Posts Tagged ‘Daniel Bard’
The putting up or shutting up time has come, Josh. Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission.
Don’t you hate blown saves? I hate them myself.
But, honestly, look at Papelbon’s numbers. As someone said to me last night, “Red Sox fans seem mad that he’s not Mariano Rivera while overlooking the fact that NO ONE else is Rivera and their closer is pretty damn good”.
Given, so far, 35 save opportunities, Papelbon has 29 saves under his belt this season. Not one of Paps’ six blown saves was fun to watch but they also don’t indicate that the man can’t do his job. Daniel Bard has had seven opportunities to get a save yet only has three saves. Small sample size, sure, but he hasn’t been “lights out” (using the definition of the people ready to hang Papelbon) either yet folks are ready to crown him tomorrow’s closer today. The fact is, more often than not, when Papelbon takes the mound the game is in the bag for the Red Sox. Sure it would have been great for the Sox to have swept the Jays, but winning the series still keeps them in the hunt. (Before I forget, special thanks to Jere who pointed out to me, for the second time in the comments section, that the teams not MLB decide what time the games will be played. I, apparently, have a blind spot in my brain for remembering!!)
The Papelbon hate, in my mind, is misguided and reactionary. It saddens me when members of the Nation start acting like entitled Yankees fans.
More frustrating than the Sox loss, to me, is this tweet from Jared Carrabis, Red Sox Nation Governor of Massachusetts:
The Red Sox are in third place in the AL East and have more wins than any other first place team in the AL.
All the people whining that this team “isn’t good enough” can stick a sock in it. I know the competition is among the Sox, Yanks and Rays and they have to be better than the Yanks and Rays (or at least much better than just one of them) to get into the playoffs, but the superiority of the American League East, while fun to brag about, hamstrings teams IN the AL East every year. (This is why I’m such a fan of the Wild Card but would prefer a system where the four, six or eight best teams (have to stretch it out so MLB makes their money, I know) went into the playoffs. In what world does it make sense that the best teams don’t get to compete for a championship? Sure it would mean that, most years, the Yankees were in the mix, but the Yankees are a separate issue all their own. (And don’t get me started on the creation of the MLB schedule. Sox get the Rangers this weekend while the Yanks play the Royals and the Rays play the Orioles. The computer, she is a Red Sox hater, plain and simple!)
You’ll all have to excuse me today if I’m not ready to tar and feather Papelbon and if I don’t lament my team not being “better”. I’m enjoying the heck out of this season. Sometimes it’s more fun to wonder what’s coming next than to know every move.
"We Not Me" I love that.
I don’t often say this because I don’t often believe it but as annoyed as I was at the way the game ended last night, the Celtics winning made up for it. Mind you, the Celtics won’t be in the finals in September, so Daniel Bard, you’re on notice. 
How I would love a closer that doesn’t make me want to turn the channel in the ninth and hope for the best. On the other hand, I guess there aren’t that many out there who can pull that off.
Sox just lost two games started by Buchholz and Lester and won two games started by Wakefield and Matsuzaka. This, in my book, is good news. Lester and Buchholz will win more than they will lose this season so getting Wake and Daisuke to start games that end with a “W” is huge. I wanted the series win but I’ll take the split and be done with it.
I apologize in advance to those who don’t follow basketball but in my giddiness about the Celts win, hearing this quote almost made my heart explode with joy: Five foot nine, 180 pound Nate Robinson jumped on the back of six foot eight, 300 pound “Big Baby” Glen Davis while celebrating last night’s win over the Lakers and said of the pair afterward: “We’re like Shrek and Donkey.” You just know t-shirts are being made in preparation for the next game.
Last night Shrek and Donkey and a whole lot of green helped take the sting off of a disappointing loss. I know it doesn’t mean much to Adrian Beltre (he of the 9th inning heroics last night that got erased all too quickly) or any Sox fans out there who aren’t also Celtics fans but I’ll take the sports happiness where I can get it.
Onward and upward. Sox back home this weekend to take on the Phillies. I keep reading/hearing about how lucky we are that the Sox don’t meet up against Roy Halladay (he pitched last night), given that the Sox actually hit pretty decently against him, I’m not convinced that’s such a good thing. Tonight we get John Lackey against Jamie Moyer. The old guy vs the man who just pitches like an old guy (I kid you, John Lackey, I kid).
Mark Wagner knocked in the winning run last night. Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission.
