Josh Beckett's fluky home-run rate

It's easy to forget now that Josh Beckett looked like a Cy Young candidate as late as mid-August last season. The hard-throwing righty had a 3.10 ERA and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.45. His win-loss record was 14-4, for those who care about that sort of thing. He'd thrown three complete games, including a three-hit shutout against Kansas City and a three-hit shutout against Atlanta.

Heck, he'd even hit a home run.

But the longball started to cause problems for him in late August, and his ERA reacted accordingly. By Sept. 2, Beckett had allowed at least two home runs in five straight starts and had seen his ERA jump to 3.87 -- and Jon Lester was the Game 1 started in the ALCS.

Home runs are one of those complicated things pitchers both can and can't control. A pitcher has a degree of control over how hard the ball gets hit, and how hard the ball gets hit has a lot to do with whether it goes over the fence. There's a little bit of luck involved, though, in whether fly balls turn into home runs or whether they end up caught at the warning track.

A look at Beckett's entire season indicates that he probably got a little bit unlucky during his rough patch in August.

(Thanks to FanGraphs' tremendous new splits tool for the data.)

Beckett saw his ground-ball rate stay pretty consistent last season, spiking at 52.2 percent in June but never falling below 46 percent down the stretch. His fly-ball rate wasn't quite so consistent, jumping from 28.3 percent in June to 38.9 percent in August. At the same time, though, his line-drive rate hit a season low in August -- and line-drive rate usually is a better indicator of pitcher success or failure than either of the other two measures.

Even as his fly-ball rate jumped, his home-run rate jumped even higher -- higher than it had in his entire Red Sox career. Check out his HR/FB rates by month last season:

Home runs out of total fly balls
April: 10.0 percent
May: 13.0
June: 3.8
July: 8.1
August: 27.3
September: 8.6

(Cue the outlier music.)

Not once in his Red Sox career has Beckett had a month even close to that bad. Not once in his Red Sox career has Beckett's HR/FB ratio even touched 20. His previous worst came in 2006 when his HR/FB numbers fluctuated between 11.1 and 19.5 percent. More often than not, his HR/FB ratio has been under 10 percent.

In other words, something looks awfully fluky about the rough August that Beckett endured last season -- and that's an encouraging sign for this season.

Signing Beckett long-term a huge investment

Consensus generally has been optimistic about the chances that Josh Beckett and the Red Sox come to some sort of agreement on a contract extension before he hits the open market next winter.

It's tough, though, to see how it would work.

The hard-throwing righty faded down the stretch but looked like a Cy Young-caliber pitcher for much of the summer, finishing the season with 17 wins and a 3.86 ERA in a career-best 212 1/3 innings. It was the third time in his four seasons with the Red Sox that he's pitched 200 or more innings, and it also was the third time in his four seasons he's recorded an ERA+ of 115 or better.

Beckett has a chance to hit the free-agent market after the 2010 season as one of the few No. 1 starters available, and No. 1 starters get their money no matter what the economic situation.

He already signed one team-friendly contract with the Red Sox. He already was unlikely to sign another team-friendly contract -- and then Theo Epstein lavished more than $80 million on John Lackey in December.

If the Red Sox are going to re-sign Beckett, they're going to have to offer him what they offered Lackey -- if not a little bit more. The only way Beckett could fit into their salary structure would be if he came at the expense of ever acquiring an impact bat for the middle of the lineup.

Consider the money the Red Sox will pay their starters in 2010:
* Beckett, $12 million
* Clay Buchholz, major-league minimum ($0.5 million)
* John Lackey, $18 million
* Jon Lester, $3.75 million
* Daisuke Matsuzaka, $8 million
Total: $42.25 million

If the Red Sox re-up Beckett for something close to Lackey money -- let's say four years, $60 million, just to be conservative -- here's what they'd have in 2011:
* Beckett, $15 million
* Buchholz, major-league minimum ($0.5 million)
* Lackey, $15.25 million
* Lester, $5.75 million
* Matsuzaka, $10 million
Total: $46.5 million

And in 2012?
* Beckett, $15 million
* Buchholz, $3 million* (arbitration estimate)
* Lackey, $15.25 million
* Lester, $7.63 million
* Matsuzaka, $10 million
Total: $50.88 million

By 2014, the Red Sox could be paying four pitchers (Beckett, Buchholz, Lackey and Lester) more than $52 million between them, a hefty sum for a team that hasn't yet opened a season with a payroll of higher than $150 million. Two of those pitchers -- the most expensive two, of course -- would be 34 and 35 years old.

Oh, and the Red Sox already have second baseman Dustin Pedroia under contract for $10 million in 2014, too.

Imagine trying to fit a bat like Miguel Cabrera (due $22 million in both 2014 and 2015) or Adrian Gonzalez (who will have no reason to settle for anything less than that) into the budget while still filling out the rest of the roster.

Best of luck with that.

