Red Sox Should Be Concerned Heading Into Playoffs

• Indians 4-Red Sox 3:

The playoff matchups in the American League are pretty much set and the Red Sox, despite their

successful history against the Angels, have reason to be concerned this year. The Angels are on a mission this season and two of the Red Sox main strengths as they've won their championships----starting pitching and clutch power hitting in the middle of the lineup----are question marks as they prepare for a trip to Anaheim.
Something clicks in Josh Beckett's brain at playoff time, so they're not going to have to worry about him; but Daisuke Matsuzaka is very likely going to have trouble with the Angels patient hitters as they run up his pitch count and gladly accept his propensity to walk people. Jon Lester's been excellent this year and knuckleballers like Tim Wakefield are always hit or miss.
The bigger problem is going to be the lineup. Jason Bay has been everything the Red Sox expected when they traded Manny Ramirez away; that being said, Jason Bay is not Manny and has never once played in a big game on the national stage in his entire career. The Angels are not going to let David Ortiz beat them and are going to force Bay to deliver in the clutch as Manny did. Even with the MVP-quality years being had by Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia, they're not additives to what was already a championship recipe;

they're actually picking up for the departed Manny; the injury-diminished Ortiz; the aging Jason Varitek; and the injured J.D. Drew.
No matter what Bay's stats look like and how well he's replaced Manny on paper and especially in the clubhouse, he's not Manny and he's not someone that the Angels are going to sit there and say, "we have to stop this guy if we're gonna win"; that could end up being a miscalculation, but it's a strategy not to allow Ortiz to beat them and to make Bay come through; if he does, you tip your hat to him. The Angels were never intimidated by the Red Sox just as they were never intimidated by the Yankees; the reason the Red Sox beat them so consistently was that the Red Sox weren't a favorable matchup for the Angels and the Yankees were; now that's changed and the Red Sox are in for a rough time heading to Anaheim unless Bay can make up for Manny's absence when it really counts, and that's a big question mark.

• Diamondbacks 4-Cardinals 2; Brandon Webb saves his second Cy Young Award:

I think it's safe to say that in addition to keeping his team alive in the playoff race, Brandon

Webb's last two starts have saved his 2008 Cy Young Award. If the situation calls for it, he may even do more than that; if the Diamondbacks see an opening to catch the Dodgers on Thursday, there's no way Doug Davis is going to start that game and Dan Haren and Webb will be moved up to start on short rest. If they're alive going into the weekend against Colorado and the Giants see the opportunity to knock out or severely damage the playoff chances of their archenemy Dodgers, the Diamondbacks could still have a chance.

• The trades you don't make are often the best ones:

Ervin Santana winning his 16th game last night brought back memories of spring training

when the offensively challenged Angels were discussing a trade that would've sent Santana to the White Sox for Paul Konerko. Think about the dominoes that would've fallen had that deal taken place. Konerko has picked up his game lately, but he was so awful early in the season that he was benched; Santana jumped out of the chute for the Angels and (along with Joe Saunders) took over as the team's ace to counteract the absence of John Lackey and get the team off to a good start. Then there likely wouldn't have been a deal for Mark Teixeira and Teixeira may have ended up with the Diamondbacks because they were the other team with whom the Braves were having serious discussions. What would that have done to the NL West?
Then there were the rampant rumors of Brian Roberts being sent to the Cubs. With the addition of Kosuke Fukudome, there probably wouldn't have been room to keep Roberts, Fukudome and Mark DeRosa and DeRosa might've been traded; DeRosa has never been the power hitter he's proven himself to be this year (it's likely his career year), and the Cubs have

discovered that Fukudome may be just an average player, and not what they were expecting; he's lost his starting job to boot. Looking at the numbers, DeRosa has had almost identical numbers to Roberts except with more power and a ton of clutch hits. How many teams would've had interest in DeRosa, a player who can play every position competently except catcher?
These are just two examples of rumored moves that didn't happen and would've made things worse for their team if they had happened. It's easy to look at trades that were made and judge them in the long and short term, but sometimes more can be learned from looking at trades that were said to be "near completion", but never came to pass for one reason or another and ended up working out far better than any completed deal could have.

