I always felt that there were 3 necessary ingredients for a team to win any ballgame.
1) You have to want to win. A/K/A mental toughness. A/K/A being disciplined.
I haven't seen many Red Sox hitters being mentally tough lately. Most obvious was the bases loaded, no outs situation the other night. Instead of Ortiz & Beltre looking for a ball waist high or higher to drive to the outfield, they both swung for low balls with less than 2 strikes. No patience. No discipline. 3 outs.
2) You have to prepare to win. Successful &/or correct repetitions equal competence. Competence equals confidence.
Not much confidence in the field lately. Not much run prevention. Nothing that extra ground balls & fly balls can't solve.
3) You need luck.
There has been no luck lately. Every ball that's hard hit for us goes directly to the defense. An "at 'em" ball as we use to say. Can't find holes in the field. Players need to keep making good contact. Beltre & Co. needs to stop swinging for balls out of the strike zone. Stop making other pitchers look better than they are. This is correctable.
The real question is who will step up & do the extra work to get a win. I think we have a lot of players who care & are tired of losing. If I had to guess, I'll go with Tim Wakefield throwing a great game & Kevin Youkilis coming up with big hits with RISP. Let's see if I'm right tomorrow.
1 comment:
We knew Beltre had a rep for swinging at bad balls when we got him. This has been going on for a while. Sometimes things that should be correctible...are not.
Some are doomed to work in the same ruts they have been in all of their lives as a player.
Lack of timely hitting is correctible, but people need to be in the right positions in the lineup to take on that role. I don't believe that a manager can afford not to move someone down the lineup if they're not performing. I understand that it is early in the year, but with two good teams ahead of you, you can't afford to wait for them to come back to you.
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