Kuzul

One sensed that the Boston Red Sox would emerge from their awful slump in April, but it was hard to foresee their hitting would get so good so fast.

In recent days, a majority of the Red Sox lineup has belted the ball, and that has included Carl Crawford.  It has been impressive for several reasons, but, I’ve been most struck by the following hitting-related developments:

Adrian Gonzalez has been even better than I imagined.  He’s batting .338 with 44 RBI and 72 hits as of May 28th. He hits for power and contact.  He has a great eye and draws walks.  He’s a very smart hitter and always seems to be attempting to guess what the pitcher will throw him next.  He makes adjustments.  He watches the ball until the last possible instant, allowing him to hit the ball hard to the opposite field as well as any hitter in baseball.  Plus, he’s displayed outstanding fielding skills at first base. 

What else can I say about Gonzo?  He’s as large a presence in the Sox lineup as anyone I can remember.  I put him on a very short list that includes Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Jim Rice in the late 1970s and Yaz in 1967; I always stop what I’m doing to watch Gonzo’s at-bats.  Don’t you?

Speaking of Ortiz, how in the world has Big Papi gotten substantially better at the plate since last year?  Ortiz is watching the ball longer before he swings. (following Gonzo’s lead, perhaps?) He’s much more selective at the plate, taking bad pitches and swinging at strikes more. 

Ortiz is hitting the ball the other way much better than he has in the past couple of years.  He has stopped trying to pull so many pitches and is grounding out less than before.  He’s hitting lefties much better—which is a sign of his watching pitches better.  What an unexpected bonus to see Big Papi hitting this well in the No. 5 hole!

Jacoby Ellsbury has proven me wrong so far, I’m glad to say.  I had noted his shortcomings before the 2011 season and even proposed trading him, partly due to his limited hitting skills.  Well, I have to admit Ellsbury is doing a few key things I doubted he could.  He’s batting .299 with 27 RBI from the leadoff position. 

He’s watching the ball longer, it seems, and just making better contact this season.  He’s hitting a lot of low line drives to left and center field—a sign that he’s going with the pitch and “seeing the ball” well.  Plus, Ellsbury has hit a surprising six home runs already in 2011.  (His 18 stolen bases haven’t hurt, either)

Then, there is the unusual case of Crawford, who started in nightmarish fashion, but recently, seems to finally be more relaxed at the plate.  Crawford was pressing so badly that he couldn’t seem to wait on pitches.  He swung awkwardly and late at any well-placed fastballs and breaking pitches.  Then, he seemed to regain a little confidence with his “walk-off” hits, and in the past few days, for the first time, he really resembles the dangerous Carl Crawford on the Tampa Bay Rays. 

He’s much looser at the plate, watching the ball longer.  His home run in his second at-bat vs. the Detroit Tigers on May 27th typified his improvements.  First, Crawford worked the count—something he was not doing earlier in the season.  Then, on the pitch he hit out, he adjusted at the last instant, suddenly pulling the ball on a line into the right-field seats.  Again, until recently, Crawford wasn’t waiting on pitches long enough to do that.

Kevin Youkilis started to hit much better in May.  No surprise there as he’s been so steadily good in the past few years.

Jed Lowrie has proved he’s a good hitter, especially hitting right-handed.  He carried the team a few games when he was on fire. 

Jarrod Saltalamacchia has begun to hit well, belting several home runs in a string of recent games.  He, like Crawford, just looks more relaxed at the plate and more likely to make contact.

It’s interesting, but it seems that within a few weeks, a handful of hitters on the Red Sox all began to keep their eye on the ball longer.  It was as if Gonzalez had set an example for the others.  During the May 28th, “The Baseball Show,” on Comcast SportsNet, Lou Merloni said he thought Gonzalez had helped Ortiz at the plate.   He commented that Ortiz has never been able to discuss hitting and compare notes with another left-handed slugger like he has with Gonzo. If this is true, let’s hope it continues.

Baseball observers wisely point out that teams are never as bad as they appear when they’re struggling  or as good as they seem when they’re on a roll. The 2011 Red Sox have already played very poorly for a stretch and very well in their recent streak.  Who knows how they’ll hold up over time?  But, at least, now, we know what this 2011 team is capable of, and it’s much, much easier to project them being in contention and making the playoffs.

And, Dustin Pedroia and J.D. Drew have not even begun to hit much yet. 

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Everybody is talking about John Lackey‘s recent struggles on the mound, but few have analyzed how and why this guy’s pitching has declined before our eyes since he joined the Boston Red Sox.

Perhaps the largest factor, in my view, is that Lackey, for unknown reasons, lost his effective fastball after he left the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. 

