 and produced the Sox only run, but he failed to reach base in the second game. As we noted after Opening Day, if he could keep up a consistent bat and remain healthy it will very much help make up for the loss of Jacoby. Jackie Bradley Jr. started the third game and managed two hits (one of which produced a run). Hopefully he can hit better than last season, and if he can he will pick up some much needed playing time over the course of the year.

Left Field/Right Field: B-

These spots were manned by a platoon of Jonny Gomes, Daniel Nava, Mike Carp and Jackie Bradley Jr. The platoon at these positions (mostly in left field, as Shane Victorino played right field most of the year) was a key aspect of the deadly offensive attack from last year, so it would be nice if Farrell could again maximize the output from these positions by using a rotation of the players listed above. They had a solid series, and they’ll have their ups and downs throughout the year, but mostly it was just very fun to see Gomes hitting leadoff in the last game.

Pitchers Overall: A

Jon Lester: A 

Lester was masterful in his 7 innings on Opening Day. The Sox ace threw 104 pitches, and the only 2 runs he gave up were off of a double play ball by Delmon Young in the 2nd and a long ball by Nelson Cruz in the 7th.  Lester fanned 8 Orioles batters, and he did a great job of mixing pitches — PITCHf/x says he through 5 different pitches today. He got into some trouble in the early innings, but was able to work out of it well. Overall, the Sox couldn’t have asked for any more from Jon in his first start of the regular season.

John Lackey: A-

Lackey pitched an extremely solid 6 innings in the second game of the series, and he picked up the Red Sox’ first win of the year. The Orioles’ only runs again came off the bat of Nelson Cruz (a 2-run shot in the 4th), and Lackey only allowed 2 other baserunners during the rest of his time on the mound. Just like Lester, Lackey could not have pitched any better — aside the fact that his pitch count was a bit high by the 6th inning.

Felix Doubront: B

Doubront had a solid outing in the last game of the series. He ran into a bit of trouble in the 4th inning, but managed to stop the bleeding after only giving up 2 runs. If the Sox starters can manage to hold the opposition to 2 runs per game every time out this year, it’s going to be a very fun 2014. That wont happen, but it was still very fun to watch the first three starters go this week.

Bullpen: A

The boys in the ‘pen only gave up 1 run in three games. ‘Nuff said.

 

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Howdy Ho Everybody! Baseball is Back!

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We’re back!

Well, technically we made our return two days ago when Mr. Childs kindly posted the Red Sox opening day roster, and I guess we never really left. But, it’s been far too long since we we’ve consistently posted content, and we’ll try to change that.

Anyway, after yesterday the Sox only have 161 games left on the schedule and the playoff race is already heating up. The boys from Beantown fell 2-1 to the Orioles on Opening Day, but it was still a pleasure to watch baseball once again. Below are some brief thoughts after watching the first game back in action:

Hitting

Boston had a rough go of things yesterday in terms of producing runs. In fact, the only time they were able to score was off a Grady Sizemore round-tripper. However, the absence of runs was not due to a lack of hitting; the Red Sox managed 9 hits, including 2 doubles and Sizemore’s HR, and 3 BBs. Because they had men on base all day Boston came close to scoring on many ocassions, and they also nearly added runs off long flyouts from David Ortiz and Xander Bogaerts. Both flyouts might very well have been dingers on a day when the wind wasn’t blowing in from Left Field. Nevertheless, the Red Sox obviously need to do a better job pushing runs across the plate if they are going to compete for the AL East Division crown once again. In the end, there were too many missed opportunities to feel good about the day at the dish.

Looking back on the game, the most enjoyable part was seeing Grady Sizemore go 2-4 including his home run. Sizemore made his first appearance since September 23, 2011, and he showed that he could provide a spark to the already dangerous lineup if he remains healthy for the year. That is a big if, but it would be a welcome surprise if he could replace a healthy chunk of Jacoby Ellsbury’s production. The health issues will be a concern for John Farrell and the Boston front office, so it would be very surprising if Grady is their every-day center fielder for the entire season. It is likely that he will share time with Jackie Bradley Jr. and Shane Victorino as the season wears on. But here’s hoping that he can play in enough games to have a significant impact on the Sox’ season.

Pitching (Jon Lester)

Jon Lester pitched about as well as anybody could have hoped for yesterday, and it’s simply a matter of bad luck that he had to walk away from the game with a loss. Lester left the game after 7 innings pitched and 104 pitches (73 strikes), wracking up 8 Ks along the way and only giving up 6 hits and 1 walk. This is the type of day that Lester needed to have coming out of the gate, and if he continues to pitch this well for the entire season (something he is capable of doing, as evidenced by the majority of his career) it will prove to be a great help to the Red Sox as they look to compete with Tampa Bay and New York.

Moving Forward

The Red Sox next play tomorrow at 7:05 PM ET, and they will have John Lackey going against recently-acquired Baltimore right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez. Lackey will be looking to start right where he left off in 2013, and he is one of many players on the Sox roster that will need to reproduce what he did in 2013 if Boston is going to contend again. Although last year might have been a surprising year for Lackey considering how poorly he pitched in 2010 and 2011, he proved that he could pitch well above replacement level for an entire season in 2013. Lackey also played an important role as a member of the postseason rotation, posting a 2.77 ERA in 5 games (4 starts). Hopefully he can start just like Lester did yesterday, and maybe tomorrow the Sox bats will also come alive like they did for all of 2013.

 

Series with Dodgers On Deck

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Bold Series Predictions: The Sox are going to find a way to take 2 of 3 from the Dodgers in this weekend’s series, Xander Bogaerts will get his first career hit against Hyun-Jin Ryu, and Dennis Eckersley will set a new personal record by saying “cheese” 50+ times in a single broadcast.

Why: The Dodgers are unquestionably the hottest team in baseball, and even though Boston just finished up winning a three-game set against the Giants, they are still just .500 in the month of August. So why will the Sox win this series? For starters, the Sox have three of their best starters going; Lackey takes the hill Friday, Lester on Saturday and Peavy gets to face-off against his old NL West rivals on Sunday Night Baseball. Also helping Boston’s cause is the fact that they will miss two of LA’s best starters in Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.

Xander Bogaerts played in two of the games against the Giants this week, but he only started in one of those games and he did not start against struggling left-hander Barry Zito. This hints that John Farrell is trying his best to ease the 20-year-old phenom into playing time. Since Stephen Drew hit a bomb in Boston’s series-clinching win against the Giants, it wouldn’t surprise me at all for him to start against right-hander Ricky Nolasco in the series opener on Friday. However, I do think that Bogaerts will start against the left-hander Ryu because of Drew’s struggles against south paws this year. I also think that Bogaerts is due for a hit. Besides believing that he is due, I don’t really have a good reason to think he will get his first hit in that game. I guess my Spidey Senses are just tingling.

Pictured: Dennis Eckersley thinking about a nice slice of Cheddar Cheese. Probably.

The last of my predictions is also the easiest to make. Dennis Eckersley has given it his all trying to spice things up in the absence of Jerry Remy. Most notably, he has made it abundantly clear to his audience that he will never call a fastball by its true name. In fact, he may never call any pitch by its true name. Instead, he likes to talk about “cheese,” and “gas.” You can count me as one of those in complete support of his hilarious lexicon.

The Red Sox will be glad to have a day off before heading to LA, but I cannot wait for this three game set to begin. It should be a fun weekend of baseball, folks.