Official 2009 Red Sox Homer Thread

[wilheim]

Josh Beckett wins 100th career victory with a 3 hit complete game shutout.

BOSTON (AP)—Josh Beckett capped a brilliant first half of the season with a three-hitter, joining teammate Tim Wakefield as the only 11-game winners in the AL and helping the Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals 6-0 on Sunday.

Beckett (11-3) retired the first nine batters, five on strikeouts, and picked up his 100th career victory. It was his second shutout and complete game of the season following his 3-0 win over Atlanta on June 20.

He finished with seven strikeouts and no walks and threw just 94 pitches. It was a fitting end to a stretch in which he went 9-1 with a 2.14 ERA after struggling at 2-2 with a 7.22 ERA through April.

Bruce Chen (0-4) and five Royals relievers walked nine batters.

Associated Press.

Boston ended the first half of the season with an AL best 54-34 record and two and a half game lead over the Yankees who are playing the Angels on the coast which will change the Boston lead to either a 2 game or 3 game AL East Division lead depending upon the result of the 4-1 Angels leading game now in the 6th inning in Anaheim..

Beckett tossed his fourth career shutout, it was his second this season. He threw nine innings, gave up just three hits while striking out seven and no walks to pick up his 11th win this season and the 100th win of his career. Beckett is 9-2 in his last 11 starts. Jason Bay reached base 5 times today without a hit - 3 walks and 2 HBP. Bay is the first Red Sox player to reach base five times without recording a hit since Ted Williams on May 23, 1951, vs. the St. Louis Browns -- five walks for Teddy Ballgame. ...

Clay Buchholz will start for the Red Sox Friday night against the Blue Jays, the team's first game after the All-Star break, Sox manager Terry Francona announced after this afternoon's game at Fenway Park. With two Red Sox starters in the All-Star Game (Tim Wakefield and Josh Beckett), Francona said the plan is for Buchholz to make just one start with the big club.

After Buchholz's start Friday, the rotation will continue with Brad Penny, Jon Lester, John Smoltz, Beckett, and Wakefield. Buchholz is 7-1 with a 2.11 ERA in 15 starts this season for Pawtucket.

The Red Sox honored the late Dom DiMaggio on Sunday afternoon in a pregame ceremony at Fenway Park.


A dedication in center field included the raising of a flag bearing DiMaggio's name. His widow, Emily, threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

A seven-time All-Star center fielder who spent his entire career with Boston (1940-42, '46-53), DiMaggio passed away on May 8 at the age of 92.

DiMaggio's stint with the Sox was put on hold following the 1942 season, when he left the team to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After missing three seasons (1943-45), he returned to the Red Sox in '46.
The Sox planned to honor DiMaggio at Fenway this season before learning of his death.
"He was such a great man," principal owner John W. Henry said on the day of DiMaggio's passing. "I spoke with him just less than a month ago about what we were going to be doing here. We were going to honor him. It's so tragic that he isn't going to see that. He was a great part of this organization."

wil.

 

[wilheim]

Factoids

The Red Sox won four of their last five games to improve to 54-34, their fifth-best record at the All-Star break since 1954. They’ve held at least a share of first place in the AL East since June 9.

Beckett allowed two runs or less for the ninth time in 11 starts and is 6-0 in nine home starts this year.

Red Sox starters have allowed three runs or less in each of the last six games.

Jacoby Ellsbury became the second Red Sox player with at least 40 stolen bases in two or more seasons. HOFer Tris Speaker did it three times from 1912-14.

The Sox closed baseball’s ceremonial first half not only with the AL’s best record at 54-34, but also with the AL’s best run differential at plus-84.

AL East AllStar Break Standings:

Team W L Pct GB
Boston 54 34 .614 -
New York 51 37 .580 3
Tampa Bay 48 41 .539 6.5
Toronto 44 46 .489 11
Baltimore 40 48 .455 14



wil.

