Boston Globe:

Josh Beckett appears to be progressing toward full health, but team sources confirmed that the Red Sox pitcher required an injection of a painkiller and anti-inflammatory medication after injuring his right oblique during a bullpen session at Fenway Park on the final weekend of the regular season.

Though Sox officials downplayed the severity of Beckett's injury at the time, the fact that he had an injection suggests the ailment was more severe.

So far in the postseason, Beckett has allowed 12 runs, 23 baserunners, and five homers in 9.1 innings. His strike rate is down from 66% to 58%. His swinging strike rate is down from 8.7% to 5.5%. His line drive rate has doubled. His velocity is down ~2-3mph on every pitch and he's thrown exactly one fastball at or above 95. The Red Sox have lost both of his starts.

Josh Beckett isn't right. I think that much is plainly obvious even if you're just watching him and not looking at the numbers. His fastball doesn't have the same zip, his curveball doesn't have the same snap, and he doesn't have the usual command of his pitches that we've come to expect from one of the better starters in baseball. He's a shell of what he normally is, and hitters have taken liberal advantage.

I'm not going to call the Red Sox out for letting him pitch. They had no way of knowing how he would respond to the injury and subsequent injection, and in that scenario you can't just blindly sit your best starting pitcher. Not that Beckett would've let them do that anyway. Not in the playoffs. That just isn't realistic.

But now the Red Sox have a sample size of two lousy starts in which Beckett hasn't looked anything like his normal self. At this point - assuming Beckett doesn't magically heal overnight - they'd better be extra cautious. If Beckett gets another start or three (and I guess there's no guarantee that he does), the dugout needs to keep a close eye on him, because if he's laboring, then he's not doing the team any good, and he's actively hurting their odds of winning a championship. This version of Josh Beckett is bad. He's a bad pitcher. And leaving him out there to throw 93 bad pitches against a Tampa Bay order that's lighting him up certainly didn't go very well. Francona and company can't allow that to happen again. They need to be quicker on the horn if Beckett doesn't shape up.

In an ideal world, if Beckett's oblique is bothering him and preventing him from pitching at 100%, he would come forward and admit to it. Maybe even talk himself out of a start if he feels he can't help the team. But since we can't expect that to happen at this time of year, it's up to the coaching staff to determine how best to use him (if there's a next time). And that presumably means getting him out of the game earlier if he starts doing this again. I can't speak to Terry Francona's mindset, so I don't know his feelings on the matter, but I can't imagine that staying on a starter's good side is a higher priority than winning the Series. And right now the former is actively harming the chances of the latter.

Pitchers. Coaching would be so much easier if athletes were honest.

Jeff's brought it up already in some other forms, but it got me to thinking. If I wanted to make a comprehensive list of all the positive or semi-positive things about this year, what would it look like?

1. Raul Ibanez continues to hit *
2. Jose Lopez rejuvenation at the plate **
3. Ichiro shows no sign of slowing down ***
4. Adrian Beltre hit lots of line drives and played very fine defense ****
5. Willie Bloomquist's insane walk rates *****
6. Erik Bedard's first PA to Ian Kinsler ******
7. R.A. Dickey the reliever was pretty effective and fun to watch. ******
8. Arthur Rhodes was decent enough to net us Gaby Hernandez at the deadline. ********
9. Sean Green continues to be a valuable piece out of the bullpen *********
   
10. Brandon Morrow is awesome in relief and awesome in his debut start **********
11. Roy Corcoran comes out of nowhere to become our most valuable reliever. ***********
    
12. Felix Hernandez hit a grand slam off Johan Santana. ***********

Continue reading this post »

This started as a game recap to take place of Jeff's usual recap and then I just kept going on my first bullet point to the extent that it morphed into its own feature-length post

Miguel Batista took the mound last night and immediately showed his renewed health by tossing fastballs in the high 80s. Last season, 14.9% of Miguel Batista's pitches had a start speed of 93 mph or higher. This season that number is down to 9.2%. Combined with his always troubling walk rates, Miguel Batista is either finished or injured (could be both) but one thing for sure is that for now he is ineffective.

Mike Blowers brought up the matter in question on the post-game, calling Batista's continued pitching through adversity a good quality, one which is to be admired. He even named Batista as the star performer last night over someone more qualified (Beltre, Ichiro). To add to our dead horse pile here on Lookout Landing, this is total frak. Personally, I think it's a byproduct of trying to cross-apply traits from other sports to baseball. Gritting it through injury can be beneficial in more team-dependent sports where such behaviour can inspire teammates to give more effort. In a sport like football (either one) or hockey, that's useful because effort actually means something. In baseball? It's highly marginalized.

