“Did you know that Jason Varitek is really valuable to the Red Sox even if his bat has turned into a wet noodle? Clubhouse presence! Gritty! Gutty! Gamer!”

Tek did hit a big HR in Game 6 but he still finishes the series 1-20 with 8 SO’s. That’s a line of: .050/.174/.200 and that’s what I love about the leadership — Hey, he wears a ‘C’ on his jersey! — angle that’s always played by the talking head announcers. You can mold it anyway to fit any argument that you’re trying to make. Tek strikes out three times in his final game? Leadership. He keeps the other dudes calm. His pitch calling ability borders on a 6th sense.

Another thing I realized from watching the Red Sox last night is that Mark Kotsay really was playing 1B for this series. I had somehow forgotten about Lowell’s injury — thus, shifting Youk to 3B — and having to play Kotsay at 1B was brutal. Kotsay played 9 games at 1B in the playoffs after only playing 34 career games at 1B in his previous 12 seasons of baseball. He didn’t hit much in the ALCS going: 7-30 with 3 2B’s, 0 BB’s, and 4 SO’s. Though, if you compare that to what Tek gave the Sox, then Kotsay looks like Ted Williams. Starting Alex Cora, Mark Kotsay, and Jason Varitek in the same lineup is pretty ugly but the Sox didn’t have much of a choice.

More ramblings: Ignore the MSM and the who-could-have-seen-this-happening mentality when it comes to discussing the Tampa Bay Rays. True, I’m guessing most didn’t see their turn around to be this good, but I think even the most average of baseball fans saw the Rays as a young team with a lot of talent at the BLL and at the MLL. The Rays made some great choices of adding low cost, cheap, productive talent to the team without overpaying both in years and salary. Guys like Cliff Floyd (114 OPS+), Gabe Gross (104 OPS+), and Eric Hinkse (111 OPS+) were all acquired for very little resources. Defensive position excluded, all three guys out hit Aaron Rowand soundly and will cost the Rays $55M less. And, the Rays won’t have to deal with them for 4+ years. Good teams do this.

The Rays also defend well. They ranked +24 by THT’s team defensive stats page in the American League. Only Toronto ranked higher. If you look at team defensive efficiency — the percentage of balls in play converted into outs — the Rays rank as the #1 team in the majors with a 71% of balls hit into play converted into outs. For comparison, the more defensively challenged Giants ranked #23 with a score of 68.5%.

Heading back to last nights game, Matt Garza was very good. Kudos to the Rays for flipping Delmon Young — in a trade that’s starting to look like they got the better end of — for Matt Garza. Garza went 7 innings while giving up just 2 H’s and 1 ER. He struck out 9 hitters in his 118 pitch effort. Some brief PFX numbers on Garza’s start.

~ Garza predominately threw his fastball last night. Here’s his breakdown by pitch-type: 89 fastballs, 16 curveballs, 12 sliders, and 1 changeup.

~ The average velocity on Garza’s fastball was 93.9mph. 76.9mph on his curveball. 85.5mph on his slider. And the lone tracked changeup was at 84.1mph.

~ Here’s a couple of plots. The first is Garza’s velocity plot for the game and the second is his fastball location, which I thought was key to his success.

As you can see, Garza game out of the gate throwing heat. A large clumping of 95mph fastballs to start the game. Garza’s offspeed stuff has some nice separation from his fastball. The markings in the 85mph range is Garza’s slider and if you go down another 10mph to the 75mph range, that’s his curveball. Garaza maintained his velocity well throughout the game, hitting 94mph near the end of his start.

Here’s the plot of Garza’s FB location, which like I stated above, I thought was key for him. Notice how Garza really pounded the right handed hitters on the inside of the plate. Lot’s of pitches in and down on RHB’s. The middle portion of the FB’s in the center of the zone might look hittable, but when you’re throwing near 95mph on each FB, you can get away with it. And Garza did get away with it.

A very nice start from the ALCS MVP.

Note: This only includes Wheeler’s 8th inning and not the .1 inning pitched at the end of the 7th.

Did Joe Maddon leave Wheeler in too long? It’s easy to look back on the moves that didn’t work but Wheeler looked terrible in the 8th inning last night. He was constantly missing up in the zone — he was actually reminding me of watching classic Scott Munter — and when you top out at 90mph, going upstairs might not be your best approach to getting hitters out. It wasn’t just Wheeler that struggled either. Grant Balfour*, the Rays best reliever this year and a favorite of mine, ran into trouble in the 7th and had to be bailed out by Wheeler.

*Speaking of Balfour his numbers from this year are ridiculous: 58.1 IP, 28 H, 10 ER, 3 HR, 24 BB, 82 SO, 1.54 ERA. Maybe the coolest thing about Balfour is that he only throws one pitch; his fastball. According to FanGraphs, Balfour threw his fastball 91.3% of the time at an average of 94.6mph. That’s Mariano Rivera territory for dominance with one pitch. Rivera threw his cutter 82% of the time this year. It’s amazing that hitters know what Balfour is going to do and they’ve still struggled to hit him.

Wheeler enters the 8th and gives up a 2-run HR to JD Drew who yanks a fastball down the pipe into the RF stands and then retires the next two hitters, Lowrie and Casey, before giving up a loud double to Mark Kotsay that was just out of the reach of Bossman Junior. At this point, I’m not sure what I would have done if I were Maddon. Even when Wheeler was getting guys out in the 8th inning, he wasn’t exactly looking dominant and his control was all over the place. JP Howell — who eventually ran into his own trouble in the 9th — was in the bullpen for Maddon at this time but with Coco Crisp at the plate — he’s got a better career split against LHP — I can see why he might have been reluctant to bring in JP. Even to my untrained eye, Wheeler did not look good and I think I would have taken my chances with Howell — who has been used in high leverage situations this year and against LHB’s. Howell dominated both RHB’s and LHB’s this year and had to be a better option than Wheeler.

As it ends up, Maddon leaves in Wheeler and to Coco Crisp’s credit, he had a great AB. Crisp battles for 10 pitches before lining a single into RF that scores Kotsay from second to tie the game at 7-7. The Red Sox eventually win the game in the 9th. Tough loss for the Rays, but I’ll still be rooting for them.

Comment Starter: What would you have done?