In baseball's never-ending quest to add new terminology at every turn, it's now fashionable for managers and coaches to refer to "pockets'' when it comes to describing certain portions of the opponent's batting order.
Could I use it in a sentence?
We thought we had a good pocket there in the seventh to use Strahm....
Over the next two weeks, the Red Sox' schedule will offer a pocket of its own, and in so doing, provide the team with a means to fight its way back into contention.
The pocket actually began Thursday, when the Seattle Mariners came to town for the first of four games. That's four games, at home, with a team under .500. To date, the Red Sox have won the first three, guaranteeing them a series win, their third straight after going more than a month without one.
Next is a three-game set in Chicago against the underachieiving White Sox. They won the AL Central last season but they're hovering around .500 -- 19-20 heading into Saturday's action -- reduced by injuries and generally not playing to their potential.
After three with the White Sox, the Sox come home for a five-game series with the Baltimore Orioles, currently sitting behind the Sox in the A.L. East. (This was originally a four-game set, but in an effort to make up one of the series lost to the lockout and delayed start of the season back in early April, one of those games has been added to the existing schedule, with two more to come).
When the Orioles leave town, the Cincinnati Reds arrive for a two-game interleague series. How bad are the Reds? They're already 16 games under .500 and could be mathematically eliminated by the August. Finally, the Red Sox then begin a West Coast swing with a weekend series in Oakland, where the A's reside in last place.
The trip gets a little more challenging with four against the Angels, and then three more in Seattle before the Sox return home for a nine-game home, six of which are against the A's and Tigers.
Starting with the Mariners series then, the Sox are in the middle of a run that has them playing 36, with 30 of those coming against teams who don't have winning record.
It will get more challenging soon after, with late June and July offering series both on the road and at home with the Rays and Yankees, plus a home-and-home with Toronto. That gets us to late July, at which point we should know a lot more about the Red Sox' playoff fate.
But before that, there's an opportunity to make up ground and position themselves for a meaningful second half.
It would be wrong to look at this stretch and conclude that the Sox can re-introduce themselves to the playoff chase. After all, it wasn't long ago that the Red Sox themselves owned the worst record in the American League. And we've already seen that the Sox are not in a position to take any other team for granted -- they themselves lost a series at Camden Yards last month.
However, the team's improved play over the last 10 days or so has shown that if the lineup produces even at an average rate, the Red Sox can win their share of games. It behooves them to fatten up on the lesser competition that this pocket offers to them, to provide a bit of a cushion for late June and July when the schedule again will turn less friendly.
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A week from Tuesday, May 30, teams will have some difficult decisions, the Red Sox among them.
On that day, clubs can have as many as 13 pitchers as part of their 26-man rosters. Currently, the Sox have 14 pitchers and just 12 position players. That leaves just three extra position players on the bench -- a backup catcher, an infielder and an outfielder.
On May 30, the Sox must subtract a pitcher, and essentially, add a position player. The idea is, with fewer pitchers on which to lean, we'll see starting pitchers being asked to go deeper into games and teams won't be as eager to play Bullpen Roulette, changing relievers every three batters or so.
It shouldn't be that hard for the Sox to determine which pitcher to cut. The most obvious choice for now would seem to be Tyler Danish, who has options remaining. If the Sox want to retain Danish because he can provide multiple innings of relief, they could also option Hirokazu Sawamura, who hasn't been effective this year, and like Danish, has available options.
The question then becomes: what do the Red Sox do with the additional position player spot?
For now, Christian Arroyo is the chief utility man, capable of playing all over the infield and both corner outfield spots if need be. But the Sox could use someone with similar versatility.
The logical choice might be career journeyman Ryan Fitzgerald, who Saturday got his first opportunity to play first base. That the Sox are moving him around and having try out new positions may be an indication that they're leaning toward calling him up.
There's a caveat involved: Fitzgerald has been adamant in his stance against the COVID vaccine, and in a month's time, the Red Sox will be returning to Toronto, where a mandate exists for all visiting players to be vaccinated. Do the Sox want to have a few weeks of Fitzgerald, then have to replace him on the roster, too, when they head north of the border?
There's also the matter of getting Fitzgerald onto the 40-man roster, meaning someone else will have to go.
Decisions, decisions.
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When the Yankees traded for Josh Donaldson in the offseason, it was done with two goals in mind.
First, the Yanks saw him as a defensive upgrade at third base, part of a left side of the infield upgrade they were attempting. (Shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa was part of the same deal with Minnesota).
Second, the Yankees liked the fact that Donaldson's personality could provide a spark to a clubhouse that was mostly full of more quiet personalities. Donaldson can be outgoing, outspoken and brash, and the club though it could use that infusion for a team whose best players (Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, D.J. LeMahieu) are more reserved.
But a quarter of the way into the season, the Yankees may have reason to second-guess the move.
Donaldson, as expected, has been anything but quiet and unassuming. But he's also precipitated some on-field incidents in the past week, both with the Chicago White Sox. In the first altercation, Donaldson appeared to shove the White Sox' Tim Anderson off the bag at third base in an attempt to tag him out. That led to a heated exchange with Anderson, and benches briefly emptying.
Then, Saturday, things took a turn for the worse. Once more, the principals were Anderson and Donaldson, and this time, the animosity had an ugly subtext to it. In an exchange of words, Donaldson referred to Anderson as "Jackie,'' because, Donaldson said, Anderson had referred to himself as "the next Jackie Robinson'' in a magazine piece three years ago.
Donaldson insisted that his use of the name was intended to be lighthearted, and that he had jokingly done it before without much of a reaction from Anderson.
But it's not a good look in 2022 for a white player to be emphasizing the race or ethnicity of one of the sport's few African-American stars, and benches again cleared.
MLB has said an investigation will be forthcoming and it's expected that Donaldson will be facing some sort of disciplinary action, including a possible suspension. That's surely not what the Yankees had in mind.
Moreover, with his behavior, Donaldson may be putting a target on the backs of his teammates as opponents react to his words and deeds.
It's one thing to provide a team with an edge and ensure that a team doesn't become too passive over the course of a season. But it's another to incite opponents by demeaning players, especially when those action include a racial component.
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Baseball lost a special voice when the great Roger Angell passed away at 101 earlier this week.
For most of his professional life, Angell was the fiction editor at The New Yorker, But a few times a year, he would write about baseball. And oh, how he would write.
Perhaps because he came to the game as an outsider, as someone who wasn't around it on a daily basis, Angell's essays had a freshness and perspective than every other writer lacked. He was an unabashed fan of the game, but this was no dilettante, dabbling at some weekend hobby. No, Angell wrote lyrically and elegantly, and he provided a unique perspective with his writing.
It was my great good fortune to meet and speak with Angell on a few occasions. Once, in the 1990s, he visited Fort Myers to write one of his spring training pieces. I found him to be collegial, inquisitive and gentlemanly. The admiration I had for him -- strictly as someone who had read his work -- only grew.
A few years ago, the Baseball Writers Association of America awarded Angell its highest honor -- then known as the J.G. Taylor Spink Award -- for "meritorius contributions to baseball writing,'' despite the fact that Angell was not an official member of the organization.
If ever an exception was to be made, it should be made for Angell, whose work was transcendent and illuminating.
