Red Sox Struggling to stay Ahead in Arms Race

It's really difficult to criticize a team just hours after a thrilling walk-off victory over an arch-rival.

But watching yesterday's 11-inning Red Sox/Yankees gem unfold--and believe me, there was nearly five hours worth of baseball to ingest--could do nothing to quell a growing concern.

The Boston Red Sox need pitching and they need it in the worst way.

Don't get me wrong, I love watching the likes of Drake Britton and Pedro Beato navigate extra innings baseball as much as the next guy, but in order to fend off an increasingly potent American League East Boston will need more in the reliability column.

Last night, Ryan Dempster labored through two innings, throwing over 50 pitches and quickly falling behind 3-0. Yet the Red Sox eventually scored seven straight runs, spotting Dempster--a notorious innings-eater--a four run lead which allowed him to pitch into the sixth inning.

A division leading team in the confines of its own ballpark is expected to hold a four run lead, especially with a series on the line and gargantuan match-ups against Tampa Bay and Baltimore on the immediate horizon.

Boston coughed it up quickly.

Craig Breslow, who inherited a three-run lead and two baserunners, promptly allowed back-to-back singles and a run. He came back out for the seventh inning and quickly allowed both Vernon Wells and Eduardo Nunez to reach base before being relieved for Junichi Tazawa.

Tazawa, who has seen his velocity drop since the beginning of the season, could not get out of the jam. Thankfully, all's well that ends well.

But the Red Sox inability to get out of a jam posed a reasonable question; who can John Farrell rely on?

Hamstrung by two season-ending injuries to his oft-injured closers Andrew Bailey and Joel Hanrahan, Farrell rode both Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa in the first-half of the season. Now, Uehara is the closer and Tazawa the most trusted set-up man, but is this sustainable?

According to Brooksbaseball.net, Tazawa saw his four-seam fastball velocity drop over a mile per hour from April to June before seeing a slight increase in July. He's also seen the amount of swings and misses generated on his split-fingered fastball cut in half.

The trend points to Tazawa's early season usage potentially wearing him out, a troubling sign for a critical reliever in the bullpen. Tazawa, a starter-turned-reliever, has already set a career-high in appearances and has thrown just one inning less than last season, a season in which he came back from Tommy-John surgery.

And if Tazawa is not who he once was, who can Farrell turn to in order to bridge the bullpen to Uehara?

Craig Breslow, the first lefty out of the bullpen, is stranding only 71.8% of runners on base and is posting a career-low in strikeouts per 9 innings with 5.03.

Matt Thornton is the newest addition to the bullpen but has struggled so far in Boston and has seen his fastball velocity decline from 96.5 MPH in 2011 to 94.5 MPH in 2013.

Other options include Britton, Beato, and Jose De La Torre.

Gulp.

And if the Red Sox are struggling to find answers in the 7th and 8th innings, how much longer can Uehara's magic run? Dominant since inheriting the closer role, Uehara has also struggled with heavy workloads and doesn't possess typical "stuff" for a back-end reliever.

The pitching woes don't end in the bullpen either. Clay Buchholz hasn't pitched since June 8th and is scheduled to visit medical grim reaper Dr. James Andrews. Jon Lester has shown outward signs of frustration with the media and has posted an ERA north of 6.00 in his last handful of starts.

As of now, Boston is treading water much in part due to resurgences from John Lackey and Felix Doubront. Tonight, they lean on Brandon Workman for stability. That's far from reassuring.

Fans and media personalities will clamor for Ben Cherington to "makes moves" and "get aggressive" at the trading deadline, imploring the Red Sox to magically fix everything at once. But for a team which is no stranger to how crucial pitching is to overall success (2011 anybody?), Cherington is faced with a difficult decision.

Where does he start?

The Open Championship at Muirfield

I'm writing this as my first of hopefully many posts in "Mark's Thoughts (and how fitting)." The Open, considered by many the Championship of Golf, will begin with Peter Senior hitting the first tee shot at 1:32 am EST (how's that for an early tee time?) on Thursday, July 18th at Muirfield Golf Club, which is a private all male membership. The Open is often considered the Championship of golf due to the many variables a golfer has to overcome to hoist the Claret Jug.

The Elements

First, there is the overbearing pressure of a major golf tournament. To know you could make international history among the likes of Old Time Morris (designer of Muirfield), Harry Vardon (Hello Francis Ouimet), Bobby Jones, Jack Nciklaus, Seve, Tom Watson, Sir Nick Faldo, and Tiger Woods infuses many golfers with a mixture of adrenaline and energy.