Furthermore, as Jeff has many times pointed out, it's damaging to the team's overall talent level. While a hitter can play through minor injuries without impacting the team too much, a pitcher is a lone representative on the mound. If he sucks, he makes the team worse and markedly so. People would like to hold it up as a virtue, that the player is mentally tough or that he wants to win so badly that he's willing to play through pain. But here's the thing, baseball is a team sport and if the player wants the team to win so much, then he should be looking for the best opportunity to help get those wins whenever possible and that means recognizing when you yourself are costing the team those wins.

Now, I don't deny that major league players want to win and want it badly, but at the same time, I'd like to propose a motivation for this behavior that I feel weighs on their actions as well: the fear of being replaced. Nobody wants to admit that they are slipping, that they are worse now than they used to be. People generally only grudgingly admit that there are people better qualified than themselves. I don't blame them for this, it's a survival instinct and it's rooted deep in our genetic profile.

I suspect that rooted in every top athlete's psyche has to be the fear that if they sit down for an injury and open up playing time to someone else, that someone else might prove to be better than he is and the athlete might lose his spot. It's an understandable fear, anyone who's played sports (which includes myself) can empathize with it, but let's call it for what it is at a base level, selfish. No matter the motivation (most players probably want to keep playing in order to contribute to the team's winning, a noble goal) the player is putting his own interests (continued playing) ahead of what might be best for the team overall.

Our culture seems to have a fetish for people that try valiantly against long odds, no matter the outcome. And we view players that don't exhibit that drive on the surface as weak-willed or uncaring. We hold up our Rudys and our Willie Bloomquists as examples of ideal work ethic while spending disproportionally little time acknowledging the greatness of the Alburt Pujols  or deriding the Erik Bedards for saying that they're hurt when people like Bedard and Pujols work just as hard as people like Willie Bloomquist. I don't propose to have a solution, or even to presume to call it a problem. I just want people to think more critically and not accept the media's portrayal at face value. Don't accept mine either. This is how I view it, nothing more or less.

Preach it, Hickey:

The Mariners aren't sure who will start Saturday against Tampa Bay, but they've told Miguel Batista it won't be him.

Batista, coming off two decent starts, lasted just three innings Monday against the Twins. It was the 14th time in 19 starts that Batista didn't pitch six innings. A year ago he reached at least the sixth inning 23 times in 32 tries.

The most likely candidate to start Saturday is former reliever Ryan Rowland-Smith.

Welcome back to the show, Ryan. You will be replacing a giant tool.

The big news afterwards? Miguel Batista says a new discovery is what led him to toss 7 2/3 scoreless innings and strike out eight.

Batista won't say what the discovery was. He isn't sure it's going to work again. But he sounds excited about it. He should be. His velocity wasn't there today, but the Angels were still swinging through his pitches all afternoon.

"I might have found something that I wish I might have found years ago in my career,'' Batista said. "I don't know if I'm right yet. It's going to take me at least four or five more starts to figure out if it's going to be able to work as good as I believe it might work.

"And if it does, I might be able to pitch another five years.''

As a starter, you couldn't even last another five months. But at least you pitched through pain, because you're a warrior, and a warrior looks out for his team. Nevermind that in so doing you repeatedly put your team at a substantial disadvantage. You manned up, dammit. You manned up and did your job, unlike that pussy Bedard. And for that you should be commended, not demoted. Can't nobody match your tenacity and heart. You left it all on the field every time you took the mound, and that's the only thing that matters.

Miguel, you suck. And your writing sucks too. Never again will I have to spend two hours watching you throw four innings, and that - that's better than coffee. What a good way to wake up.

Batista has suffered through his share of maladies this season, ranging from a sore back in spring training to a pulled groin and foot issues. But he was quick to point out that he hasn’t missed any games because of those injuries.

"This is frustrating. It's embarrassing. I'm supposed to be helping the team win, but the way I'm pitching, it's not helping. I have to make sure I get myself healthy before I go out there again, because I'm the only guy trying to pitch through it. Everybody else, every time they feel pain, they go on the DL, or they take a rest, and I haven't."

-Miguel Batista, 6/25

UPDATE -- Miguel Batista came out of the game with what the team says is a right groin strain, three pitches into the bottom of the third.

Way to go, stupid.

RRS for starter.

Post-bases-clearing-double update: shut up I don't care

Note: posting will be back to normal tomorrow.

(Game thread posted below.)

When my plane landed in San Diego, I turned on my phone to seven new text messages and two new voicemails. When I got home and booted up the computer, I found five new Bavasi-related emails. Needless to say, it was a bit of a deluge. I'm still waiting for a knock on the door from FedEx since that seems to be the next logical step.