There's a reason the Red Sox have fought so fiercely to hang onto Casey Kelly. There's a reason the Red Sox have invested so heavily in Junichi Tazawa. Young pitchers give a team the financial flexibility veteran pitchers don't. Buchholz and Lester still are young pitchers, but they won't be young pitchers by the time Beckett gets into the middle of a four- or five-year contract extension. Should Buchholz progress the way he looked last season like he's going to progress, the above arbitration estimate might be on the conservative side.

Investing $15 million in one pitcher in his mid-30s is risky. Investing $30 million in two pitchers in their mid-30s is borderline insane -- even for the deep-pocketed Red Sox.

Beckett, Lackey virtually identical

To keep building on the previously discussed Beckett-Buchholz premise: It's important to remember that the sticking point for the Red Sox in making blockbuster trades for Adrian Gonzalez or Roy Halladay seemed to be their unwillingness to part with Casey Kelly or Ryan Westmoreland -- and not their unwillingness to part with Clay Buchholz.

That's why it's not a given that a Lackey deal -- multiple media reports have him in Boston taking a physical today -- means the Red Sox will turn around and trade Buchholz to San Diego for Gonzalez or to Detroit for Miguel Cabrera. Both of those teams still almost certainly will insist on Kelly and/or Westmoreland, and the Red Sox don't appear willing to trade either.

The other theory in play is that the Red Sox have reached an impasse in their negotations on a contract extension with Josh Beckett. The Beckett-Jon Lester tandem certainly served the Red Sox well this season, but Theo Epstein seems to believe that Beckett is prepared to walk away after the 2010 season.

Should Beckett walk and Clay Buchholz for some reason not pan out, the once-deep Red Sox rotation would be left with Lester and Daisuke Matsuzaka and not much else, and Epstein would have no choice but to throw crazy money at Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee -- and that's only if neither is traded and/or signed to a contract extension at some point before the end of next season.

Lackey is Beckett insurance.

If the Red Sox landed Lackey for A.J. Burnett money -- $16 million a year or so -- they must believe Beckett is looking instead for CC Sabathia money -- $20 million or more a year. It's not hard to see why Beckett would classify himself as a pitcher more similar to Sabathia than to Burnett, but it's also not hard to see why the Red Sox would balk at paying $20 million a year for his services as he turns 32, 33 and 34 years old.

Rather than risk Beckett walking away, the Red Sox signed a pitcher who might be as similar to him as it gets without sharing a birthday and a mother:

2007
Beckett: 3.27 ERA, 1.141 WHIP, 4.85 K/BB ratio
Lackey: 3.01 ERA, 1.210 WHIP, 3.44 K/BB ratio

2008
Beckett: 4.03 ERA, 1.187 WHIP, 5.06 K/BB ratio
Lackey: 3.75 ERA, 1.231 WHIP, 3.25 K/BB ratio

2009
Beckett: 3.86 ERA, 1.192 WHIP, 3.62 K/BB ratio
Lackey: 3.83 ERA, 1.270 WHIP, 2.96 K/BB ratio

Lackey consistently has a better ERA, though not by much. Beckett consistently has better peripherals, but not by much. Lackey is even from Texas.

Lackey isn't an upgrade on Beckett. But Lackey would give the Red Sox an absolutely loaded starting rotation in 2010 -- and he'd ensure Lester would go each of his next four or five seasons with at least one co-ace at the top of the Red Sox rotation.

Reported Lackey deal has Beckett implications

Both Fanhouse and FoxSports.com are reporting that Angels ace John Lackey is undergoing a physical with the Red Sox, and FoxSports.com has gone far enough to suggest that the Red Sox likely are offering an A.J. Burnett-type contract -- though Lackey might not get five years from the Red Sox the way Burnett did from the Yankees.

Should Lackey sign with the Red Sox, the deal would have implications for several players who wore the Red Sox uniform last season:

1. Jason Bay
Done. Gone. Agent Joe Urbon suggested this weekend that Bay had moved on and was fielding better offers, and signing Lackey would seem to indicate that Theo Epstein was taking Urbon at his word. It seems unlikely that the Red Sox would drop $15 million or more on Bay at the same time -- especially since the signing of Lackey takes the Red Sox even farther along the road of being a pitching-and-defense team. Bay doesn't seem to fit on a pitching-and-defense team. Mike Cameron, on the other hand, does.

2. Mike Lowell
The deal with Texas appears to have hit a snag, but the same pitching-and-defense philosophy that eliminates Bay likewise eliminates Lowell from the Red Sox's plans. A pitching-and-defense team can't have a player at third base whose range is such a question mark entering the season. If the deal with Texas falls through, the Red Sox still will have to find a way to unload Lowell and make room for Adrian Beltre.

3. Josh Beckett
4. Clay Buchholz
The signing of Lackey likewise suggests that either Beckett or Buchholz fits into the post-2010 plans of the Red Sox, but not both. A Beckett-Lester-Lackey-Buchholz-Matsuzaka rotation next season could be dominant, but Beckett is a free agent after the 2010 season and is going to be looking for Lackey-type money -- or more. Buchholz, at the same time, is a prized trade chip and could be flipped in a deal for Miguel Cabrera or Adrian Gonzalez should the Padres or Tigers fall out of contention in July or choose to hold a fire sale next winter.

