Last Red Sox-Yankees Showdown in Yankee Stadium

With the Yankees set to open a new stadium next year, the Red Sox played their last series at Yankee Stadium this week…and they won 2 of 3 The Yankees look pathetic as the regular season winds down (will likely miss playoffs for first time in 14 years), but the Red Sox seem to be kicking it up a notch at just the right time (won 8 of last 11). Anyway, in honor of the last series – the end of an era - here are a couple fun statistical nuggets from the games this week:

●  8/26: A-ROD’S NIGHT TO FORGET
Alex Rodriguez went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts and two double-play ground outs in the Yankees’ loss on Tuesday. It was the first time in A-Rod’s career that he had multiple strikeouts and GDPs in the same game. His total of nine DP ground outs in August already matches the highest total by any player in any month this season, and it’s his highest total in any month of his career. (Update: A-Rod now has 11 double-play ground outs in August – ouch!)

●  8/27: PEDROIA’s SLAM – WILL IT BE THE LAST AT YANKEE STADIUM?
Could it be, with only 14 regular-season games remaining to be played in the current Yankee Stadium, that its final grand-slam homer will belong to Dustin Pedroia, whose eighth-inning blast capped the scoring in Boston’s 11-3 win in the Bronx on Wednesday night? Pedroia’s was the 17th Yankee Stadium grand-slam hit by a Red Sox player (the most by any visiting team), with Ted Williams, who hit three grand-slams in the Bronx, being the only Boston player with more than one. But only once before had a Red Sox second baseman homered with the bases full in the House That Ruth Built; that was Bill Regan, who did it in 1928.

●  8/28: LESTER TAKES A TOUGH NO-DECISION
Jon Lester struck out eight batters and did not issue a walk in 6 2/3 innings on Thursday. Since 2000, only one other Red Sox pitcher registered at least eight strikeouts against the Yankees, while not walking a batter: Pedro Martinez, who whiffed 11 without a base on balls in the Bronx on July 7, 2003.

Source – The Elias Sports Bureau

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Manny Being Tardy

This is comical. Baseball’s idiot savant strikes again - Dodgers v. Phillies on Monday:

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Vote Red Sox on the 2008 All-Star Ballot

Voting is under way for MLB’s 2008 All-Star Game. Be sure to vote for all your favorite Sox players. You can vote up to 25 times. Thanks to Boston Dirt Dogs for pointing out that if you want to vote for Jacoby Ellsbury (and why wouldn’t you?), you need to write his name in because he’s not on the actual ballot. Click to vote.

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Freakonomics – Hoop Data Dreams

Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, who wrote Freakonomics and have a blog by the same name, have written a column about the Celtics’ attempt to use the kind of rigorous statistical analysis that Bill James has made popular throughout baseball while working for the Boston Red Sox

The Boston Celtics, owned by several men with venture-capital backgrounds, have for the past few years been one of the most data-driven teams in the N.B.A. They have also just completed the biggest single-season turnaround in history, entering the playoffs two weeks ago with a league-best 66 victories after winning just 24 games last year.

Coincidence? Probably, for the Celtics obtained two monstrously accomplished players in the off-season, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. It didn’t take a statistician to tell you that the Celtics would be a lot better this year than last.

But the team also employs what the general manager, Danny Ainge, calls his “secret weapon,” a 32-year-old named Mike Zarren, who seems to know every data point about every N.B.A. player, past and present. Garnett calls him Numbers…

Read the entire column here.

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A Fenway Park Hecklin’

We attended our first Red Sox game of the season at Fenway park yesterday. The weather was good – although a few degrees warmer would have been nice. Everyone was out, as usual, toting their Red Sox garb. The crowd seemed particularly excited at this game – probably because it was the second home game for the Sox and they had beat the Tigers the day before 5 to zip. Unfortunately, we didn’t win yesterday, but we were thoroughly entertained by a couple of guys sitting in front of us. Our seats were in the second row up from the field right next to Pesky Pole, so the guys in front of us were RIGHT on the field. The whole game they were tossing back beers and heckling outfielder Magglio Ordonez from the Tigers. I’m sure Magglio is used to a heckler every now and again, but I know I would have a hell of a time concentrating on the game with guys yelling crap like “M-A-G-G-L-I-OOOOOOOOOOOOO….Magglio,” “you have such beautiful hair Magglio,” and when Ortiz was up “take a step further back, Magglio…..no, you need to take a few more steps back!” That was just a few of the comments, but they kept me laughing.  Dan even chimed in (trouble-maker) when Magglio raced over to Pesky Pole to make a catch and heckled him about the golden highlights in his luscious locks. Go Red Sox!

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