One of my pet peeves with sports writers (and bloggers and people who claim to be sports fans and comment on sports blogs and articles) is not getting a player’s name right. Drives me crazy. If it’s your job to cover the sport, you should know how to spell the names of the people you’re covering. There are plenty of media guides out there to help with this but if you’re media guide-less how about GOOGLE? Takes no time at all to find out how to spell a player’s name.
I bring this up because I have, on occasion, written criticisms here about not only laziness (such as not finding out the proper spelling of a name) but poor editing on the professional sites. I’m on my own – I’m my own editor. Luckily, you all get right on me whenever I mess up and I appreciate it because, as I think I’ve made clear, nothing drives me crazier in writing than it looking bad. Incorrect spelling, improper use of words (can’t tell you how many times I get an emails saying things like “I don’t think you meant to write “It took four ours to play the game”. For me, most mistakes are really just brain cramps (or a result of writing an entry at 3am!) and I appreciate the editing help. Today I found one such example in someone else’s work and instead of it making me cranky it made me laugh.
See, for all my crankiness about these things, last year I did something for at LEAST half the season that I’m not proud of. I kept referring to Daniel Bard as “Josh”. Now last season, Don Orsillo, of all people, admitted on air that didn’t even remember that Josh Bard played for the Red Sox, but I did. At one time he was Bronson Arroyo’s “personal catcher” on the Reds so when the Sox got him it stuck in my head. For good, seemingly, since I even almost called Daniel Bard “Josh” to his face. Now, I know perfectly well the difference between Josh and Daniel Bard but you get a name stuck in your head and it’s tough to shake it. Which is why it amused me that, in his wrap-up of yesterday’s Sox/Twins game, Ian Browne referred to Denard Span as “Chad Span”. Google Chad Spann if the name doesn’t ring a bell. I’m sure more of you haven’t heard of him than have. Spann spent 6 years in the Red Sox system and never made it to the bigs. I saw him play in Portland once and in Pawtucket once but that isn’t the point. The point is, he hasn’t been in the Red Sox organization since 2008, yet he’s still in Ian Browne’s brain. I know Denard Span is quite a different/better player than Chad but sometimes you can’t help a brain fart.
Of course, I would assume there is some kind of editing on the site, no? Someone else could have caught this maybe? On the very few comments left on Browne’s wrap up, he’s being hammered for messing up the name. Had I not experienced the Josh/Daniel Bard confusion myself, I might have been one of those hammerers. So cut Browne some slack. (Quite possibly the last time I write that about a member of the Boston sports media…)
Sox won the first game of the Mayor’s Cup, 2-1, thanks to hits by Dustin Pedroia, Josh Reddick and Mark Wagner. In two innings, Josh Beckett gave up two hits and a run…but let’s not focus on that just yet. First game of Spring Training so he’s allowed.
This afternoon, Chad Spann’s buddy Jon Lester will be on the mound to continue the defending of the Cup over at Hammond Stadium. Today will be the first time Tim Wakefield gets into a game “piggybacking” Lester. We’ll also get a chance to see Mike Cameron. Well, wait, “see” isn’t quite right. The game isn’t being televised nor is it on MLB.tv…Gameday Audio is the only way to get this one (and from the looks of the Red Sox site, we only get the Twins feed).
It’s March 5, folks. On April 4 we get real, live, televised, baseball. Hang in there!
We lost Greg Montalbano in 2009. Kelly O'Connor took this photo of him at the Lowell Spinner's Alumni Dinner in January 2009 (Used with permission)
Just a note of warning: This entry is long and although I want it to be all-encompassing, I’m sure I’ve missed few things. But this is pretty much how I remember 2009!
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2009 was a fairly eventful year for me personally in both the good and bad categories. Sadly more bad than good which is probably why I initially avoided writing any kind of recap for the blog. But while I was writing my recap of the Red Sox decade (and I’ll have that up as soon as I finish it!) I realized I should probably write something about the final year of the decade as well. So here goes.
January: I started blogging at WEEI.com. Looking back on my entries for this month, I’m genuinely surprised I found so much to write about (it didn’t stop new readers from complaining that I was writing “drivel” though. Should have been a sign!). Personal highlights in January: The ongoing Jason Varitek saga, the signing of Rocco Baldelli, Kyle Snyder getting picked up by the Mets, the beginning of the MLB Network and Jim Rice finally gets voted into the Hall of Fame!
