Red Sox Record for the Week of August 17: 4-2
After a three-game sweep of Toronto at the Rogers Centre started the week, Boston lost two of three to New York over the weekend at Fenway. Meanwhile, the Texas Rangers lost two of its three weekend games to Tampa Bay, so the Sox were still able to overtake them for the top spot of the AL Wild Card race by one game — the lead is one-and-a-half games as of Tuesday afternoon.
So how did they do it? All offense, and poor pitching (with a few exceptions). In fact, the Sox scored 53 runs last week in its six games, an average of 8.8 per game. But they also gave up 40 runs, an average of 6.7 per game.
First off, late last Tuesday afternoon (August 18), Josh Beckett found out his pitching coach John Farrell and catcher Jason Varitek both would not be available for that night’s game in Toronto. The former had a family emergency to take care of while ‘Tek revealed he had muscles spasms (and pain) in the neck area, something he’s reportedly been battling for a month or two now. So Victor Martinez was forced to catch his first game with Beckett with only a couple of hours to prepare for it.
That said, the three homers and seven earned runs that Beckett allowed in five and one-third innings was all on him, not V-Mart. It was his worst outing since June and shortest since April. I didn’t see any miscommunication between the Sox ace and V-Mart, nor many V-Mart signs getting shaken off by Beckett. But I did see a ton of fastballs and hanging breaking balls and not much of anything else in his repertoire – very few cutters and changeups. His curveball especially was terrible, as it didn’t break or locate well when he needed it to.
For example, in the fourth, Beckett’s curveball to Vernon Wells sailed upwards, and the next pitch was hit for a double. Later, after shaking off a couple of pitch selections, he hung a curveball over the heart of the plate which Rod Barajas nearly hit for a home run, but was just foul in the left field stands. He did indeed homer off Beckett his next at bat in the sixth, knocking him out of the game. So as bad as Beckett was, he could’ve been even worse.
Article comments