Yankees Demote Kennedy And Other Stories

• Yankees send Ian Kennedy back to the minors:

The New York Times is reporting that the Yankees have shipped Ian Kennedy back to Triple A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre with the instructions to throw his breaking pitches regardless

of the score and game situation----Article. Kennedy also backtracked on his laissez-faire comments about his heinous big league performances after the negative reaction in the clubhouse and media. Kennedy will learn about dealing with the media because that was a case in which he said something stupid, which isn't unexpected in a 23-year-old who's experiencing on-field adversity for the first time; but the important question is: will he learn how to pitch effectively in the big leagues?
After all the hype accompanying the three young Yankee pitchers----Kennedy, Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain----it was at best unrealistic and at worst baseball malpractice to think that they were going to walk all over big league hitters the way they dominated in the minors. Now Kennedy has been the one to take the most brutal beating and is paying the price on and off the field. He's been told that he's going to be back in September, which may or may not be true; but unless the Yankees fall completely out of contention, Kennedy's return doesn't mean he's going to be participating in any meaningful games unless there's an emergency.
This season is a write-off for Kennedy and Hughes and shouldn't be seen as an indictment

of their futures as big leaguers; they could still become useful if not the reincarnation of the 1990s Braves or other great rotations. Chamberlain has shown the promise to be a future Cy Young Award winner. The Yankees problem now is that, among many other things, they didn't expect the injury to Chien-Ming Wang to rob them of his 19 wins; they didn't expect to have to deal with a Rays team that matured so quickly, rode a hot start to prominence, and also overcame their seven game losing streak going into the All Star break to recover beautifully. Instead of only having to worry about the Red Sox in the AL East, they're scrambling for a Wild Card berth that looks increasingly like it's not going to be available. The Yankees may be discovering, as the Braves did when their string of playoff appearances ended, that it's not as easy as it looked all those years; that barrelling down the road while making drastic changes isn't always a smooth and easy process and things don't always mystically end with the Yankees in the playoffs.
Everything ends. The dynasty from the late-90s ended; the George Steinbrenner-era is ending; the Joe Torre-era ended; and the automatic ticket into the playoffs may be on life-support now. They're still in position to make another run, but they're running out of time and with the way their direct contenders are playing, the Yankees may have run out of tricks and the last post-season at Yankee Stadium and intentions of a historic finale may not exist at all.

• White Sox 6-Red Sox 5:

The Red Sox haven't been playing all that great either and despite all the numbers that are being quoted as to how Jason Bay's stats can reasonably replicate Manny Ramirez's so that

Manny's departure won't be such a big loss; and that Bay will be a better outfielder; and that Bay will run out ground balls; the Red Sox are going to feel the loss of Manny Ramirez as the season winds down. I completely understand the decision to get rid of him at all costs, but it's not going to be a simple matter of inserting a different piece into Manny's slot and ending up with another championship.
With the way the Yankees are scrounging for starting pitching, even if the Red Sox don't catch the Rays, they have enough pitching in the rotation and bullpen; and should score enough runs to hold off the Yankees and whichever of the two teams----the Twins or White Sox----fades out in the end in the AL Central. If things hold as they are and the Red Sox have to play the Angels, that's when they're going to truly feel the effects of not having a happy or unhappy Manny in their lineup.

• Padres 16-Rockies 7:

It's one thing to extol Livan Hernandez's value as an innings-eater who'll stay out on the

mound for 145 pitches or more, but there's no possible way to defend yesterday's performance in his first start as a member of the Rockies. The Padres can't hit and they gave Hernandez a brutal beating with nine runs (including two homers) in 2 2/3 innings. The Rockies got Hernandez for nothing and were desperate for starting pitching; and I've been trumpeting Hernandez as a pitcher who could provide something to someone; but if yesterday's an example of what he has to offer, then there's no point in putting him out there.

• Scott Rolen to the disabled list:

Who (other than J.P. Ricciardi) didn't see this coming? A couple of weeks ago, I compared

Scott Rolen and Troy Glaus based on their contracts and production----Blog 7/31/2008. Is it still possible that the work of Ricciardi in the past seven years is being lost on the Blue Jays ownership and that he's going to be back? He should've been fired three months ago so the new GM could get a head start on next season, but he's still there.