 

[Mr.Smith]

Beckett 11 wins


I have Beckett at 25-1 to have the most wins this year. I got action.

 

[Mr.Smith]

BoSox pitching prospect gets shot at shortstop

By Jeff Passan



ST. LOUIS – Casey Kelly threw his last pitch of the season Sunday night. He is one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, and he is perfectly healthy, so if none of this makes sense, understand that little about Kelly’s young career does.

The Boston Red Sox are undertaking a grand experiment in their handling of Kelly, one that could change how teams guide young players who show exceptional talent as a pitcher and everyday player. Kelly is a shortstop, too, a potentially dynamic one, and given his druthers, he’d play there full-time.

And when Boston chose him with the 30th overall selection in the 2008 draft, Kelly said he would turn down a scholarship to play quarterback at the University of Tennessee and sign with the Red Sox under one condition: He gets to play shortstop, even though the Red Sox – and almost every other team – viewed him as a potential top-of-the-rotation pitcher. So Boston offered a compromise: play shortstop in 2008, then pitch the first half of 2009 before returning to shortstop in the second half.

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The novelty appealed to Kelly. If he couldn’t be the next Babe Ruth, two-way phenomenon, he’d settle for a modern-day facsimile. Then he went out and put up a 2.08 earned-run average over 95 innings at two levels of Class A, and thus the reality that the Red Sox are shutting down perhaps the best arm in a system loaded with good ones.
“I mean, I’ve had a lot of success pitching,” Kelly said before the All-Star Futures Game, where he pitched a scoreless sixth inning for the U.S. in a 7-5 loss to the World team. “It’s kind of crazy. I want to play shortstop, but should I?”

For Kelly, that’s a familiar question: Should he? Should he go to Tennessee and possibly quarterback the Volunteers in front of 100,000 fans at Neyland Stadium, or should he follow the lead of his father, former major league catcher Pat Kelly, and join an organization that churns out homegrown players like widgets? Should he go for immediate glory or immediate money?

Head and heart both said baseball, and the Red Sox handed him a $3 million bonus, spread over five years because he’s a two-sport athlete. This time, they’re in conflict. His heart is at shortstop. He loathes time between starts. Charting pitches bores him. He wants action. His head knows that a nearly 5-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio could get him to the major leagues by his 20th birthday.

“Nineteen-year-olds just don’t do this,” Red Sox farm director Mike Hazen said. “He’s certainly surpassed our expectations. Our scouting staff had him nailed as a pitcher. They were raving about him.”

Because of the plan, the Red Sox deviated from their usual innings limits with Kelly. They stretched him to six and seven innings per start, first at low Class A Greenville (where he dominated with a 1.12 ERA) and then at high A Salem (where he has a 3.09 ERA – which drops to below 2.00 if you subtract his one poor start).

In his second start at Salem, Kelly threw six perfect innings. It wasn’t just the domination or six strikeouts that impressed the Red Sox. Kelly needed only 60 pitches to seat 18 hitters, the kind of performance that left observers wondering: This kid wants to be a shortstop?

“I don’t think he was surprised by his success,” Pat said. “He was surprised by everyone’s reaction to it. His brother [Chris, a minor league pitcher] would text him and say, ‘It’s not that easy.’ Casey would text him back and say, ‘Yes it is. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for everyone else.’ “
Such ease complicates Kelly’s decision. He wants to play for the Red Sox. If his right arm takes him there, he wouldn’t dare deny it. Though he’d always wonder if an extra year or two hitting might have helped grow him into a top-flight shortstop.

“Nineteen years old, and I’m trying to predict what I’m going to do for the rest of my life,” Kelly said. “The decision’s going to be made for me by the performance. It’ll stand out which is the best. With the football-baseball thing, it was the same thing. And there’s no wrong choice.”
Kelly’s father, now managing a Gulf Coast League affiliate for Cincinnati, says, unequivocally, “He’s a better position player than a pitcher.” Scouts are almost universal in their disagreement. They love his athleticism at 6-foot-3, 194 pounds, and his glove, and his makeup and attitude. They just wonder about his bat. In 98 rookie-ball at-bats last season, Kelly struck out 34 times. Then he thrived in a promotion to short-season Lowell, piping another layer of ambiguity atop many others.