Second, the elements of the infamous foolish weather. The weather changes faster than an oil change at Speedy, which forces me to believe there's a revolving door for meteorologists in England and Scotland. And if rain isn't enough, please enter hurricane-force winds which never blow the same way twice. Note to caddies: don't bother throwing grass up in the air.

The weather consistently commands attention of golfers and fans alike,
making navigation of Open Championship courses very difficult.
Matt Dunham/AP

Lastly, the conditions of the golf course. Tell me what is more yellow, the grass or the rain slickers which you often see littered across Open Championship galleries? Augusta National's membership would have a hemorrhage driving down Magnolia Lane if they saw this much yellow. The fescue grass is a thing of beauty as it fits so perfectly with the design of the golf courses.

Oh,and don't think I forgot to mention the sand bunkers. Some can be described as a meteor landing site; they are so deep even a St. Bernand couldn't find you. As much as it sounds so dramatically different than the three other major golf championships in the United States, the greens seem to be the same: firm and fast.

Winning The Open Championship

When it comes down to the bare essentials of winning at The Open, you have to hit every shot in the book in each element to be victorious.

I will give you my top four picks to this year's Open:

Tiger Woods hasn't won a major
in over five years and last won
overseas in 2006.

• Defending Open Champion Ernie Els: Els won last year and also won the last time Muirfield hosted the Championship in 2002. At age 43, he still has game to conquer another one.
• Matt Kuchar: Kuchar is perhaps America's best shot besides Tiger Woods. He's ranked sixth in the world, has a consistent golf game, is a great ball striker, and can putt strongly despite his soon-to-be illegal belly putter.
• Tiger Woods: Do I need to explain? 
• Luke Donald: The adopted son of Scotland, an Open Champinoship would finally put the argument of Luke's validity (previously ranked no. 1 in the world despite never winning a major) to rest in one of those cavernous pot bunkers. 

But will a dark horse with the same dream that Ben Curtis or Todd Hamilton had rise to the occasion? It might just be the underachieving Ryan Moore's turn to hoist the Jug. He was the "can't miss" kid coming out of UNLV when he won the NCAA Championship, U.S Publinks, Western Amateur, and the U.S Amateur in his final year before joining the PGA tour. Moore has the game and I'm looking for him to shine through the rain drops and wind at Muirfield.

I hope you enjoyed my first blog contribution and hope it gives insight to a tournament which is over 150 years young.

Fairways and Greens,

Mark Cunningham, PGA

Mark is a PGA Golf Professional who turned professionally in 2001.  He has worked at many 

private clubs and is currently a manager at Golfsmith International.  He attended school at Webber 

International University in Babson Park, Florida where he graduated with a degree in Sports and Club Management and played on the golf team.  He is married and has two children.  In the winter months, Mark coaches high school ice hockey at Bishop Feehan.

Mark's Musings: Part 2

Remember when I said I'd make these "mailbag" type posts weekly? Yeah, well, uh, that was months ago. And this is the second one.

Anywho, I decided now would be a good time to knock one of these Bad Larry's out because A) I've got free time to do it and B) there's so much going on in sports right now. I think we were all kinda dreading July too, seeing as it historically has been one of the less interesting sports months.

Thankfully, NBA free agency never ceases to amaze and Aaron Hernandez hasn't cleanly left a bar on his own terms in six years. The circus has died down but as is the case following anything newsworthy pieces have to be put together.

Throughout the past two weeks, Boston sports were effectively drunk. Stanley Cup mayhem, murder mysteries, unloading of superstars, The Hub had everything you could ever ask for as a sports fan and roughly 3% of the past two weeks was predictable and made sense.

And if the last two weeks was pure Bostonian drunken stupor, this week might be the hangover (at least until Fourth of July weekend officially starts, then everything is off the table.)

Let's get to it.

Tankapalooza 2013

Do you think Danny Ainge thinks he has us all fooled? The king of public deception, Ainge recently had the audacity to state the idea the Celtics would try and tank during the upcoming 2013 season was ludicrous. After all, this is the BOSTON CELTICS, rich with tradition, winning, and honor.

Me, tank? Never.

Except the current roster has none of that.

It actually stinks.

And they are going to tank.

So I guess we're now rooting for the esteemed Boston Celtics who just-so-happen to be tanking. You go Danny, you go!