The knee-jerk reaction is to believe that Buchholz now can be traded this offseason for a bat to replace Bay in the middle of the Red Sox lineup. But it's not quite that simple -- especially given the way Epstein talks about balancing the long-term and short-term of his team.

Let's assume the Red Sox trade Buchholz for a hitter and sign Beckett to a lucrative contract extension. Here's what the Red Sox rotation would look like in 2012:

1. Beckett, age 32, $15 million
2. Lester, age 29, $7.6 million
3. Lackey, age 34, $15 million
4. Daisuke Matsuzaka, $10 million
5. Casey Kelly, age 23, $0.5 million

That's $48 million for a starting rotation -- not to mention the $21 million the Red Sox would owe Cabrera or the money they'd have to pay Gonzalez to extend his contract beyond 2011.

Let's assume, then, the Red Sox let Beckett walk and install Buchholz into the starting rotation full-time. Here's what the Red Sox rotation would look like in 2012:

1. Lester, age 29, $7.6 million
2. Lackey, age 34, $15 million
3. Buchholz, age 28, $3-4 million (arbitration-eligible)
4. Matsuzaka, age 31, $10 million
5. Kelly, age 23, $0.5 million

That's $37 million or so for a starting rotation that isn't really any worse than the starting rotation above -- assuming, of course, Buchholz continues to pitch the way most expect him to pitch. All of a sudden, the Red Sox have an extra $10 million to use in the free-agent market after the 2011 season -- when, now that you mention it, Gonzalez will be free to sign with any team he wants.

(One other advantage to adding Lackey now rather than waiting for Beckett to leave and signing his replacement: The signing of Marco Scutaro meant the Red Sox already had forfeited their first-round pick and thus only forfeited a second-round pick for Lackey. If Beckett walks in 2010, the Red Sox once again can load up on draft picks a la 2005.)

Signing Lackey doesn't necessarily mean the Red Sox will trade Buchholz. Signing Lackey might just allow the Red Sox to let Beckett walk after this season -- or even to shop him on a pitching-thin trade market this winter.

Red Sox MVP No. 4: Josh Beckett

(A five-part series about the players most integral to the success the Red Sox enjoyed this season. Previously appearing on the countdown -- No. 5: Closer Jonathan Papelbon.)

The Red Sox will have to decide pretty quickly whether they see Beckett as a break-the-bank ace or as a very good pitcher who might not be worth what he'll probably get on the open market.

Beckett came into last season as the team's undisputed ace, a hard-throwing righty coming off a Cy Young-caliber season in 2007. Two years later, Beckett didn't even make the Game 1 start when the Red Sox met the Angels in the American League Division Series -- and he faded in the seventh inning of that start, surrendering a two-run triple to Erick Aybar that proved to be the difference in the Angels' win.

After a spectacularly dominant tear through the playoffs in 2007, in fact, Beckett has looked completely ordinary in his last two postseason trips: He has a 7.71 ERA in his last four playoff starts, hardly the stuff of legend he demonstrated in his first two ventures into October.

Don't misunderstand: Beckett is a terrific pitcher capable of shredding opposing lineups. Between May 1 and Aug. 15 this season, in fact, Beckett went 12-2 with a 2.17 ERA and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.38. He faded badly down the stretch, though, missing a start with back spasms and putting up a 6.02 ERA in his final nine starts of the season.

With Beckett now one year away from hitting the open market at the age of 30, both he and the Red Sox will have to figure out if he's the type of elite pitcher worth the investment the Yankees made in CC Sabathia last winter ($161 million for seven years) or if he's closer in value to the contract the Braves lavished upon Derek Lowe ($60 million for four years).

Here's a look at how Beckett stacks up with some of the best starting pitchers in the game over the last five years (min. 50 wins from 2005-09):

ERA
1. Chris Carpenter, 2.76
2. Johan Santana, 2.91
3. Roy Halladay, 3.01
4. Jake Peavy, 3.13
5. CC Sabathia, 3.27
22. Josh Beckett, 3.92

(Also among those ahead of Beckett: Mark Buehrle, A.J. Burnett, Scott Kazmir, John Lackey -- and Derek Lowe.)

Adjusted ERA+
1. Carpenter, 1.55
2. Santana, 149
3. Halladay, 147
4. Brandon Webb, 141
5. Sabathia, 135
17. Beckett, 117

K/BB ratio
1. Halladay, 4.56
2. Santana, 4.23
3. Dan Haren, 4.16
4. Carpenter, 4.02
5. Javier Vazquez, 4.00
14. Josh Beckett, 3.41

WHIP
1. Carpenter, 1.057
2. Santana, 1.072
3. Halladay, 1.106
4. Jake Peavy, 1.125
5. Haren, 1.153
8. Beckett, 1.200

The Red Sox make it a practice to place a value on a player based both on his production and on the market and to stick to that value. Beckett signed a contract extension three years ago that eventually will pay him $42 million for four years, a contract widely described at the time -- and since -- as below market value.

