Clipse the Franchise Mark for Most Wins in a Season
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Boston Red Sox Friday, July 20, 2018 * The Boston Globe Facing tough schedule, Red Sox enter second half with focus on AL East title Peter Abraham DETROIT — The 68-30 Red Sox can win half their remaining games and still win 100 games. What a thing. They haven’t won that many since 1946. But the math is almost meaningless as the Sox restart their season on Friday night in Detroit. All that matters now is finishing ahead of the Yankees and dodging the one-game wild card. That will almost certainly require winning more than 100 games. The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is real again, a reminder of the yearly battles at the turn of the century. No hype is needed beyond looking at the standings and understanding what’s at stake. The Sox have a 4½-game lead on the Yankees. Winning the American League East means extra time off at the end of the season and likely home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. The rotation can be set and the bullpen rested. Finishing second takes away all those advantages. Even if the Sox survive the wild-card game, it would mean a quick turnaround to face the best team in the league on the road. That could well be the Yankees. “Everybody says it gets real in September. But we know where the Yankees are now and they know where we are,” Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez said. “It should be fun.” The Sox have 10 games remaining against the Yankees, the most against any opponent. Seven of those games will be at Fenway Park, including the final three of the season. That’s an advantage. They also play only four more games outside the Eastern Time Zone, another advantage. But the Yankees have a walkover schedule. They play 41 of their remaining 67 games against teams with a losing record, including a whopping 20 games against teams in last place in their respective divisions. The Sox have 10 games remaining against the West Division-leading Houston Astros (three) and Central Division-leading Cleveland Indians (seven). The Yankees are finished with those teams. The Indians significantly improved their roster on Thursday by acquiring All-Star lefthander Brad Hand and righthander Adam Cimber from the San Diego Padres to improve their bullpen. Hand had a 1.08 WHIP and averaged 13.2 strikeouts per nine innings for the Padres. Cimber, a rookie with a side-arm delivery, has been an effective setup man for Hand, who has 24 saves. Righthanded hitters have a .482 OPS against him. The Indians gave up 22-year-old catcher Francisco Mejia, one of the game’s top prospects. In reshaping their bullpen, the Indians are preparing for the postseason and were willing to pay a steep price. Hand gives them a ninth-inning option to supplement if not replace Cody Allen. If Andrew Miller returns healthy, manager Terry Francona can control games with his relievers. The Red Sox have All-Star Craig Kimbrel to close. But they need late-inning depth given the sharp downturn Joe Kelly has taken. A dominant reliever in April and May, Kelly has allowed 14 earned runs on 17 hits and nine walks in 13⅔ innings since June 1. Opponents have hit .293 against him with a .932 OPS. Manager Alex Cora has continued to use Kelly in high-leverage situations, a practice he may have to pull back on if the righthander continues to struggle. Matt Barnes has so far had the best season of his career and merits having eighth-inning responsibilities. But he wore down in August last season. If Eduardo Rodriguez were able to return from a badly sprained right ankle, using him as a reliever would make sense. The Sox took that route last September when David Price came back from arm trouble and it produced excellent results. But the Sox cannot count on Rodriguez coming back; so external help will be the focus. Baltimore lefthander Zach Britton and White Sox righthander Joakim Soria are obvious possibilities. But Toronto also has options in Tyler Clippard and Seunghwan Oh. A fallow farm system will not prohibit the Red Sox from adding to their bullpen as setup men can be had for lesser prospects. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski obtained Brad Ziegler (2016) and Addison Reed (2017) without losing prominent players. Rotation depth could be solved by the return of Drew Pomeranz from the disabled list. The lefthander looks ready after a strong start for Triple A Pawtucket on Wednesday. The Sox also could consider bench upgrades at catcher and second base. But clearly improved relief pitching is what would best prepare them for the remainder of the regular season and playoffs. “We’ve made moves before,” right hander Mookie Betts said. “This is the time of the year you’re waiting to see what will happen. All we can do is play.” Trades leave Red Sox with a diminished stack of trade chips Alex Speier At the All-Star Futures Game, despite the fact that Bryan Mata was the only Red Sox minor leaguer on the field, the organization was well represented. Center fielder Luis Alexander Basabe — signed by the Red Sox out of Venezuela in 2013, and traded to the White Sox in the Chris Sale deal — turned on a 102-m.p.h. fastball and drilled it for a 400-foot homer to right-center. One evaluator described him as having the potential to roam center as an above-average regular (and potential Gold Glover) for 10 years. While righthander Shaun Anderson — a 2016 Red Sox third-rounder who was traded to the Giants last summer for Eduardo Nunez — allowed a homer, he earned the win for the US team in the Futures Game with an inning in which he showed a four-pitch mix that has him on a starter path. He was promoted to Triple A following the contest. In recent years, the Futures Game has been something of a showcase for the Red Sox scouting department. Not only has the team featured some of the more notable participants (Futures Game MVP Yoan Moncada and Andrew Benintendi in 2016, Rafael Devers in 2017), but it’s also supplied other teams with a rather startling wealth of talent. In the last three years, seven Futures Game participants of other organizations had started their professional careers with the Red Sox. Basabe and Anderson followed the 2017 trio of Moncada, righthander Michael Kopech (like Moncada and Basabe, dealt in the Sale deal), and shortstop Mauricio Dubon (Brewers in the Tyler Thornburg deal). In 2016, a pair of prospects in the Futures Game — center fielder Manuel Margot and utility man Carlos Asuaje — represented the Padres after being traded to San Diego in the Craig Kimbrel deal. Over time, the impact of that prospect diaspora — which also has included several other highly regarded prospects such as pitchers Anderson Espinoza and Logan Allen — has added up. On the one hand, trades of prospects and the graduation to the big leagues of Devers and Benintendi have been a critical part of powering the engine of Red Sox contention for three straight years. Sale and Kimbrel are anchors of a team with championship aspirations; the Nunez addition was critical in allowing the Sox to win the AL East last year; other midyear additions such as Addison Reed and Brad Ziegler played key roles in the last two division titles. On the other hand, the cumulative impact of those prospect deals — along with injuries, suspensions, and struggles by a number of the team’s top remaining prospects — have left the Red Sox with a drastically diminished stock from which to make trades now. Particularly given that top prospect Jay Groome is out for the year with Tommy John surgery and that evaluators are almost evaluating Michael Chavis anew in his return from a suspension for testing positive for a PED, the highest branches of the farm system seem picked over. A survey of a handful of evaluators from teams who are going to be deadline sellers about potential Red Sox trade chips offered a fairly dreary word cloud: “Awful,” “bleak,” “not good,” “not a lot there,” “thin,” “bare,” “weak,” and “depleted” were all among the words employed by scouts and executives from around the league in examining the state of the Red Sox farm system. Such characterizations make clear that it’s going to be difficult for the Red Sox to make anything more than modest upgrades during this coming trade deadline season. The team will be able to add, and the addition of a rental reliever through the trade market is likely, but the Sox may struggle to match the prospect packages that other contenders can offer. “There are definitely some useful pieces, but it seems like everyone [in the system] is having a bad year,” said one AL scout. In other words, the jolt that the farm system can provide to the big leagues this year is limited. Longer term, however, the Red Sox remain optimistic that perception may alter. While the team lacks a high-probability starting pitcher or position player at the top of its system, the ranks of potential impact players — albeit ones with a wide range of potential outcomes — is growing. In Salem, despite his control problems, Mata shows a potential mid-rotation starter’s mix; lefty Darwinzon Hernandez and righty Tanner Houck have rebounded from bad starts to look, at least, like potential impact late-innings pitchers; third baseman Bobby Dalbec has been among the most dominant players at any level of the minors this month, underscoring a potentially huge ceiling if he can control his strikeout rate; C.J.