“There’s so much value in both positions,” Hazen said. “A [No.] 1 or 2 starter or an everyday shortstop – how can you decide? I don’t think anyone presupposes having answers here. When we sat down to map it out, we said we’d take it year to year, and this offseason I think we’re going to have a few meetings.”

Should Kelly thrive, the meetings could grow contentious. Baseball hasn’t seen a true two-way player since Brooks Kieschnick was a relief pitcher/pinch hitter for Milwaukee five years ago. Others tried. Pittsburgh’s John Van Benschoten(notes) experiment ended miserably. Dave Stieb played outfield every day and started every fifth in the minor leagues before staying a pitcher for good. Ken Brett did a little hitting in 1974, Willie Smith a little pitching a decade earlier and Ruth, of course, was downright dominant until the Yankees made him a full-time hitter and watched him crank 54 home runs in his first season with no pitching duties.

Kelly looks at the first half like a football season. He played about once a week. He asked the Red Sox, jokingly, whether he could pinch hit in an extra-innings game. (No.) He took batting practice twice a week.
“And it’s gone surprisingly good,” Kelly said. “I haven’t missed a beat.”
So he’s off to the Red Sox’s spring training complex in Florida for a week to take hundreds of ground balls and swings before shipping back out. He might go to Lowell. He might go to Greenville. Doesn’t really matter.
The experiment is about to get even more interesting.

 

[RobFunk]

I really hope they don't deal Casey Kelly for some veteran. The Sox will be in great great shape for years and years to come if they start holding on to their top farm players.

 

[Mr.Smith]

Red Sox +160 vs Yankees tomorrow

obviously some attempt at humor by the oddsmakers

 

[barman]

Never fear, my Texas brutha....The Yanks below average pitching will be their doom.

It's Rays and Sox again this season with NYY sitting home in October

FEAR, my Texas brutha....The Sox starters are down to two of significance and the batting order is five (at most) decent hitters and four other guys who would struggle to start for at least half the teams in MLB.

It's Rays and Yankees this season and the Sox will fade and find themselves sitting home in October.

:toast:

 

[barman]

Red Sox +160 vs Yankees tomorrow

obviously some attempt at humor by the oddsmakers

Yeah...Smoltz's 7+ ERA should likely baffle the Yankee hitters

:drink:

 

[Mr.Smith]

Any rime you get a big dog between these teams its worth a good look. These teams tend to match up evenly from year to year and dogs have done well. its always some starting pitching mismatch looking thing, but that is overrated. bet the dog and hope they have at least a tie thru 5, from then on you have a coin flip, but with a big dog price

in this case, the pitching matchup is really overblown because while Smoltz has not been good, he is much better than his current ERA. yankees are very square bet tomorrow at that price. red sox very good bet

 

[barman]

In their past 20 H2H, the Dog has won eight times. When the favorite price was -150 or higher though, it's 2 dog wins and 2 fave wins

 

[Betallsports]

Save your money tomorrow, the Yanks win.

The Yanks are a Whole other Team since the All-Star break, Yanks 14-5 since then.

 

[Mr.Smith]

piled on at +185. going to be my biggest bet in a while

obvious great bet, now lets get em.

oh its +190 now. LOL. people are really bad at betting. maybe it will hit 200? Ill add more later. going to be a game I could use. shovel bet

 

[Betallsports]

:cripwalk:

 

[barman]

piled on at +185. going to be my biggest bet in a while

obvious great bet, now lets get em.

 

[kidslick]

bet them tomorrow

mr smith


easy money

 

[Betallsports]

:cripwalk::cripwalk:- 0

 

[Betallsports]

:grandmais