(Fangraphs.com has Beckett being worth an average of $24.3 million over the last three seasons based on his 5-6 wins above replacement with which he's been credited. Fangraphs' value numbers, however, don't necessarily reflect market conditions: The median player on the Fangraphs leaderboard was valued at $12.95 million this season, and it's a stretch to say the average non-Yankee major league team can spent that type of money on players like Martin Prado or Orlando Hudson and still keep their payroll under $100 million.)

Beckett undoubtedly will be out to make up the difference when he hits the open market. Unless he has a year that catapults him into the Carpenter-Halladay-Santana stratosphere, however, he's probably not going to get that type of contract from the Red Sox.

Angels make key adjustment at bottom of zone

Josh Beckett didn't pitch all that differently in the late innings than he did in the early innings. He did a spectacular job of keeping the ball down in the strike zone as he retired nine of the first 10 hitters he faced, inducing four ground-ball outs in the process. But he still kept the ball down pretty effectively in the late innings, too, and only occasionally did his pitches start creeping up in the strike zone as he started to fatigue.

The difference was the adjustment the Angels made, and that adjustment won them the game.

(Had Red Sox hitters done anything with Jered Weaver, of course, this would be a moot point. But they didn't, so it isn't.)

Three of the first nine outs Beckett recorded came on pitches right at the knees, pitches the Angels couldn't do anything with. Five of the others came on pitches right on the inside or outside corner. Beckett threw his four-seam fastball and two-seam fastball with great effectiveness, and the Angels couldn't touch him through the first three innings:


This is where the improved patience of the Angels' hitters comes into play.

Patience at the plate isn't just about drawing walks. As we've seen with Jacoby Ellsbury this season, patience at the plate also can mean taking called strikes if there's a good chance a better strike is going to come along.

The Angels didn't necessarily start working the count better or forcing Beckett to throw more pitches. Most of the time, in fact, they saw fewer pitches than they had before: Kendry Morales' eight-pitch at-bat in the seventh inning was the Angels' longest at-bat all night, but it was their first at-bat lasting more than five pitches since the fourth inning.

What they started to do, though, was lay off those pitches right at the knees that had been killing them earlier in the game.

Here's Beckett's pitch chart from the fourth inning until his exit from the game. Circled, as above, are the blue dots that indicate balls put in play -- or, at least, the blue dots in the middle of the strike zone that weren't there in the first three innings.

But there's one little detail to notice: There are four red dots in a line right along the bottom of the strike zone. Those represent called strikes. Beckett did still go after the bottom of the strike zone with his fastball and his changeup, but the Angels laid off. (Click on the chart below for more detail.)

They were patient. They took called strikes. They waited for Beckett to start leaving the ball a little up in the zone, and when he did, they pounced.


The single hit by Macier Izturis came on a curveball down and away, and it was the type of seeing-eye ground ball Beckett (and his infield) couldn't have done anything about. He made his pitch. Izturis did a nice job getting his bat on the ball, and he got a little lucky in that the ball found a hole.

At that point, though, it was still 2-1 and still a manageable game.

But his final pitch was a fastball up and over the plate to Erick Aybar. Beckett threw four straight pitches up in the zone to Aybar, probably trying to overpower him despite the inevitable fatigue that comes with throwing 100 pitches, and Aybar jumped all over the best one he saw.



Jacoby Ellsbury didn't track it down until it was already rolling around on the warning track, and that was the game.

Rest part of reason for Lester-Beckett choice

Terry Francona tried to tell reporters he'd chosen Jon Lester over Josh Beckett to start Game 1 of the American League Division Series because the starting rotation just happened to fall that way naturally.

"When you look at how our rotation was set up -- and Beckett knows we feel this way, because for us to get where we want to go, we're going to have to lean on both of them -- to flip-flop then around would have meant one guy was on normal rest and another guy was on 10 (days' rest)," Francona told reporters after Sunday's game.

That, though, is a cop-out. When the Red Sox scratched Beckett from his start last Monday, they could have inserted him back into the rotation whenever they wanted. They could have pitched him on Wednesday, for example, and then had him ready to pitch on six or seven days' rest in Game 1. Instead, they skipped his turn entirely and didn't bring him back until Saturday -- ensuring he was lined up between Lester and Clay Buchholz.

But when he started talking about Lester and Beckett pitching in Game 4 and Game 5, potentially, he started making much more sense.

You have to assume the Yankees will choose the Wednesday start to force the Detroit/Minnesota winner to turn around and play in New York the day after a one-game playoff in the Twin Cities. That hands the Red Sox this schedule:

Thursday: Lester (six days' rest)
Friday: Beckett (five days)
Sunday: Buchholz (six days)
Monday: Daisuke Matsuzaka (nine days) or Lester (three days)
Wednesday: Lester (five days) or Beckett (four days)

The Game 4 starter, Francona hinted, would depend on how the series had progressed to that point. If the Red Sox lead 2-1 at that point, Matsuzaka probably would start. If the Red Sox trailed 2-1 and faced elimination, Lester probably would start.

