As a Yankee fan in New England, I live in the heart of Red Sox nation, and get to hear about the Red Sox 24/7.  I’ll give you the weekly rundown of what Sox fans are saying right now.

Weekly Record: 5-2

Season Record:  29-23 (4^th place in AL East, 5.5 games back)

Upcoming weekly schedule: 3 vs. Oakland, 3 at Baltimore

Offense

Studs of the week:

Duds of the week: [...]

While the pitching story of the weekend was undoubtedly Roy Halladay’s perfect game, I don’t want what Max Scherzer did on Sunday to slip through the cracks.  Sure Halladay was better, but what Scherzer did was more inconceivable.  In fact, Scherzer became the first player in history to have 14 strikeouts in a performance that lasted less than 6 innings. In baseball history there have only been 6 players to strike out at least 12 guys in less than 6 innings and another 18 who got 11k’s.  Of these 24 total, 14 have happened since the year 2000.  Scherzer on Sunday joined Nolan Ryan as the only 2 time members on this list.

There have been 6 players in history to strike out 14 in six full innings, and again, a lot of this has happened recently, as 4 of them happened in the 00’s.  Maybe in past times these guys would have gone longer than 6 innings and ended up with more k’s, but with stricter pitch counts, many of these guys, including Scherzer, never got the chance to chase 20. [...]

A post over at You Can’t Predict Baseball about Pedro’s ridiculous 2000 season got me to thinking about seeing Pedro in person.  I’ve been to probably 100 major league games in person, but there was no experience like seeing Pedro, in his prime, in person.  The atmosphere was simply electric; there was just a totally different feel in the park when #45 was on the mound.

It was 1999, when he is in the midst of his 1^st AL Cy Young season, and his 2^nd year with the Red Sox.  While he hadn’t won the Cy in 1998 due to struggles down the stretch and a pitching Triple Crown by Roger Clemens, Pedro had already established himself as an event to see. In his first 4 starts in Boston, Pedro pitched 32 innings with a 0.84 ERA, 44 K’s, 7 BB’s, 1 HR and a .404 OPS against.  Sox fans were hooked.  The fans were used to events having watched Clemens himself through the years, but even Clemens at his best couldn’t match Pedro.  The 1998 Pedro was great, but in 1999 he hit a whole new level. [...]

The very lucky Sergio Mitre. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

I think I’m the only person outside Sergio Mitre’s family that really like him. Everyone is always saying how awful he is. Anyway, something about sinkerball pitchers make me swoon. If you take a quick look at The Experience’s line this year, you’ll be pretty surprised at what you see. Sergio Mitre has a 3.13 ERA. Wait, what? That guy? The guy who’s averaged a 5.42 ERA in his career? Yep, it’s true. So let’s take a closer look at Serg and see what’s behind those numbers.

First thing that will pop out here is his K-rate is down slightly and his walks are up slightly. It’s not a big difference from where he was last year, but considering his ERA then was 6.79, it’s a bit surprising. Mitre is never going to be a strikeout pitcher – he forces hitters to slam the ball into the ground. It’s his bread and butter. Last year’s groundball rate was a very nice 59.8%, right around his career totals. This year? It’s down to 49%. Hmmm. That’s odd. How does a groundball pitcher who’s getting less strikeouts, issuing more walks and less groundballs cut his ERA by more than half? [...]

Paul O'Neill, talking to Michael Kay about going back in time and building Saefco Field. Or something like that. Whatever.

It’s hard to be upset when your team scores 8 runs. It generally means the team really came through. And that’s not necessarily untrue in this game, but it does present some still-lingering concerns. Just a few quick notes from tonight’s game.

*Hughes again looked very good overall, which is nice to see after his previous outing. His pitches were razor sharp in the opening frames and he never really got into serious trouble, though he sputtered a bit. He now has a 2.70 ERA and six wins to one loss and with eight strikeouts, he now has a K/9 over nine.

One thing, though: while he may be a guy with great strikeout stuff, it seemed like he was trying to strike out every single batter. It was working really well for a point in time – he struck out the first five batters – but maybe it would be better to elicit some contact here and there. His pitches weren’t as good in the middle parts of the game and his pitch selection became fastball-cutter, fastball-cutter. That’s not necessarily a recipe for success, and it also leaves him susceptible to left-handers (hello, Russell!). The game was very encouraging and he ended well, but he was facing a shitty lineup and he got away from what makes him most effective as a pitcher – mixing his excellent curve ball with his plus fastball and plus cutter. I don’t want to sound like a negative Nancy, but it wasn’t perfect. He’s a young starter with a world of potential, so maybe it’s not a bad thing that he has some things to work on.

Maybe one day he’ll start throwing changeups, too? (The team lied to us. Phil’s changeup is absolutely not the reason he won the 5th starter’s role.) [...]