Never before can I remember the idea of losing basketball games be so prominent. ESPN Boston did a fan poll which showed the majority of fans actually want the Celtics to lose games next year. Seriously, fans want their team to lose, in professional sports, in Boston.

I guess it's a relieving sign that fans are catching up to common sense. I could go on about how the NBA is poorly structured--after all, the only way to have a shot at becoming successful is to spend years being really, really bad and then HOPE you have some luck-- but instead I want to throw caution at the idea of tanking.

It all seems really simple actually. You take a roster which still has Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green, attempt to surround them with horrendous talent in the hopes they play as poorly as possible, pray that the 10 other teams doing the same thing do it worse than you do, and then rely on a ping pong ball to bounce your way and determine the fate of your franchise.

THEN, if by the good grace of God (David Stern) the Celtics end up with a top-3 pick, they can choose from relative unknown's Andrew Wiggins, Julius Randle, and Jabari Parker.

There's no possible way any of that could go wrong.

In theory, I enjoy the idea of tanking as much as the next guy. But in Boston, tanking rarely ever works out. Remember in 2007 when the Celtics put all their eggs into the ping pong ball basket only to receive the 5th pick? Thankfully Danny Ainge was able to perform voodoo magic on two other GM's and fleece the Timberwolves/Sonics for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.

Or how about in 1997, when the Celtics won 15 (yes, 15!) games under M.L Carr en route to tanking for the services of Tim Duncan, only to see the ping pong balls bounce in San Antonio's favor.

Simply put, it's not as easy as it sounds. Tanking is all fun and dandy until you remember you're relying on luck and college freshmen who have yet to play a minute of collegiate basketball. And in the Celtics' case it's easy to see what can happen when one part of the plan goes wrong.

Enough about tanking.

The Patriot Way

I've noticed multiple media members puff their chests in recent days, taking to the airwaves or the newspapers to subtly proclaim how they "had an idea" that Aaron Hernandez would be a problem or that the "Patriot Way" is unfolding.

To criticize the New England Patriots for not having a better grasp on Hernandez's social situation is, while partly revisionist theory, acceptable.

To attempt to take down the "Patriot Way" is incredibly foolish because it's only breaking down a theory the media spent years building up.

The media, in an effort to explain why they only received cookie-cutter answers to their questions in press conferences dubbed the tight-lipped Patriots method of doing business "The Patriot Way." It's a convenient moniker really, a three-word title which could define a franchise short on drama and long on winning.

Now, "the Patriot Way" is lost. Only, the Patriot Way really isn't lost, because there was never a Patriot Way in the first place. You still following me?

The Patriot Way was, and still is, winning. Last time I checked New England was still pretty good at doing that.

Instead the media is yet again reverting to laziness. Just as they lazily deemed Bill Belichick's brainchild of a franchise "The Patriot Way" they are now criticizing him for not upholding their imaginary standards. As if Bill Belichick cares what we think.

The Patriots certainly could use a change in philosophy on the field, but that has little to do with Aaron Hernandez and much more to do with adjusting to the new-age NFL. Belichick runs the gamble of picking up a headache every time he invests in a player with questionable background. As is the case with most investments, sometimes you hit and other times you come up dry.

While Belichick has come up dry in recent years--and maybe that has something to do with his control over the locker room (he's not getting any younger)-- assuming he had any idea what Hernandez is doing off the field is ludicrous.

The Patriots paid Hernandez a lot of money. With a fat contract comes responsibility and inherited maturity. The Kraft's have a longstanding history of trusting their players. These are grown men, adults, and professionals. Hernandez burned the Patriots in more ways than one, but blaming New England for not doing their due diligence (without having any basis for that argument, mind you) is irresponsible.

Dear John Lackey, I'm Sorry

Crap, I've already written way more than I was expecting. I'll try to keep this short.

I think Red Sox Nation might start to owe John Lackey an apology. Lackey, coming off Tommy John surgery which may have actually been more required than we were lead to believe, is currently the most consistent pitcher on a team which boasts the most wins in the American League.

Did I actually just write that?

Lackey currently owns a 2.81 ERA. His K/9 of 8.24 is the second highest of his career. He's never walked less batters per 9 innings than he is right now. He's stranding runners at an 80% clip, and this is all while allowing 1.15 homers per nine innings.

On a team which struggles to hit homers, has barely any power at any corner position, and currently has one of its top pitchers on the DL and the other struggling mightily, John Lackey is providing sorely needed reliability.

I can't believe I wrote that.