Daniel Bard

A lot has gone right for Daniel Bard in 2011. His 2.15 ERA, 0.83 WHIP and 64-15 strikeout-to-walk ratio speak to that.

But those first two marks aren’t filled with zeros, meaning somewhere along the long road that is the 2011 season, there have been bumps for the Red Sox setup man. Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Yankees was just the latest one of those.

After Alfredo Aceves walked Andruw Jones and hit Jesus Montero in consecutive at-bats with one out in the seventh inning, Red Sox manager Terry Francona made the move to bring Bard in during a 2-1 game for a potential 1 2/3 innings-long hold.

And with his first two pitches, Bard looked like he would reward his skipper’s confidence. Yankees catcher Russell Martin waved aimlessly at two straight knee-buckling sliders to go down 0-2. Then, Bard switched to his trademark fastball — the very one Baseball America the third-best among all pitchers in the AL — for three straight pitches. All were balls. He returned to the slider, but Martin got just enough of a foul tip on this go-around to extend the at-bat. This time, Bard threw one fastball, and it would be one fastball too many.

Martin slashed the full-count offering to right-center to plate Jones and Montero and give the Yankees a lead they would not surrender.

The Yankees catcher would later score on a single by pinch-hitter Eric Chavez to give Bard his only charged run of the contest, thus ending Bard’s streak of 9 1/3 scoreless innings. But immediately after Thursday’s loss, the Red Sox reliever immediately pointed to the Martin at-bat as the deciding factor in how poorly his outing went, saying if he threw two pitches differently, perhaps the game would have had a different outcome.

“The 1-2 pitch I thought was a pretty good pitch,” Bard said. “Maybe an inch off. I guess he got it right, so it was a good pitcher’s pitch. 3-2, I threw him a really good slider that he was able stay back on and foul off. Then, obviously my fastball just caught too much of the plate. So, I thought I made two good pitches, just didn’t put him away.” Read the rest of this entry »

Jon Lester only gave up a run, but couldn't make it past five innings. (AP)

Alfredo Aceves and Daniel Bard are indeed human.

The pair of Red Sox relievers had a combined 22 consecutive scoreless innings – 12 1/3 for Aceves, 9 2/3 for Bard – entering Thursday night, but then the duo allowed three runs between them in the seventh inning en route to a 4-2 Yankees win at Fenway Park.

After striking out Nick Swisher to start the seventh, Aceves, the usually ultra-reliable longman in the Boston bullpen, walked Andruw Jones in an epic 14-pitch at-bat and then plunked rookie DH Jesus Montero before handing the ball over to Bard in a 2-1 game. The fireballing setup man then allowed a long double to right-center off the bat of Russell Martin that scored both inherited runners and gave New York a 3-2 lead. The Yankees extended that lead in the next at-bat when pinch-hitter Eric Chavez singled in Martin.

Aceves earned the loss, his first since May 31 and his first as a reliever since May 26, 2009 when he was with the Yankees. He moves to 9-2 on the year and 23-3 in 103 career games.

The bullpen implosion spoiled a strong, albeit short, pitching performance from Jon Lester (5 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K). Lester’s outing was his second-shortest of the year – a four-inning start on July 5 was cut short by a lat strain – after he was lifted prior to the sixth, having thrown 113 pitches.

The blame for the loss doesn’t fall squarely on the shoulders of the Red Sox pitching though. The Boston offense couldn’t scrape together more than just a pair of runs against Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett (5 1/3 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K) who was coming off an August in which he had an ERA of 11.91 for the month.

Adrian Gonzalez had a chance to win or tie the game in the ninth inning with the bases loaded and two outs but instead struck out against Yankees closer Mariano Rivera to end the contest.

The game lasted four hours and 21 minutes, making it the longest nine-inning game of the season for the Red Sox. (The Yankees played one nine-inning contest last week in 4:31.)

With the win, the Yankees (82-53) won their first series against Red Sox this season(83-53) and move half a game behind their rivals in the AL East standings. Boston owns the season series 11-4 in 2011 with he two teams set to play three more times in New York from Sept. 23-25.

Here’s what went wrong (and right) in the Red Sox loss:

WHAT WENT WRONG

-Aceves hit two batters on the night, Montero and Mark Teixeira who later left the game with a bruised right knee because of the HBP. Aceves has now hit 11 batters this season, which puts him in a tie for third-most in the American League. Every AL pitcher with more than 10 plunks has at least 136 innings pitched. Aceves has only 90 1/3 frames under his belt in 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

Felix Doubront

Conor Jackson wasn’t the only new guy in the Red Sox clubhouse Thursday afternoon. Although he’s perhaps an older face than Jackson, Felix Doubront also joined the big club as the team’s lone initial September call-up on the first day of the month.

