Defense Remains A Problem, But There Is A Solution
A temporary fix, for this season at least, exists!
Kyle Schwarber’s error on a simple ground ball to first base on Monday in Seattle opened the door to a three-run Mariners inning, one that proved to be the difference in the game and, at the moment, in the American League Wild Card standings. Hunter Renfroe’s error last night was somehow more egregious and less costly. Renfroe straight up dropped a fly ball, as in he caught it and then dropped it. It was the kind of thing I’d do (and have done!) in right field because catching a fly ball is very difficult if you are a couch potato (or an actual potato or an actual couch) instead of a major league baseball player. Renfroe’s drop prolonged the inning and ultimately resulted in an unearned run scoring and the Mariners taking a 2-1 lead in a game that, again, has consequences in a tight playoff chase.
Both games entered the later innings tied 2-2. In Monday’s game, the Mariners built a 5-2 lead after Schwarber’s error, and held on as the Red Sox managed to score just twice more. In Tuesday’s game, the Mariners built a 2-1 lead after Renfroe’s error, but the Red Sox scored six runs and won the game easily despite a Mariners ninth inning rally.
Both errors were rough and quite costly and came in similar situations, generally speaking, in their respective games, but what made the difference in those games is found beyond just those plays themselves. In fact, the differences in those plays and the way we think about them is entirely due not to the errors themselves, but to what happened afterwards.
I’ve read (and wrote) a lot about the Red Sox defensive deficiencies over this season and especially over the past few months. ‘Bad defensive teams don’t make the playoffs and if they do, they don’t go far’ is the general idea. But I’m here to tell you that’s not necessarily true. The World Series champion 2004 Red Sox were not a good defensive team, and for that matter, neither was the team they beat, the 2004 Yankees, yet both teams combined to win almost 200 total games that season. The difference is scoring runs.
The question to answer is, can you score enough runs to overcome your fielding mistakes? Obviously the 2021 Red Sox answer recently has been NO because otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this and you wouldn’t be reading it.
So why not? Well it’s possible they simply don’t have the hitting talent on hand to do it. That could mean they’re just not that good a hitting team, or it could mean their fielding is that bad, but it’s clearly something. The point though is that it’s possible to score yourself out of bad fielding. The Red Sox on Monday did the bad fielding but not the ‘score yourself out of it’ part, and they lost. On Tuesday, the Red Sox repeated the bad fielding, but then they did this:
If you’re going to screw up in the field and cost your team runs, following it up with a bases-clearing double goes a long way towards repairing the damage. But regardless of who did what, it’s the scoring runs thing that makes the difference, one way or the other.
Lots of attention has been paid to bad defense and that will continue to happen, and here as well. In fact, I’m working on a piece on that exact topic that should be out later this week or next. But it strikes me that teams that hit well have this conversation less often. Boston has played 147 games on the season and they’ve scored 743 runs. That’s 5.05 runs per game. That’s top five in baseball right now. The Rays are inexplicably leading baseball in runs scored per game at 5.4. Then the Astros and Blue Jays are at 5.3, and the Dodgers (who play without a DH) and the Red Sox are at 5.1.
As I’ve written before, in the middle of the season after the trade deadline has passed with no real options for improvement in the minors, bad fielding isn’t really a problem the Red Sox or any team in this situation can fix. So, for this season, the solution is load up the lineup! Get Schwarber and JD Martinez and Bobby Dalbec and Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers and just about everyone else who isn’t particularly good at fielding and throw them all in a lineup together and hope they can bash their way forward, 2004 Red Sox style.
This Red Sox team really can hit. It’s not just the overall runs scored ranking either. They’re third in batting average, tied for seventh in on-base percentage, second overall in slugging percentage. They’re tied for sixth in wRC+ and they’re seventh in homers. They’ve done this with Marwin Gonzalez and Danny Santana getting regular at-bats. They’ve done this with first half Bobby Dalbec getting regular at-bats. Now they have second half Bobby Dalbec and Kyle Schwarber. Add that to X and Devers and JD and Verdugo and Renfroe and Enrique Hernandez, and that’s one of the best offenses in baseball.
The off-season provides a lot of potential to deviate from this plan but for now, this isn’t going to be a good fielding team. It’s just not. The pieces don’t fit quite right, and the fielding talent isn’t really there anyway. So, the only way forward is simple. Load up the lineup. Lean into it. Hit.
Defense Remains A Problem, But There Is A Solution
On another thought - can someone please clarify what happens if Sox, Tor & MFY all finish tied ????? I know it's unlikely but not impossible
I presume the Team with the "best" record ( v the other 2 ) may well "avoid" the 1 game playoff ..... before the 1 game playoff ? Although I can never keep up with the Tiebreaker Rules
All we can hope is that we can score enough runs ...... when it really really matters