Leone For Third first opened up about a week before Bavasi was hired back in the fall of 2003. For all intents and purposes, as a blogger, I have known no other GM. The four and a half years since have been fraught with disappointment and well-intentioned failure. Bavasi's always been a hell of a guy who only wanted what was best for the team and who's always been willing to talk with his harshest critics face to face, but while I commend him for that, at the end of the day, if the only people you're meeting are critics, that means a lot is going wrong, and too much has gone wrong for the organization to justify keeping him in his role.

Bill Bavasi is finished as a Major League GM. I mean, sure, I guess the slim possiblity always exists that he could luck himself into another situation, but baseball is shifting irreversibly away from the back-slapping old school approach to roster management, and as Derek(?) remarked about the soon-to-be-fired John McLaren on Saturday, no team with a vacant managerial position down the road is going to look at Bavasi and say "that's the guy we need." It just isn't going to happen. Teams are smarter than that now*. Don't get me wrong, Bavasi will always be able to land a job with some organization if he's so inclined - other failed throwback GMs like Cam Bonifay, Dan Evans, and Woody Woodward have been able to stick around for quite a while as assistants and scouts. But as the guy leading the show, Bavasi is almost certainly done. He's exhausted his opportunities.

I suppose it's appropriate that a regime that never once demonstrated a solid grasp of probability was done in by its greatest gamble. 2008 was supposed to be the year. This was Bavasi's fifth season at the helm, and this was presumably the roster that Bavasi had been trying to build. The roster sucks. I don't know if you've looked at the standings recently, but the team that Bavasi thought was a playoff contender has been, for eleven weeks, three and a half games worse than any other team in baseball. That's really bad. And with so little help on the way, it's not going to be a real easy situation for whoever comes next. I won't go so far as to say that we're completely ruined, because we're not, but this organization is a mess, in large part due to Bavasi's lack of foresight.

Say what you will about ownership's intervention. From things like the Carlos Guillen deal to the Johjima extension, I think we all know that Bavasi was operating within certain constraints. But with that said, over the years it's become abundantly clear what he's all about. He loves chemistry. Loves it. Loves talking about it, and loves trying to build it, even though he himself has said that it's nigh impossible to predict. He also loves veterans, labels, roles, and spending way too much money on marginal improvements. Throw in a crippling inability to evaluate pitching and defense and you have the makings of a disaster. To his credit, Bavasi's pretty good with acquiring minor leaguers and locking up young players to long-term deals, but the former has more to do with his scouts, and as for the latter, on the day of his termination Bavasi's front office found itself at a standstill in contract negotiations with one of the greatest young talents the league has to offer. While the man may not have been granted free reign to do whatever he wanted, given what we know about him, shouldn't we be thankful for that? Ignore the results and look at the thought processes. There is no reason to believe that Bill Bavasi is even a half-decent general manager, and the organization is better off now than it was this morning.

It isn't yet time to celebrate. When I read those messages and listened to my voicemail, I was interested, but I wasn't smiling. Remember the official LL slogan for 2008: It Can Always Get Worse. Today the organization released one of its heaviest anchors. That's good news. But until we know who comes next, I don't think it would be wise to party too hard. In the event that Armstrong and Lincoln stick around, are they going to interview some fresh new blood, or will they stick with the same pool of retreads that can't find work anywhere else? What about Bob Fontaine? What's he going to do? Will the new guy approach Felix with the same zeal that Bavasi did Yuni and Lopez, or will they remain at an impasse? There are a lot of important questions to be asked, and for the time being, we don't have any answers. And so I beg of you, do not assume that we'll come out of this all peaches. We could and we should, but until we know, it's silly to take future improvement for granted. If the Bavasi era taught you anything, let it be that.

I'm looking forward to the interview process. This is a team that could reasonably decide to either play for 2009 or blow everything up, and that's exciting, both for us as fans and for applicants as GM. It's kind of nice to have the immediate future so open-ended, if only because Bavasi was so eminently predictable. I'm excited and nervous. But I'm not nervous because I'm fearful of impending doom; I'm nervous because I don't know quite how to respond to this glimmer of hope. There exists for us and for this organization a glimmer of hope. Not false hope. Real hope. It's there and I can feel it, and for the first time in what seems like forever, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know the next step. I don't know who Armstrong and Lincoln will interview. I don't know if Armstrong and Lincoln will even be around for the interviews. I don't know what approach the new GM will take with this team. I don't know.

And that's what's so exciting.

* except for the Astros