The lefty pitcher was 3-5 with a 3.96 ERA while working mostly as a starter for Triple-A Pawtucket. He had made three appearances for the big club this season, all in April. However, his season had been defined by injuries before Thursday’s move. He had missed parts of May, July and August with groin and hamstring injuries after some believed he could have been a solid lefty specialist option for Boston in 2011.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona said on Thursday that despite the bumps in the road, the team is pleased with where Doubront is as he returns to the majors.

“[His season’s] been a little bit disjointed,” he said. “He’s had a lot of interruptions. Nothing serious. He’s thrown the ball very well. We’ve given him starters innings just to accelerate his maturity as a pitcher. Now, he’ll throw out of the bullpen for us in September. He’s done it for us before. He’s a unique young guy, another one of our young guys that we’ve come to rely on.

Doubront himself added that he too feels good about the call-up, especially after making two relief appearances in the end of August in which he failed to give up a run over 3 1/3 innings.

“I’ve got my confidence back,” he said. “Last week out of the bullpen, I worked a lot to get that confidence back. Getting outs, getting lefties out, mixing my pitches, working, hitting spots, trying to use my breaking ball. Now, it’s good. I feel good.” Read the rest of this entry »

Conor Jackson

At 11:44 p.m. Wednesday night, Conor Jackson wasn’t thinking about being traded. He was thinking about how his team — the A’s — was in 14th inning of a battle with the Indians in Cleveland while he sat on the bench.

Then at 11:45, he was told to pack his bags. He was being shipped to Boston in a waiver deal.

“It was definitely a shock,” Jackson said Thursday from the Boston clubhouse while wearing a new Red Sox workout shirt.

If the deal, which sent minor league pitcher Jason Rice to Oakland, had occurred just 16 minutes later, Jackson would have been ineligible to make the postseason roster per MLB rules.

Instead, what awaited Jackson in Boston was not only a change of scenery and costume but also a change in role. The 29-year-old right-handed hitter goes from Oakland, where he started at separate times as a first baseman (46 games), third baseman (six games), right fielder(27 games) and left fielder (19 games), to Boston, where he is expected to act as no more than a bench player that could provide depth at all the aforementioned positions.

The immediate belief in the aftermath of the 11th-hour trade was that Jackson will compete with Josh Reddick, Darnell McDonald and the injured J.D. Drew for playing time in right field. Leading into Thursday’s game against the Yankees, Red Sox right fielders ranked second-to-last in the majors (29th) in OPS at .645, besting only Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki who is undergoing his worst statistical year in the majors.

Jackson himself has struggled for the A’s this season while bouncing around various positions. He was hitting .249 for Oakland with four home runs and 38 RBI in 102 games this season, the most games he’s played in since totaling 144 for Arizona in 2008. Whether it be those numbers or the logjam already in right field, Red Sox manager Terry Francona said on Thursday that he wasn’t sure what role he would give Jackson now that he’s in Boston but added that just having him on the roster is helpful.

“How he’s going to be used, I really don’t know,” Francona said. “How extensively, we don’t know. Just talking to [Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein], the chance to get a bat that can have an impact, especially against left-handed pitching – if something were to happen in September, let’s say to Mac and we don’t have somebody, that’s not good.” Read the rest of this entry »

David Ortiz

Move over, Irene. You may not be the only powerful force in town this weekend. Not if David Ortiz and his bat have anything to say about it.

With the rain pouring as Hurricane Irene began to make her presence known in the New England region, Ortiz went a combined 5-for-8 Saturday in a doubleheader sweep of the Athletics at Fenway Park. Among those five hits were a two-run home run that produced half the scoring of the 4-0 Game 2 win for the Sox as well as two doubles in the first contest, another Sox win this time by a 9-3 margin.

Thanks to his Saturday performance, the Red Sox designated hitter is now riding a season-high 12-game hitting streak. While hitting streaks can be as simple as going 1-for-4 in multiple consecutive contests, Ortiz’s current stretch of dozen is nowhere close to being that easy or simplistic.

During the 12-gamer, the 35-year-old has an astonishing hitting line of .522/.577/.1.043/1.620 to go with six home runs and 14 RBI, all the while either suffering or recovering from bursitis in his right heel. The run is among the most impressive of the slugger’s career. He has never before hit .500 or more over a hitting streak of at least 10 games.

Thanks to the scorching stretch, the 35-year-old is enjoying a monster year that resembles the sort of performances he hasn’t produced since 2007. His season average has improved to .311, its highest level since late June, because of the streak. He ranks among AL leaders in batting average (9th), OBP (.396, 6th), slugging (.587, 2nd), OPS (.983, 2nd), homers (27, 6th), RBI (86, 7th) and extra-base hits (62, T-4th).