"We think Lester is situated where he comes back on short rest (in Game 4), and that would have Beckett, if there's a Game 5, on regular rest," Francona said. "There are a lot of options that are open to us that we're interested in exploring."

Here's why: Jon Lester hasn't started on three days' rest in his major-league career. Josh Beckett has made one start on three days' rest -- but that was in 2004. There's not much you can take from that information.

Lester, though, has a far better track record on four days' rest than Beckett. Here's how the two break down in their career numbers:

Four days' rest
Beckett: 4.00 ERA (113 starts)
(In 2008, it was 4.57. In 2009, it was 4.73.)
Lester: 3.93 ERA (46 starts)
(In 2008, it was 2.91. In 2009, it was 3.99.)

Five days' rest
Beckett: 3.90 ERA (77 starts)
Lester: 3.13 ERA (30 starts)

Six days' rest
Beckett: 2.93 ERA (33 starts)
Lester: 3.94 ERA (14 starts)

If there's a guy you want to bring back on short rest, based on those numbers, it's probably Lester. If there's a guy to whom you want to give an extra day, it's probably Beckett.

Oh, and the fact remains that Lester has been a better pitcher all season than Beckett. He took longer to see his numbers reach an elite level -- in part because of horrendous luck -- but he still has a better strikeout ratio (10.0 per nine innings) than any pitcher in the major leagues other than Justin Verlander. He's earned that Game 1 start.

Beckett not as shaky as box score shows

It's customary around these parts to give a guy a pass for the first inning when he's gone 10 days without pitching.

(Yes, you can say that with a Texas accent. It's thematic.)

With that in mind, if you ignore a first inning in which he gave up a pair of runs on three line drives, Josh Beckett actually pitched pretty well in his final regular-season outing. He got 11 of his final 12 outs via either a ground ball or a strikeout. Even the two runs he surrendered in the second inning came thanks to a pair of ground balls through the infield -- if either of them had found a glove, he'd have been out of the inning without any damage at all.

"He looked like he hadn't pitched in a while, and I think that's expected," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "They hit some fastballs early, but the way he finished the last three, I thought it was really productive."

Said Beckett, "I don't know about rust. I definitely needed to get some emotions in check. Every pitch I tried to throw harder than the one before that. It caused me to miss location. ...

"If they ever go to a nine-man rotation, I'm not in."

Most importantly, after the first inning, he kept the ball down and out of the middle and gave the Indians little chance to do anything with it. You know what's coming: Let's go to the charts!

Beckett's first inning of work:

Beckett's final four innings:

(The approach chart, keep in mind, equalizes for lefties and righties. Everything on the left side of the chart is on the inside half, and everything on the right side of the chart is on the outside half.)

"He was able to locate his pitches a lot better," catcher Victor Martinez said. "The first couple of innings, he was overthrowing, and he was missing his spot a lot. After that, he settled up pretty good, and he was able to his spots."

A couple of things to notice about his outing:
* After the first inning, he didn't give the Indians anything up and in, the type of pitch good hitters yank over the Green Monster.

* He featured his sinker -- occasionally labeled as a two-team fastball by the Pitch F/X system -- more than he did in his last home start, a loss to the Angels. Beckett threw sinkers on 10 of his 114 pitches in that game but threw changeups on 14 of his 98 pitches on Saturday night.

"There were some things I wanted to touch on, and one of them was the sinker to extension side," he said. "That's something we've kind of been working on, whether it be to a lefty inside or to a righty away. I felt like we did that the last few innings."

* His breaking ball, normally a 12-to-6 hammer of a curve, didn't hammer quite as much as it normally does. The vertical break of the pitch generally was recorded between five and 10 inches against the Angels two weeks ago but was recorded between two and seven inches against the Indians on Saturday.

The horizontal movement, though, seemed to be about the same.

* He maintained the velocity of his fastball consistently throughout his outing. Against the Angels two weeks ago, he dipped below 94 miles an hour after 50 pitches or so and never got back above that point, but against the Indians on Saturday, he hit 94 miles an hour four times in his final inning of work -- including 96 on his second-to-last pitch.

* Beckett entered the game with 194 strikeouts, needing six to become the sixth American League pitcher this year to top the 200-strikeout plateau -- and to top that plateau for the first time in his career.

He fanned five.

His 199 strikeouts this season, though, still are a career high.

Choice of Lester for Game 1 a no-brainer

Josh Beckett has the resume, but according to Sean McAdam of the Boston Herald, Jon Lester has the Game 1 start for the Red Sox when the playoffs begin in a couple of weeks.

The choice, really, was a no-brainer.

As well as Beckett has pitched all season, the numbers show that he's no longer the ace of the staff. Lester, the best lefthanded pitcher the Red Sox have had since Bruce Hurst, has been a more reliable and more consistent pitcher all season long. A sampling:

ERA
Beckett: 3.78
Lester: 3.33

ERA since May 1
Beckett: 3.22
Lester: 2.95

Playoff ERA a year ago
Beckett: 8.79
Lester: 2.36 in 26 2/3 innings
(Granted, Beckett was hurt -- but did you remember Lester was that good?)