It sounds too simple to make sense, but I’m telling you that when Lackey last pitched for the Angels in the ’09 playoffs, he had an excellent, moving fastball. When he made his first few starts for the Red Sox in 2010 though, his fastball was not the same. 

The question is: Can Lackey somehow get a little more velocity and zip back on his fastball? 

It’s not an easy thing for a pitcher to revive a fastball, but Lackey must do that to return to anything close to his earlier form as an Angel. If he cannot improve his fastball, it’s hard to imagine him improving much, and it’s easy to imagine him continuing to struggle for as long as the Red Sox are willing to pay him for the rest of his five-year $82.5 million contract. 

Most pitchers need a good fastball. Lackey desperately needs one right now. 

That’s why Lackey’s ongoing problems in 2011 are so troubling: During most of his starts this year, his fastball has looked more like it did in 2010 than it did in ’09.

Any observers have noticed that for much of 2010 and so far this season, Lackey has become more of a breaking ball pitcher. He throws his curve all the time, even when it is not really sharp. It seems like he’s afraid to throw his heater, and one can understand that after seeing batters find it so easy to hit. 

Witness the “meatball” fastball Lackey served to John McDonald of the Toronto Blue Jays in the fourth inning of his last start. McDonald hit it for a home run. Frankly, the pitch was so bad that it seemed many professional hitters would have tagged it.

Lackey has given up six runs or more in four of his seven starts in 2011. His ERA is now 8.01, one of the highest for all starters in baseball. There are plenty of other depressing stats we don’t have to cite.

What happened to the Lackey who pitched a gem against the Red Sox in the ’09 ALDS—a start in which he shout out the Sox and limited them to four hits over 7 1/3 innings? What about the Lackey who had a no-hitter going against the Red Sox well into a game in ’08? 

Granted, Lackey was never a “shutdown” pitcher like C.C. Sabathia. He’s often allowed hitters to make some contact. However, it seemed Lackey was pitching as well as he ever had during ’08 and ’09. 

How could Lackey go so downhill so quickly?

In a rare, excellent analysis of Lackey’s pitching posted on WEEI.com on May 12, Rob Bradford reported Lackey is throwing his fastball less often this season. He said Lackey throws fastballs 52 percent of the time while he used to throw it closer to 58-60 percent of the time.

For example, Bradford said that when Lackey pitched against the Red Sox in that ’09 ALDS playoff game, he threw 80 four-seam fastballs out of his total of 114 pitches, according to “the PitchFX tool.”

His fastball that night averaged 92.25 miles per hour. During the 2011 season though, Bradford said Lackey’s fastball has averaged 90.27 miles per hour. 

In 2009 and before, Lackey relied on his fastball a lot to complement his outstanding curveball.  Those were the two pitches he used the most and that he relied on to get hitters out. He also used a changeup and slider as secondary pitches. 

At the end of the ’09 season, I posted an item on my Red Sox blog about how Lackey had improved as a pitcher over the previous year or two. I noted his moving fastball and mental toughness on the mound. I noted not only his ’09 ALDS performance against the Sox but also his ’09 ALCS performance against the New York Yankees, when he held the Bombers to three runs over seven innings, even though the Angels didn’t win that game.

I don’t know what happened to Lackey between the end of ’09 and the start of the 2010 season.

Maybe Red Sox pitching coach Curt Young and Lackey should go back and study the details of his mechanics at the end of ’09. 

It feels hard to believe that Lackey could just lose his fastball that quickly. Red Sox fans all hope he can get it back.

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One of the most exciting, positive “unknowns” about the 2011 Boston Red Sox is the combined impact Carl Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury will have on the basepaths. 

Speculation has focused on the Sox’ newly improved hitting lineup and its strong pitching rotation, but, relatively little attention has been given to just how extraordinary it is for a team to have two of the game’s most prolific base stealers on the same side for nine innings.  

The Red Sox have never had a duo who can run this fast, and it’s rare for any team to have two of the game’s best baserunners.  Crawford and Ellsbury will have an obvious potential to increase the team’s run-scoring capacity, but perhaps their influence may go beyond that. 

It’s hard to measure the full impact of a base-stealing threat on opposing pitchers and the outcome of a game.  Yet, for one example, Red Sox fans grew painfully familiar with the undeniable impact Crawford’s speed had on many Sox-Rays games in recent years.  When he got on base, he distracted many Sox pitchers, contributed to many Rays’ rallies and was a “game-changer.”  (Remember when Crawford stole a record-tying six bases in one game last season!)

Sox fans have seen the benefit of Ellsbury routinely getting to second-base via a steal and scoring important runs.  Now pitchers will have to worry about both Crawford and Ellsbury on base at the same time.   