February: Bombshell of bombshells for MLB. Selena Roberts exposes Alex Rodriguez as a steroid user. The MLB Network cuts its teeth on this one and, unlike Peter Gammons and ESPN, doesn’t disappoint with their coverage. Unafraid of losing access to the players (again, unlike Peter Gammons or ESPN), they go full throttle on this story and introduce us to their newest addition to the network: Bob Costas. I wrote a lot about MLBN in 2009 and a bit about Sl*ppy. I would have written much less about the two, most likely, had this story not broken. Personal highlights in February: The Caribbean World Series on MLBN (I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it!), Truck Day, pitchers and catchers reporting and Joe Torre’s book about the Yankees.
Chapter 10: The End of the Curse. When asked by Regis Philbin the other day what happened to the Yankees over the past 7 years, Joe responded “The Red Sox happened”. That will go down as possibly my favorite Red Sox/Yankee-related quote ever.
March: I spent a lot of March writing ‘rants’ and pointing folks toward baseball-related Twitter accounts. Must have been resting up for April! Personal highlight in March: The WBC. I spent a lot of time ranting about players getting hurt and how I didn’t care who won only to be totally sucked into it by the end.
April: The beginning of the season! Lots of liveblogging and picking up more WEEI readers (with mixed results!). Personal highlights in April: Going to both Sox/Mets exhibition games at CitiField, attending Opening Day at Fenway and high-fiving JD Drew and Hideki Okajima during their introductions, being at Fenway for the walk-off win against the Yankees, Jacoby Ellsbury stealing home on Andy Pettitte, Tim Wakefield taking a no-hitter into the 8th inning (thus setting the table for his All Star selection), watching Jonathan Van Every pitch while Javier Lopez floundered in right field then eventually getting DFA’d (watched on television, not in person), the Patriots Day game where Luke Scott got all pissy and some idiot fan threw a ball onto the field and “Toeing the Rubber” getting nominated for a New England Sports Blog Award in the category “Best Red Sox Blog”. Relatively speaking, a great month except for one thing that really hit the baseball world hard and made the month miserable: the death of Nick Adenhart.
But I don’t cry because of any personal connection I have to Nick. I don’t cry because a future baseball star is dead. I cry because parents lost a son today. Many people lost a friend. And the world lost someone who could have potentially been great. Not just at baseball but at life. No drunken ass has the right to take that away from us. This doesn’t “put things into perspective” for me. I hate when people say that. I’m forty years old for God’s sake, I’ve seen enough death and tragedy in my life to have proper perspective, thank you. I don’t watch baseball and think that what goes on down on that field is life or death and more important than anything else in my life. I’d argue that most sports fans, even if they act like they have no perspective, have exactly that. Baseball is an outlet to forget about the realities of life for a few hours.
May: Getting to see Daniel Bard’s first Major League appearance (after having seen him pitch in Pawtucket) was very special. Finding out that Jerry Remy was recovering from cancer was sad and a little frightening. Personal highlights in May: Seeing Kyle Snyder with the Bisons at Pawtucket, Javier Lopez signing Steve the Ferret’s “Lopez” jersey (also at Pawtucket), Aubrey Huff fistpumping to Joba Chamberlain, appearing on “The Baseball Show” on Comcast SportsNet, crying (literally crying) over Big Papi’s first home run of the season, getting to meet metsgrrl and “paloozaing” with a huge group of people I love during the Mets/Sox series at Fenway.
Yesterday was an amazing day spent with friends (most of whom I haven’t seen in quite a while or hadn’t met yet!). There are many amazing tales to tell (but not here!) – my favorite being when our friend Susan noted that we could start singing “O Canada” except no one knows the words past “O Canada!”. Standing up and singing loudly and proudly, a group of us proved her wrong. That our serenade didn’t get us thrown out still kind of surprises me.
June: This month brought us the end of interleague play, the end of Jonathan Van Every’s season (thanks to knee surgery), Tim Wakefield hitting ten victories with his torn labrum, John Smoltz making us all wonder why we were so excited to have him on the team while Dusty Brown makes his major league debut. Personal highlights for June: Derek Lowe returning to Fenway with the Braves, Nick Green’s walkoff against those same Braves, sitting in Fenway during a mind-numbing rain delayed game that turned into a loss for the Sox (okay, that one is a lowlight, really) and the Sox capping off 7 wins in a row against the Yankees with an eighth.
Joe Mauer at Fenway in 2008 (Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission)
Over the weekend I uttered a phrase that many have spoken when they feel a player is overrated, especially if that player is being considered for the MVP award. “He isn’t even the MVP on his own team!”