K/9IP
Beckett: 8.4
Lester: 9.9

BB/9IP
Beckett: 2.3
Lester: 2.8

GB/FB
Beckett: 0.89
Lester: 0.94

It comes down to this: If both Lester and Beckett win Games 1 and 2 in whatever order but Clay Buchholz loses Game 3, who do you want to pitch Game 4 to close it out before an anything-can-happen Game 5?

The answer is clear. It's Lester.

(Does that, then, set up Victor Martinez to catch Game 1 and Jason Varitek to catch Game 2? Maybe -- but given that there'll be a day off before Game 3, maybe not.)

***

Lester, by the way, remains in the same elite company he was in earlier this season, back when he had an ERA higher than 5.00. Back in early May, Lester was one of nine pitchers with a K/BB ratio of better than 3-to-1 who also was averaging more than a strikeout an inning.

That group is down to six:
* Javier Vazquez (2.91 ERA)
* Zack Greinke (2.08)
* Justin Verlander (3.41)
* Ricky Nolasco (5.34)
* Tim Lincecum (2.47)
* Jon Lester (3.33)

Back in May, both Lester and Verlander had outlier-type ERAs.

Now, though, Lester's ERA was right where it should be -- among the best in the major leagues.

Clay Buchholz and financial flexibility

What Clay Buchholz has brought with him back to Boston isn't just renewed confidence and a devastating changeup. He's brought with him the financial flexibility that will allow the Red Sox to fill gaping holes elsewhere.

The Red Sox have deep pockets, but even the Red Sox have to draw a line somewhere. We've seen the line before -- particularly with Mark Teixeira this past winter -- but we've also seen it more subtly: When the Red Sox acquired Billy Wagner, for example, Theo Epstein cited the budgeted performance bonuses for Brad Penny and John Smoltz as the reason he could afford to assume the contract of Billy Wagner.

Buchholz, who will finish this season with a little more than two full years of service time in the major leagues, will earn somewhere around $500,000 next season. He'll be arbitration-eligible for the first time a season after that. Combined with Jon Lester, whose contract doesn't break $10 million until 2013, Buchholz will give the Red Sox unprecedented payroll flexibility within their starting rotation and beyond.

Here's how the projected Red Sox rotation breaks down next season:
1. Josh Beckett, $12 million
2. Jon Lester, $3.75 million
3. Clay Buchholz, ~$500,000
4. Daisuke Matsuzaka, $8 million
5. Tim Wakefield, $4 million
Total: Just shy of $26 million

Compare that to the Yankees' projected rotation:
1. CC Sabathia, $23 million
2. A.J. Burnett, $16.5 million
3. Joba Chamberlain, ~$500,000
4-5. Fill in the blank
Total (1-3): $40 million-plus

But it's not really about the Yankees. It's about the Red Sox, and it's about Theo Epstein's ability to spend money in the areas his team needs help. The key comparison, really, is with the way the Red Sox spent money on pitchers in the past -- and we'll look at recent two seasons chosen completely and totally at random:

2007
1. Beckett, $6 million
2. Curt Schilling, $13 million
3. Daisuke Matsuzaka, $8 million
4. Wakefield, $4 million
5. Julian Tavarez, $3.35 million
Total: $34.35 million

2004
1. Pedro Martinez, $17.5 million
2. Schilling, $12 million
3. Derek Lowe, $5 million
4. Wakefield, $4.35 million
5. Bronson Arroyo, $332,500
Total: $39.1825 million

(Numbers all lifted from Cot's Baseball Contracts.)

Pitching, of course, is everything.

But when you don't have to spend money on pitching -- particularly in a free-agent market as weak as the upcoming free-agent market will be -- you're a step ahead of the game.

Think of it this way: If Buchholz was pitching more like a No. 4 starter than like a No. 2, the Red Sox would have to think about signing Jon Garland, John Lackey or Jarrod Washburn to a big-money contract to fit in behind Beckett and Lester. Lackey in particular is going to be looking for A.J. Burnett-type money -- and rightfully so, given that he's a better pitcher than Burnett -- and he's going to get it from someone.

Thanks to Buchholz, though, it won't be from the Red Sox.

For a team with fairly deep pockets, saving money on pitching isn't usually a yellow-brick road to the playoffs. We've all seen the Red Sox burned before when they've gone bargain shopping for starting pitchers.

But with a starting rotation already filled up with quality major-league pitchers at less than $30 million for the entire package, the Red Sox can afford to spend elsewhere. That's going to be essential for a team that's going to need to spend elsewhere.

Consider the financial considerations for next season:
(Italics denote estimate.)

1. Left field: $7.5 million in 2009. $15 million for 2010.
Jason Bay is a free agent, and the Red Sox will either have to pony up for Bay or Matt Holliday or replace that production at another position. Bay cost the Red Sox just $7.5 million a year this season, but they'll have to pay double that either to him or to his replacement.