Rasheed Wallace's light switch: Break glass in case of playoffs

Every year, in almost every sport we hear about how a struggling team is just waiting to “flip the switch” late in the season and in the playoffs.  This, 99% of the time is total bullshit.  For the most part, these switches never get flipped, and the team faces an early exit in the playoffs.  While it appears the Celtics have flipped the switch, I’m not so sure I buy it.

This Celtics team is clearly not the same team that struggled through the regular season.  After a dynamite start, they were a roughly .500 team after Christmas.  Now they look unstoppable.  Why is this, what happened to this team if it wasn’t the switch being turned on?

For one thing, Rajon Rondo has established himself as arguably the best Celtic, and definitely the most important Celtic.  While I think the Big 3 will acknowledge that now, it didn’t come easily.  Here you have 3 future Hall of Famers who have already delivered a title, and a cocky kid like Rondo seemed to want a bigger piece credithe  pie, so to speak.  Rondo’s cockiness is part of what makes him great, but he’s been known to piss of teammates, coaches and opponents on a regular basis.  He wasn’t going to be given control of this team, but that wasn’t going to stop him from taking it, however possible.  I certainly don’t think that’s what the Big 3 wanted, and it was a season long struggle to arrive where we are now.  This team revolves around Rajon Rondo, and at this point there is no denying it.

Another factor in this “new” Celtics team is health.  Kevin Garnett, with a ton of miles on his knees was playing on one leg all year.  After coming back from a serious (and rare) surgery, Garnett was a shell of his former self.  While he’ll never get back to where he was, his energy and play has been night and day compared to the majority of the regular season.  Paul Pierce, while he didn’t miss time, was beat up all year and his play often suffered.  He appears to be healthy, and after a down series against Cleveland going up against Lebron, Pierce is back to the form that made him a Finals MVP two years ago.

Rasheed Wallace.  Well, Rasheed himself flipped the switch, no doubt about it.  Hell, he even admitted it recently in an interview.  I was excited about the Rasheed signing at the time, but I quickly (like 2 minutes into his first appearance) soured on him.  He never ventured inside either 3 point line and was carrying a D-Cup in his jersey. Even in February and March, we kept hearing about how Sheed was still working on getting into game shape.  What veteran leadership.  True to his word though, Sheed has flipped his own switch and has played his role perfectly in the playoffs. [...]

Yay? Nay?

Update: Aside from a nice banner sometime later this month, this is M&A’s new look. What do you think? An improvement?

Hey M&A readers,

Don’t get me wrong — I like the theme we have here. It’s a nice magazine style and it more or less captures the eye. However, I’m not sure it’s well suited for what myself, Steve and our friends and contributors are trying to do here. It seems needlessly busy and having the posts require a click to read 90 +% of the content is silly for a sports blog. It’s just not user-friendly.

So we’re going to be heading in a new direction with a sleek, clean theme that will solve those existing programs. There may be some site construction over the next few days as I test out a few things. Thanks for all your patience. And if any of you are interested in designing a banner for us, let us know. We pay! No really!

Two Twins before batting practice.

As I wrote a few hours ago, I did an inning-by-inning live analysis of last Sunday’s game of the Yankees v Mets. That game was awful. It was like watching the most gorgeous girl you’ve ever seen tell you off and then proceed to get down and dirty with some sort of farm animal. You’re upset because you felt personally slighted and then have the indignity of watching some vile act most thought were illegal even in former Soviet Bloc countries.

In my drunken stupor, I vowed to not do it again. Suffering through that game was bad enough, but writing about every at bat and documenting my seething rage was just the cherry on the creme poope. But you know what? I figured I’d give it another go. If nothing else it will be therapeutic to look back on the things I wrote in May and say to myself, “Wow, I sound like some short-sighted idiot on LoHud or an ESPN.com commenting board.”

So here we go, kids. Game 47. Javy versus one of the Twins pitchers that is completely like two other starting Twins pitchers — non-descript white dude with average stuff that doesn’t throw balls and keeps the baseball on the ground. Might be Baker, could be Blackburn or maybe Slowey. They’re all the same to me. The internet tells me it’s Nick Blackburn. Cool. He’s K’d 2.50 batters per nine innings. He’s never been a strikeout pitcher but really? Less than three per nine? How is that even possible? He’s also thrown 2.17 walks per nine and is sporting an ERA of 4.50 and his xFIP is 5.10. I like our chances against a guy like this.

Facing him is Javy Vazquez, who’s apparently facing no ill effects from an injury to his hand sustained coincidentally enough, last Sunday against the Mets. He feels great and is looking to move toward three straight excellent starts. It would still be nice to see him get his fastball up a tick or so, but he’s mixing his pitches better, spotting the ball effectively and has just mowed down hitters. [...]