But it wasn’t always this way for the soon-to-be free agent slugger. In the 10 games before his current streak began on Aug. 7, Ortiz was hitting just .104 and slugging .189. Call it the dog days of summer being what they are if you want, but that stretch only seemed typical at the time for a power hitter who managed only four home runs in 43 games from the middle of June to early August. (Again, Ortiz has six bombs in his last 12 games.)

So what caused the turn-around? Ortiz had but one answer, but he thought it was so important he repeated that answer four times.

“Work, work, work and work,” he said. “That’s it. It’s what you have to do.” Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball 1, Irene 0. Kind of.

Even though the Red Sox and Athletics moved up their regularly scheduled Sunday game as part of a Saturday doubleheader, there was still legitimate concern that the two squads would be unable to get in both contest because of the oncoming Hurricane Irene and the nasty weather that it brought with it.

Well three lengthy rain delays (totaling four hours) later, there were two official games of baseball in Boston Saturday, and the Red Sox followed up a 9-3 nine-innings win in Game 1 with a 4-0 win over the A’s in the nightcap. Both games somewhat miraculously went the full nine.

The Red Sox were able to pound Oakland starter Graham Godfrey for three runs in the first four frames while Boston starter Erik Bedard (4+ IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 4 BB, 5 K) overcame some early difficulties to blank the A’s during his time on the mound. The lefty lasted only 78 pitches though as a one-hour rain delay in the top of the fifth kept him from returning to the contest.

With the 3-0 victory, the Red Sox improved to 6-2 against the A’s in 2011 and moved a full four games ahead of the rival Yankees in the win column, giving the team a two-game lead in the AL East standings. Boston and New York will face each other for a three-game series starting Tuesday.

Here’s what went right and what went wrong in the Red Sox Game 2 win:

WHAT WENT RIGHT

-David Ortiz extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a bang. He smashed a two-run home run in the second inning, his 27th of the season, to open the scoring and extend his team-lead in home runs over Jacoby Ellsbury and Adrian Gonzalez, both of whom have 23 in 2011. The Sox DH added singles in the fourth and eighth inning to finish 5-for-8 on the day with the homer, two doubles, three runs scored and four RBI. Because of the hot day, Ortiz’s batting average now stands at .311, its highest mark since erratic playing time during interleague play caused his average to plummet.

-After Jason Varitek homered in the first game of the doubleheader, Jarrod Saltalamacchia continued to make Saturday a solid day for the Red Sox catching tandem. He singled in his first at-bat and then with the bases loaded in the fourth, Saltalamacchia grounded sharply to first base to score Dustin Pedroia through the backdoor from third. The moment could have been filed under “What went wrong” however went the backstop tried to beat the throw from A’s first baseman Brandon Allen by diving headfirst toward the bag and then was nearly stepped on by the covering Godfrey. In the sixth, he doubled down the right field line to drive in Jed Lowrie for his second RBI of the day.

Since Aug. 19, Saltalamacchia has now driven in eight runs in his last seven games. Read the rest of this entry »

Jason Varitek would tell you his game is based more on working with pitchers, like Saturday's starter Jon Lester, than aiming for the fences. (AP)

He was there because he had clubbed a two-run home run, the only for his team that game, in the second inning of a 9-3 win over the Athletics. He was there because he went 2-for-4 total for the game, just the eighth multi-hit game of the season for him and the first one he had tallied since July 10, and drove in three of the team’s nine runs on the day. He was there for his offense. Emphasis first on the “offense,” second on the “his.”

But when Red Sox catcher and captain Jason Varitek stepped up to the mic on Saturday, rather than have the mics come to him in front of his locker, the veteran had one thing to say.

“Cool.”

See, the seat in the press conference room usually isn’t designated for guys who have been squatting for nine innings. It’s there for the manager to give his pre- and post-game thoughts and for that night’s starting pitcher to break down his latest outing.

However on Saturday with the weather causing the Red Sox to quickly prepare for the second game of a doubleheader, the team decided to bring Varitek to the press instead of the other way around.

So how did Varitek handle his more stately press accommodations with all the media cameras and recorders in Fenway Park pointed his way?

He chose to deflect the attention.

The man who bears the C on his jersey said no more than three sentences about his home run – the big event that caused him to be the center of attention in the first place – even though it was his ninth home run of the season, a solid number for a player considered to be a second catcher on his team’s roster. They were as follows.

“I hit it pretty good. The kind of balls that are hit in that direction tail off and head left toward the corner. I hit it good.”

When asked about his personal goals and if his .234 average, nine homers and 26 RBI, all of which would represent his best numbers since being relegated to essentially backup status in 2010, met those goals, Varitek would have none of that talk.

“I have team goals, I always have,” he said. “What happens from there, there’s so many elements in the game that you’re trying to do. I try not to spend too much time worrying about that stuff.” Read the rest of this entry »