2. Shortstop. $1 million in 2009. $6 million in 2010.
The team holds a $6 million option on Alex Gonzalez, a reasonable price to pay for Jed Lowrie insurance. The idea of Jose Reyes remains on the table, and if you don't think Epstein will have that conversation with Omar Minaya a couple of times, you're crazy.

3. Catcher. $6 million in 2009. $11 million in 2010.
The $7.5 million option the Red Sox hold on Victor Martinez might be the biggest no-brainer of all time, but that's more money than they spent on Jason Varitek and George Kottaras combined this season. Oh, and they'll still owe $3 million to Varitek whether they save a roster spot for him or not.

4. Third base. $12 million in 2009. $12 million in 2010.
Mike Lowell is looking a little more spry these days, but it's still a gamble to count on a 36-year-old with limited range to play third base every day. Chone Figgins and Marco Scutaro both are options, and while Scutaro might come relatively cheap, Figgins won't.

5. Designated hitter. $12.5 million in 2009. $12.5 million in 2010.
David Ortiz came alive in June but has seen his slugging percentage drop every month since -- even with his pinch-hit double on Sunday, he's still slugging just .400 -- and the Red Sox might not want to risk their designated hitter looking as lifeless next season as Ortiz did in April and May.

6. Other monies owed.
The Red Sox still will have to pay Julio Lugo $9 million next season no matter what uniform he wears. Should they jettison Lowell or Ortiz, they'll have to eat quite a bit of that money, too, and that starts to add up.

Without Buchholz looking like Zack Greinke in the middle of the Red Sox rotation, Epstein would have to shell out quite a bit of money for a workhorse like Lackey -- or he'd have to unload a half-dozen prized prospects for a young phenom like Felix Hernandez.

Instead, though, Epstein can spend that money on a slugger to play left field or for a super-utility infielder like Figgins or Scutaro to play third base and shortstop -- or he can use it to pay another big bopper while turning Ortiz into a $12 million-a-year pinch-hitter off the bench.

The Red Sox have shifted their focus to their farm system because financial flexibility is everything in baseball. When you only have to pay your No. 2 and No. 3 starters a combined $4 million, it gives you the opportunity to do just about anything else you want.

Buchholz, Lester baffle Rays

If you want to see scoring, watch Adrian Peterson run.

If you want to see pitching, watch the Red Sox in the playoffs.

Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz look at Josh Beckett as a role model. Lester and Buchholz look at each other like buddies. The two often can be found on perched on the clubhouse couches, a laptop on the table and guitars in their respective laps, working out chords together for whatever song happens to be on the screen.

A day after Beckett tossed a rain-shortened pseudo-complete game, his best outing in a month, both Buchholz and Lester one-upped the hard-throwing righty. Buchholz threw seven sterling innings, allowing only one run on an infield chopper, and Lester threw eight even better innings, a broken-bat single to left the only hit he allowed until after he'd thrown 90 pitches.

"I didn't show up today saying I was going to pitch better than Josh or pitch better than Clay," Lester said. "I don't work that way. ... As far as competitive nature, no, I'm not trying to come in here and outdo those guys. They threw the ball really, really well. I'm just trying to pitch my game and execute pitches."

When a reporter asked Red Sox manager Terry Francona about the back end of his starting rotation, he lumped his top three pitchers together in that top tier -- perhaps for the first time.

"Buchholz, Beckett and Lester, if they’re pitching the way they’re supposed to, you start filling in those other spots, it’s a little bit easier," Francona said. "If those guys stumble, that’s when it looks a little bit harder."

Beckett, unless his bounce-back start becomes more aberrational than indicative of progress, remains the staff ace. Lester and Buchholz, however, might be the best No. 2 and No. 3 starters in major-league baseball. Lester had already surpassed Beckett in terms of ERA (3.29 to 3.82), and Buchholz (3.66) did so with his sensational effort on Sunday.

Here's a closer look at how Buchholz and Lester combined to surrender just one run and seven hits in 15 innings against the Rays on Sunday:

Clay Buchholz
That changeup. Oh, that changeup.

Buchholz came up with a plus curveball. He's developed a plus slider. He's spent the entire season refining his fastball.

The Rays, however, couldn't touch his changeup.

The 25-year-old righty threw mixed 24 changeups into his repertoire on Sunday. The Rays swung and missed at nine of them -- an absurd number.

All in all, Buchholz induced a season-best 15 swings and misses -- one with his slider, two with his curveball, three with his fastball and nine with that beautiful changeup.

To put that in perspective, Beckett hasn't gotten 15 swings and misses in any of his starts this season. Cy Young front-runner Zack Greinke has induced 15 swings and misses in just three of his 29 starts.

If not for one fluky ground ball up the middle, Buchholz would have escaped seven innings without allowing a single earned run.

"It's unfortunate that a bleeder up the middle gets him," Lester said. "It's unlucky. If the ball's hit a little bit harder, it's an out. But he threw the ball really well. You could tell early on he was really feeling it with his changeup, and he carried that confidence over."