Doesn’t take a psychic to guess that I was referring to Derek Jeter. I was thoroughly convinced that somehow the writers getting the AL Cy Young and Manager of the Year awards right meant that the MVP was absolutely going to Jeter. The idea of Mark Teixeira getting it had, honestly, never crossed my mind. So I was doubly surprised when not only did the writers get it right by giving the award to Joe Mauer, but that they got it even more right by voting for Mark Teixeira over Jeter.
According to Kelly Thesier at mlb.com:
Mauer finished with 327 points, well ahead of Teixeira, who had 225, and Jeter, who had 193. Detroit first baseman Miguel Cabrera, who received the only other first-place vote, was fourth with 171 points.
Special shout-out to Keizo Konishi, the writer from the Seattle chapter of the BBWAA who had the temerity to give Miguel Cabrera his one first-place vote. Every group needs their renegade, Keizo, and this year the BBWAA can look to you to keep the well-held belief that some members of the BBWAA barely follow the sport they cover. Well done.
Mind you, I’m not saying that Mauer HAD to get the vote unanimously, but voting for Cabrera over any of the top three vote-getters is absolutely baffling to me. Cabrera had a really good season, but not first-place MVP voting good (given his competition – yes, even I have to admit that Teixeira and Jeter were pretty damned impressive). Going 0-11 at the end of the season in the White Sox series when the division was on the line…well I’m not sure that’s MVP-worthy right there. You judge a player on his entire season but to be MVP of the league…well isn’t part of that coming up big when your team needs you?
Josh Reddick and Daniel Bard in January 2009 - Photo by Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission
Day one of my three days in Baltimore has been over for a few hours…and I missed it!
KellyJ and I didn’t get to Baltimore (at least not to the hotel) until after 11pm. Yep, we missed the entire first game. Nice to see the fellas won even without us there!
We spent many, many hours in New York on Friday. One of those hours was spent at, of all places, the MLBPA office. KellyJ has a family friend there who showed us great hospitality and sent us on our way with bags of stuff! (Including Dustin Pedroia jerseys for each of us!) It was an unexpected yet welcomed and appreciated surprise. The rest of the time was spent sitting around in traffic. I got up at 3am on Friday. Was on a bus at 6:30am and then a train at 8:50am before I met KellyJ around 10:15am to head to Baltimore. At 1:37am on Saturday morning, I’m still up. An hour and a half longer and it’s an entire 24 hours that I’ve been up – and I still haven’t seen a ball game!
The time at the MLBPA was a lot of fun, though, and honestly worth missing the first game for – especially given we have tickets for the next two.
Received updates galore all the way down on the trades. I’m quite sad to see Justin Masterson go but I AM excited to see Victor Martinez with the Sox. Both Martinez and Manny Delcarmen cried over this trade. Which was a bummer to read about. Hopefully they’re both feeling better about it soon.
I wish Justin a lot of luck. He’s a good guy as well as a good pitcher and I hope he kicks ass in Cleveland (unless he’s pitching against the Sox)l.
I am beyond thrilled that the team still employs the trio of Buchholz, Bowden and Bard. I was really dreading the possibility of any of them leaving the team. Safe, for a little while anyway.
Three player sightings even though we got into town so late. As we got off the elevator in the hotel, Brad Penny was walking through throngs of fans, high fiving them all. He would have high-fived us as well, but Kelly and I were wiped and just wanted to check in and ended up just giving him a “Dude, can you get out of the way so we can get by?” look.
Incidentally, the uniform does not flatter him. Folks think he’s overweight but he looked to be in quite good shape in his civies.
Meeting up with the rest of our friends and having a drink I noticed Marcus McBeth walk into the hotel bar. I’m pretty sure I was the only one in the place who recognized him. He walked to the back of the bar, spoke to someone then turned around and left (both he and the person he spoke to had security or, at least, a type of handler with them). The person he spoke to? Clay Buchholz. We didn’t bother any of the players – it really isn’t my style. I have to admit to being freaked out by the way the fans were acting in the lobby when Penny came in – they cheered him. It just seems odd to me to cheer people as they come into their hotel. Baltimore police and hotel security were threatening to kick folks out who tried to take photos – and they meant it. I wasn’t the one who chose the hotel we’re staying in and I think if I were to choose a hotel, the team hotel wouldn’t be the one. It makes me a bit uncomfortable.
Ah well…it’s going on 2am and I should try to fall asleep before it is 24 hours in a row that I’m awake. Joshua Patrick on the mound Saturday night. A win when I’m actually present for the game would be nice!
