LyfLines: Monday pythagorean

All else being equal, 5-2 is a much better week than 1-6...

The Week That Was:

6/2 - @Boston 1 - Minnesota 0 - For the fourth consecutive Clay Buchholz start, the Red Sox offense manages only a singe run. For the first time in that span, it's enough, as the Red Sox start their week at home with a shutout win over the Twins.

6/3 [1] - @Boston 6 - Minnesota 3 - Eduardo Rodriguez allows only one run on a solo HR over 7 more outstanding innings, bringing his Major League record to 2-0. Meanwhile, the Boston offense, in what has become an unusual achievement, scores at least one run in five of their 8 innings.

6/3 [2] - Minnesota 2 - @Boston 0 - In the night half of the day-night double header making up for Monday's rain-out, the bats are completely silent, with just two hits, as they waste a strong (8 innings, 2 runs) performance from Rick Porcello and the very modest winning streak ends at 2 games.

6/4 - Minnesota 8 - @Boston 4 - Boston scores in three consecutive innings, building a 4-0 lead through four, but then melts down. Steven Wright gives up a three-run homer in the 5th, a Sandoval error in the 6th leads to the tying run, and another in the 9th contributes to a 4-run Minnesota 9th and an 8-4 loss.

6/5 - @Boston 4 - Oakland 2 - The Red Sox get a strong performance (7 1/3, 2 runs) from Wade Miley, and a lot of help from the Oakland defense (3 errors) and manage to use those factors to put together a 4-2 win.

6/6 - @Boston 4 - Oakland 2 - For the second time in three days, the Red Sox score four early and then don't score again. This time, it's enough, as Joe Kelly gives up 1 over 6 strong innings and the bullpen manages to protect the lead for three innings.

6/6 - @Boston 7 - Oakland 4 - In a scene that we've seen too many times, the Red Sox enter a game on a bit of a roll and the bats are totally silent. They go to the bottom of the 8th down 4-0, and having had 13 batters in a row retired. But then everything changes, as Rusney Castillo leads off with a HR, Oakland pulls their starter, and Boston puts up 7 runs on 8 hits in its biggest inning of the year, and completes the sweep with a 7-4 win.

Thoughts and commentary...

At the end of April, after their first 22 games, the Red Sox had scored 113 runs, averaging 5.13 runs/game. Everyone who thought that this was a very good offensive team with suspect pitching looked to be correct. But in the 36 games since then, they've scored only 108, for an average of 3 runs per game. It has been stunning to watch. There have been no individual performances that are necessarily hard to believe, but to see all of Napoli, Ramirez, Ortiz, Betts, Sandoval and Castillo struggle the way they have simultaneously is not something that I would have predicted, and it's not something that can be overcome. If the Red Sox are the team that they've shown for the last month, they'll be drafting high again next year. If some of the offensive players can make adjustments, well, they're still only 5 1/2 games out in the East, with a lot of head-to-head games left in the division.

Quite a performance from the middle of the infield this week, as Pedroia and Bogaerts combined to hit .463/.500/.611/1.111 (14.64 runs created, 12.20 RC/25 outs).

As good a week as it was record-wise, they continue to struggle offensively. They only scored 3.7 runs/game, and it looked much worse than that before Sunday's epic 8th.

Wade Miley, season - 11 starts, 5.6 IP per game, 4.67 ERA. First 4 games - 4 starts, 3.9 IP per game, 8.62 ERA. Last 7 games - 7 starts, 6.6 IP per game, 3.33 ERA.

The 8th inning of Sunday's game more than makes up for the 9th inning of Thursday's game...

How good was Clay Buchholz on Tuesday night? He gave up four runs without getting out of the fifth inning yesterday, and it brought his ERA for the week up to 2.84.

It's amazing what one inning can do. They had another dreadful offensive week, and were going to be lucky to get out of the week at 4-3, and then, three outs and seven runs later, everything is sunshine and roses and momentum. Was that the start of getting the bats back on track? Or was it just one fluke inning that won one game for them, but meant nothing beyond that? If they go down and score five runs over the course of the next three nights in Baltimore, we'll know it was the latter.

Red Sox Player of the Week - Xander Bogaerts (.440/.462/.560/1.022, 5.88 runs created, 9.81 RC/25 outs) and Brock Holt (.375/.500/.438/.938, 4.30 runs created, 10.74 RC/25 outs) were excellent, both putting up performances that would warrant PotW consideration in almost any week. But whether it was the green fields of home, or the lead-off spot, or both (or neither), Dustin Pedroia (.483/.531/.655/1.186, 8.76 runs created, 14.60 RC/25 outs) had an outrageous week to walk away with it...

Red Sox Pitcher of the Week - Miley (7 1/3, 2 runs), Porcello (8, 2 runs) and Kelly (6, 1 run) were all good this week. Buchholz wasn't good yesterday, but he fought through it and could easily have put the team out of it but didn't, and was absolutly outstanding in 8 shutout innings on Tuesday. But the award goes, for the second week in a row, to young Eduardo Rodriguez, whose second ML start was nearly as good as his first, allowing only one run in 7 innings of work.