Starting to look back

Well given that baseball is in its quietest period, I will spend the next few weeks and months looking back at the last year, and trying to put the "disappointment" of a 95 win season in perspective.

One of the things I enjoy about records and statistics is the ability to prove yourself wrong. One of my perceptions in the season past, was that the Sox performed very poorly when they were held to a few runs... well that perception was correct, they only won 9 games all season when they scored 3 runs or less, but when you look at their record over the last few years... that was nothing out of the ordinary:

Red Sox Score	2005 W-L	2004 W-L	2003 W-L	2002 W-L	2001 W-L
0	0-4	0-3	0-5	0-7	0-6
1	1-9	1-8	0-12	0-8	0-14
2	2-9	3-9	5-10	4-18	4-20
3	6-14	3-12	3-9	7-12	7-18
4	7-13	13-14	6-9	19-7	8-6
5	12-6	11-5	12-7	8-7	14-4
6	17-7	11-8	14-4	13-4	11-4
7	15-2	11-5	15-5	10-2	9-5
8	9-3	10-0	7-2	6-3	8-2
9	7-0	10-0	9-3	5-0	7-0
10+	19-0	25-0	24-1	21-1	14-0
	95-67	98-64	95-67	93-69	82-79

But I can give the new GM, whoever that might be (and count me under-whelmed by all the names that have been mentioned / interviewed so far), some very strong advice... build a team that scores 9 runs or more a game, every game, and they will have quite a successful tenure.

The Sox have only lost 2 games in the last 5 seasons when they have scored 10 runs or more, one of those being the official start of the "Pedro might be human" era - the fateful date? April 1st, 2002 - Opening Day, when despite an awful start, Petey wasn't the losing pitcher in an 11-12 reversal, that honor went to accused attempted murderer, Ugueth Urbina. This start was the end of the no-doubt Pedro era, at least for me - 2002 spring training was awful for Pedro, and I had continued to justify it to myself, as "only spring training", but pretty hard to keep that line up when he gave up 8 runs, 7 earned, in 3 innings in his first start of the season... incredibly, outlasting Blue Jays starter, 2005 NL Cy Young winner, Chris Carpenter!

The other? Not such a big shock when the starting pitcher was Sox favorite John Burkett, but again, John was dealt a tough luck loss (I am trying to be kind, he gave up 5 runs) in an September start against the Orioles in 2003, where the pitcher of record was Byung-Hyun Kim - who gave up 4 runs, 0 earned, in an inning of work...