Is it possible for John Lackey to whine any more than this? From Amy Nelson's
ESPN column...
"We are way better than they are. We lost to a team not as good as us...[On Sunday] they scored on a pop fly they called a hit, which is a joke," said Lackey, referring to a popup that was misplayed into three runs. "[On Monday], they score on a broken-bat ground ball and a fly ball anywhere else in America [except in Fenway Park]. And [Pedroia's] fist-pumping on second like he did something great."
A few points for Mr. Lackey:
1) Your regular reason record was better than the Sox's record. Kudos to you on that one. But saying you lost to a team not as good as you is possibly the whiniest thing I've ever heard from an athlete. You were outplayed in pretty much every facet of the game. It doesn't matter that you guys had a chance to win every one of the three games you lost. It matters that you
didn't win any of those three games. And you were the starting pitcher in two of those games. Yeah, you pitched well. But you didn't pitch better than Jon Lester. The thing is, your boys had their chances to give you some run support, especially in Monday night's game. They stranded two runners in both the second and third innings, then again in the fifth. Every time, Lester wriggled out of the jam, aided in large part by the complete ineffectiveness of the hitters on your team.
2) The "joke" about the pop fly on Sunday was your defense's inability to field a routine pop-up. The Red Sox didn't call it a hit, the official scorer did, but who cares if that was the ruling? Your defense sucked big-time, but you won that game anyway. What's your point?
3) "A broken-bat ground ball and a fly ball anywhere else in America." That's exactly how the Red Sox scored. The broken-bat ground ball was bobbled by your second baseman, which led to the first run. That's probably Boston's fault, though. But think about it: your team was playing in the same park, right? So perhaps they could have taken advantage of the dimensions of Fenway the same way the Red Sox did. The hits would have counted if the Angels had hit one off the wall, too. But your guys couldn't even manage that. Your team blew it when it mattered most. Your team was 8-40 with RISP in the series. Your coach called a squeeze in the ninth, and the batter at the plate couldn't get the bunt down, so your runner at third was tagged out. That would have happened anywhere else in America, too, don't you think?
4) Pedroia
did do something great. He came through with a runner in scoring position. I can understand how that might be a foreign concept to you, given that your team couldn't manage much of that in the four games. Would you be asking the umps to not allow a run that your team scored, just because the hit that drove it in happened to bounce off the Green Monster? Doubtful. Pedroia was excited because, regardless of where and how it happened, his team scored two runs off of you in that inning. They don't give style points in this game, sir. The rules say the run counts the same whether you hit it over the wall or just push a guy across the plate on a broken-bat hit. In the end, what matters is the final score. And in this case, it said 3-2, Red Sox.
When the playoffs started, I secretly thought the Dodgers had a better chance of advancing than the Red Sox did, a fact my
Angels/Cubs World Series prediction only partially indicates. I just wasn't sure, with all the injuries, and facing a tough Angels' team, that the Red Sox would be able to pull it off, yet again. But they did, didn't they? They were 1-8 against the Angels in the regular season, but 3-1 against them when it mattered most. I'll take those numbers any year.
How about Jon Lester? The kid is nails, and with Josh Beckett seemingly not quite up to ace status so far this postseason, Lester has really filled the role admirably. In fourteen innings so far in the playoffs, he has allowed ten hits, three walks, and one run (zero earned), while striking out eleven. He has pitched out of trouble when necessary, but in most of those innings, he never let the trouble begin. He never let an Angels' leadoff man reach base. Let me just say that again:
no Angels' leadoff hitter, in any inning, ever got on base. Fourteen up, fourteen down. That's insane, especially because the Angels pride themselves on their "small ball" capabilities. Get a guy on, get him over, and drive him home. That's harder to do when the first guy in the inning is a sure out, and that's why Lester's handling of the leadoff hitters in this series may be the most important thing to look at when judging his performance.
The Angels have tough pitchers. No one expected the Red Sox to score a bunch of runs, particularly with parts of the offense in doubt thanks to current injuries (Mike Lowell) and injuries in the recent past (David Ortiz). These were not hugely offensive games. Game One was 2-1 until the Sox tacked on two more in the ninth. Game Two is the exception, with the Sox getting a two-run shot in the ninth to make it 7-5. Game three was a nail-biter that lasted twelve innings, and the Sox lost 5-4. And Game Four was a 2-0 lead until the eighth, and the Sox scored in the bottom of the ninth to win 3-2.
But the Red Sox scored when they needed to. And despite Lackey's proclamations, the Red Sox did not get lucky with broken-bat bleeders in every game. In the first game, with a 1-0 lead, Lackey himself left a fastball up in the zone, and Jason Bay did not miss. In the second game, the Sox jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning, then saw the Angels tie the game at five, then got Francisco Rodriguez to give up a two-run shot off the bat of J.D. Drew to make it 7-5, Sox. In game three, yes, the Sox got lucky with a bloop that should have been caught by someone on the Angels. Boston should have lost that game in nine innings, instead of twelve, but they lost nonetheless.
So, really, the only game the Angels won was one they almost gave away anyway. Without that Ellsbury three-run pop-up, the Angels win that game 4-1 in nine innings. With the shoddy defense, everyone had to stay up late watching twelve innings of baseball. But in Game Four, against a very good pitcher, the Sox found a way to get it done.
In the ninth inning, Kotsay missed a double on a screaming liner only because of a spectacular play by Mark Teixiera. Then Jason Bay lost out on a triple (or possibly inside-the-park home run) because the ball took a bounce into the seats. He settled for a one-out double. But if Willits hadn't slid for a ball he never had a chance to catch, he keeps that in front of him and there's a good chance Bay has to stay at first with a single. Regardless, Lowrie came up next. Lowrie, who had struck out on three consecutive curveballs against Scot Shields on Sunday night. So Lowrie was looking for that curve. He got it on the first pitch, and hit it just well enough to scoot it past Howie Kendrick (who was probably playing too far in on the dirt anyway) into right field, allowing Jason Bay to score from second.
The Angels hurt themselves a lot in this series, but the measure of a good team is their ability to take advantage of the opponent's mistakes. The Red Sox did that. That, along with the series victory that means they'll keep playing baseball, instead of golf, this October, makes them the better team.
Just some food for thought, Lackey.
