As it is, I feel pretty good about my chances to finish strong because I have Papi back. Top to bottom I have a pretty darn good lineup. Doumit, Howard, Cano, Hardy, Headley, Ortiz, Votto, Granderson, Griffey, Berkman, and Zimmerman. Weak in stolen bases, but strong in every other area.

My pitching features some strong starters who all have good K/BB ratios, although my boy Jonathan Sanchez may have to go once Chris Carpenter comes back. Jenks and Soria are my only current closers, so that may be a weakness; however Morrow, Grabow and Balfour may get some saves if the fantasy gods will allow.

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“After years of the finest New England private schooling, our daughter makes up marginally vulgar new words for baseball pitches! That have already been invented!”

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Papelbon beat you to it:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2007/08/22/new_pitch_same_story_for_papelbon/

How proud my mother would be right now if she knew that I had taken part in an intelligent discussion on baseball…and that my “part” was to provide the origins of the word “slutter”. It’s like all the hopes and dreams she had for me when I was a child are finally coming true.

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About Paps, I think your eyes may be deceiving you a little bit. Yes, his ERA is an uncharacteristically “high” 2.00, higher than it’s ever been as a reliever. But that could partly be UmpBump’s favorite stat, BABIP, striking again. Papelbon’s has been .313 this year–a little high, but not super-crazy high. Otherwise, only a few things stand out to me, statistically.

His K/9 rate is still up where it usually lives—an excellent 11.33—but his K/BB rate is ALSO 11.33, which is fantastic, but crazy high! (His K/BB the past two years has been 5.77 and 5.60, so we can see that his walk rate so far this year is waaaay down.) He also usually gives up more fly balls than ground balls, but this year he’s given up more grounders. His BAA this year is .220, when it’s been way below .200 the past two years. Are hitters just being more aggressive against him? Most of the hits he’s given up have been early in the count. Maybe the hitters are going in there, like, “I’m just going to go up there and swing, and God willing, I’ll get a hit.”

Or maybe these extra hits are coming off of that new “slider/cutter” he revealed last year on Letterman. Though I am not a PITCHf/x expert.

Any other ideas?

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I still think something’s off with Papelbon this season (and no it’s not his general personality). to me, he’s not as sharp as last year.

I don’t know what to think about Hansen right now. I am just glad he cut his mullet off and got a grownup hairdo.

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When you consider that Boston starters have pitched more innings than Boston relievers, I’m not surprised at all that the starters have issued more total walks. But the relievers and the starters have issued walks at almost exactly the same rate—0.427 per inning for the starters, .0424 for the relievers.

So I focused on the bullpen because to me, fixing the bullpen is going to be more problematic. First, consider that when a starter walks a few too many guys, he’s gotten himself into a jam. A jam that a reliever will likely be called into fix. If the reliever also walks guys, what do you have? Runs. Runs are bad.

Second, the bullpen just doesn’t have the depth that the starting rotation has. The Red Sox are relying a lot on young guys (Hansen and Delcarmen) who don’t have that flinty, steely, I-WANT-TO-EAT-YOUR-CHILDREN look in their eyes when they come into a game. We joke about intangibles, but I think for relievers who enter the game in high-leverage moments, it’s good to have a bit of that attitude. (See file: Papelbon.) Maybe they’ll gain some confidence with more experience—Delcarmen did strike out the side for the first time this year just last night, which cheered me greatly. When you throw high-90s heat, you don’t need to nibble.

As for Aardsma, it’s all relative. I praised him because every time he goes out there, I expect him to let in a run. Yet he hasn’t been that bad.

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Lester is the one that throws me – I’m usually like, “oh, fuck him and his cancer! he can’t get past 5 innings without giving up 4 runs!”…and then he goes and throws a no-hitter. and then it’s back to 4 runs in 5 innings the next week (or something like that). his inconsistency is maddening.

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