Runs, Hits and Errors: John Farrell Where Are You When We Need You?

In issue two of Runs, Hits and Errors we’ll serve up a little statistics geek meets sublime ridiculousness. Bon appetit.

Runs
The Texas Rangers have piled up 69 of them, just one behind league leading St. Louis. Although to be fair they scored 24 of them -nearly 35% of their total output for the season – in just two games against Boston. The Sox, as in many other categories with the exception of pitching in which they reside at the bottom, are in the middle of many team statistics. It doesn’t merit a crash course in Saber metrics to figure out that when you don’t score many runs and your pitching staff gives up a ton of them, you lose a lot. Then again, you could be the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have scored 26 runs all season to date. Oh Pittsburgh, once again making even the most disheartened fan feel better about their team.

Hits
Let’s get out the microscope and take a quick look at why the hits and runs are piling up against Boston. This won’t take long. Spoiler alert: it’s pitching (as if you didn’t know).
The pitching statistics below tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Team ERA: Boston is last in Major League Baseball at 6.20, fully two runs higher than the AL league average
Shutouts: 0
Quality Starts: 5 (ranked 21st)
Earned Runs Surrendered: An MLB leading 73
Batting Average Against: Tied for first with Atlanta at.288
The list goes on and on. Suffice it to say that Boston ranks in the the top five in On Base Percentage (2), Slugging (2) and On Base Plus Slugging Percentage, a humiliating .830. At this rate, the pitching staff would need an army of sports psychologists to get them straight. Oh, and they could just start not sucking as well. The good news there is that they’ve got nearly nowhere else to go but up. Nearly.

Errors
You can’t really talk about running the base paths this week without mentioning Kelly Shoppach, who last Friday easily vaulted into Major League Baseball’s top 10 stolen base Hall of Shame when he performed the Stop, Shop, Flop and Roll to bag his first  career stolen base on opening day at Fenway Park against the Rays. To say it was inelegant is to insult inelegance. Remember Willy Mays Hays slide in Major League? Yeah, you get the picture.

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