Sometimes people overrate base stealing.  I’ve heard Tony Massarotti on his Boston radio show with Michael Felger, “98.5—The Sports Hub” frequently comment that fans tend to exaggerate the significance of base-stealing.  Massarotti has commented that Ellsbury draws disproportionate attention for his steals, but he’s flawed in other areas such as on-base percentage. 

I agree with Massarotti to a large extent, but I think he overlooks one point:  Explosive baserunners like Ellsbury and Crawford can not only distract opposing pitchers but often throw them out of their rhythm and into a bad spurt on the mound.  

That factor can lead to a team scoring a run or two and result in a win.  There is sometimes an intangible, psychological effect that goes with having runners like Crawford or Ellsbury taking a huge lead off first base.  

Ellsbury and Crawford have both put up incredible stats for steals so far in their careers. In 2008, Ellsbury’s first season in the majors, he stole 50 bases.  In 2009, he stole 70 bases—tops in the American League.  He missed most of 2010 due to his rib injuries.  Crawford, the stolen-base champ for four seasons, has stolen 40 or more bases in seven of his eight seasons, and in five of those, he had more than 50 SB.  (Injuries limited his SB total to 25 in 2008.)  He stole 60 in 2009 and 47 last year.  

The last pair of terrific base stealers on the same team were Marquis Grissom and Delino DeShields of the Montreal Expos in 1991 and 1992, according to an article last month by ESPN Boston’s Gordon Edes.  Grissom stole 76 in ’91 and 78 in ’92 while DeShields stole 56 in ’91 and 46 in ’92.  

Only once in the history of both the American League and National League have two teammates stolen 60 or more bases.   Crawford and Ellsbury may not equal that incredible combined total, but they might come close.   Their speed and presence on base could be a difference maker in whether the Red Sox go all the way in 2011.

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Carl Crawford would be a much better leadoff hitter for the 2011 Red Sox than Jacoby Ellsbury.

In fact, the argument is not even close, in my view.

First, Ellsbury has not yet proven himself at leadoff.  He’s been average at best.  He’s had one good year as a hitter in the big leagues.  Even in that year, I’d argue, he lacked the specific skills you want in at the top of your lineup.

Your leadoff man should be an outstanding “contact hitter” and should draw some walks – period.  Ellsbury does neither very well.  Many top-of-the-rotation pitchers can find ways to get Ellsbury out quite easily.  While he hits fastballs fairly well, Ellsbury gets fooled a lot by breaking pitches.  Ellsbury still lacks patience at the plate.  He does not keep his eye on the ball all the way to his bat.   

Crawford, on the other hand, has displayed more versatile hitting skills for a longer time.  He’s shown he can hit in most situations and against most pitchers.  He’s comparable to Johnny Damon was at leadoff.  The only serious argument I’ve heard against Crawford batting leadoff is that it’s not his preference, but, apparently, he also said he’d hit in whatever spot he is assigned.  The decision is Terry Francona’s call.

So, why am I even dwelling on who bats leadoff?  Because it makes NO sense to have Ellsbury, with his glaring limitations as a hitter, to cause a drop-off in the entire top of the Sox lineup—particularly with the two new star hitters acquired last winter.  The order of the Sox lineup seems as important as ever for 2011.

If Ellsbury stays at No. 1, it will force Crawford to bat third, and force either Kevin Youkils or Adrian Gonzalez to bat as far down as fifth for the 2011 Red Sox. (Dustin Pedroia should stay in the second spot.  He “fits” there because he makes good contact and will get on base constantly).  Both Youkilis and Gonzalez hit too well to bat fifth in this particular Sox lineup.  There will be a sizaeable drop-off from the No. 5 hitter to David Ortiz, at No. 6, who is likely in his last year in Boston.  Then, you have J.D. Drew, Jarrod Saltalammachia and Marco Scutaro to plug in toward the bottom. 

The Red Sox should want Youkilis and Gonzalez to get as many at-bats as possible and the best way to do that is to put Crawford at leadoff.  Youkilis has been the team’s best hitter in the past few years. He hits for contact and power.  Gonzo obviously is a “stud” power hitter who you also want to get as many at-bats as possible. 

Beyond all this, Crawford can provide the same speed at leadoff that Ellsbury has in the past.  Ellsbury can make a contribution from the ninth spot.  If things don’t work out for Crawford at No. 1 and Jacoby starts belting the ball, Francona can, of course, switch the order.   But, right now, how can any objective baseball observer argue that it’s more important for Ellsbury to get a maximum number of at-bats than Crawford, Youkilis or Gonzalez?

The Red Sox spent millions and millions to get Crawford and Gonzalez.  Now, they should want them at the plate as many times as possible—without Ellsbury, unnecessarily, in their way.

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