How much did the Sox miss Martinez?

*** Hideous Gruesomeness Warning ***

The following is not for the squeamish.
Some of you may want to avert your eyes.


On June 27, Victor Martinez left the Red Sox game in San Francisco with a broken thumb. Two games later, Jason Varitek went down with a broken foot, and the Sox were forced to scramble and fill in with Gustavo Molina, Dusty Brown and Kevin Cash. Martinez returned last night, and picked up one hit in four at-bats, and drove in a run.

This is relevant, because the following is what Boston catchers did in the 20 games following the Varitek injury:

Kevin Cash .149/.231/.149/.380
Dusty Brown .182/.182/.182/.364
Gustavo Molina .167/.167/.167/.333

Catchers .156/.217/.156/.374

HR - 0
RBI - 0

69 plate appearances, with as many strikeouts (15) as times reaching base safely (10 hits [all singles], four walks, one HBP.) Zero (0) extra base hits. More double plays than sacrifice flies, sacrifice bunts, stolen bases and RBI combined (ZERO [0]).

Unspeakably hideous, and a big part of the reason that the Red Sox are 8-12 in their last 20 games. How big a part? Well, the rest of the team (which was also playing replacements and slumping a bit) managed to create¹ 4.7 runs per 25 outs. When you add the catchers in, that drops down to about 3.4 runs per 25 outs.

The rest of the offensive players hit .279/.337/.458/.794. The catchers' performance dragged the team down to .248/.307/.382/.689.




¹ - Bill James Runs Created (initial formula, I think)