Red Sox defense simply offen-sieve
The GuruContributing Writer
The old baseball cliché is offense wins games, pitching and defense wins championships. While I do not necessarily subscribe to it entirely, I think it is safe to say bad pitching and bad defense don't help losing streaks.
The Red Sox have lost three straight, six of their last seven and have looked sloppy in the field.
The careless play contributed again last night in the Sox 5-3 loss. The Twins scored four unearned runs in the sixth inning after John Lackey fielded Trevor Plouffe’s potential inning ending double play grounder and fired it to Jacoby Ellsbury in center field.
‘‘You've got to take care of the ball,’’ Dustin Pedroia said after Thursday nights loss. ‘‘Pitching and defense is a big part of winning ball games.’’
It's also a part of the Sox recent skid.
The Red Sox have made 10 errors in 7 games. Some have been costly. Pedro Ciriaco’s two errors at third base Tuesday night allowed the Twins to break the game open. Third basemen Will Middlebrooks has been causing Butch Hobson flashbacks recently. He has six errors on the year and has not appeared comfortable throwing to Napoli at first. Jarrod Saltalamacchia has looked truly terrible at times. Hurling balls into the outfield, throwing them into the dirt, allowing too many passed balls and even missing an umpire interference call last week in a game against the Toronto Blue Jays.
Pitching and defense may or may not win championships, but it's part of the reason the Sox find themselves looking up in the standings for the first time this season behind the New York Yankees.
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