It's easy to see why the changeup was effective. The chart:

The horizontal axis is speed. The vertical axis is up-and-down movement. When Buchholz throws his changeup, it looks exactly the same as his fastball but comes in 10 or 12 miles an hour slower.

Compare that to his final halfway decent start a year ago:

(The colors are different, but you can see how his changeup and his slider run together and how neither are along the same vertical axis as his fastball.)

If a hitter can't see the ball start to break, he's going to read fastball -- and he's going to be way out in front with his swing. That's what Buchholz did to the Rays on Sunday.

It's even more difficult to see the difference during the sunshine of the afternoon under which the skinny Texan was pitching.

"When you change speeds on a day like today when it's bright and it's not bright and it's bright, that makes it even tougher," Francona said. "I even asked (umpire) Randy Marsh when I made a change, I said, 'Can you see?' He said, 'Some of it.' You see part of the ball. Anybody that's changing speeds, it's making it that much more difficult."

Said Buchholz, "It's a pitch I feel I can throw on hitters' counts. It's just a ptich you can throw with the same arm speed as your fastball just to get them off just that little tick and maybe get a mis-hit ball or pop up somebody. It's been a good pitch for me."

Buchholz now has a 1.59 ERA in his last four starts, all wins, and opponents are hitting .170 against him in that span. Through out one lousy start against the White Sox, and Buchholz has a 1.71 ERA since Aug. 8.

It's tough for Francona not to get ahead of himself.

"When he pitches well, it’s hard not to think of the future," the manager said. "I know we’re caught in the present, but he’s a young pitcher that’s trying to establish himself as a winner. When he does that, he certainly makes the future a lot brighter. You can’t find pitching, ... and you’ve got a guy right in your own backyard."

It's hard for us not to get ahead of ourselves, too.

The last time a Red Sox pitcher showed off a changeup like that, though, fans waved Dominican flags in the bleachers and chanted "Ped-ro! Ped-ro!" every five days.

Jon Lester
Not only has Lester surpassed Beckett in several statistical categories this season, he might just have surpassed Beckett as the best power arm in the Red Sox rotation. The lefty touched 97.7 miles per hour on an admittedly generous Fenway Park gun and averaged better than 94 miles in his eight innings.

It was a particularly impressive effort given the false start he'd endured on Friday. He had to rush his warm-up pitches and threw 23 pitches in a driving rain before umpires called a halt to the proceedings.

He then came back two days later and threw 105 pitches across eight shutout innings.

"I was kind of surprised at the way my body responded," he said. "It was almost like an extended bullpen. I'm guessing, but I'm right around 40 pitches in the bullpen and 20 pitches out there. A 60-pitch side has been done by me many times. I've been out there grinding away.

"I figured I'd be a little more sore (on Saturday) than I was, but it turned out to work pretty well."

The lefty didn't command particularly well in the rain on Friday: He allowed three hits and a fly ball to center field, and all four came on either fastballs or cutters that he'd left in the middle of the strike zone:

It was a far different story on Sunday. He left one pitch in the middle of the strike zone -- a first-pitch fastball right down the middle to Jason Bartlett that inexplicably was called a ball -- but the pitches the Rays put in play all were on the edges of the zone:

From there, it was a matter of doing what he's done all season. Lester fanned the side in the third inning on a fastball, a curveball and a fastball. He then walked the dangerous Evan Longoria in the fourth ining but followed that by striking out Ben Zobrist (swinging at a curveball) and Erick Aybar (swinging at a cutter).

Francona could have lifted him for a reliever after he allowed a leadoff single to Dioner Navarro in the top of the eighth. But with Navarro on third base and pinch-hitter Pat Burrell at the plate, Lester struck him out with three straight elevated fastballs and a nasty curveball down and in:

It's easy to compare Buchholz now to Lester a year ago. But even if you take Lester's cancer out of the equation, they're two different pitchers -- and they've traveled two different career arcs.

"Clay came up right away and throws a no-hitter," Lester said. "After his second start, he's already got expectations. It took me a while to build those expecations.

"That's got to be tough. You come up here and throw a no-hitter, and it's like, 'Oh, this is easy.' It's not, and he learned that kind of the hard way -- but I think it's going to make him a better pitcher. As you've seen, I think he's grown up quite a bit, and he's done unbelievably well."

So, too, has Lester.

While Buchholz can make a pretty good argument to be considered the No. 3 starter in the Red Sox rotation, Lester can make a pretty good argument to be considered the best lefthanded pitcher in the major leagues.

Beckett turns the corner

The Globe's Adam Kilgore went above and beyond and stuck around until the very end a night ago and was rewarded with an informative interview with Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell. Among the tidbits:

1. "The way he threw the ball tonight was consistent with the last four innings in Tampa and pretty much through the White Sox game. I wouldn’t single out the five-plus innings he threw tonight. I think it’s a continuation of what’s been happening."

2. "He’s commanding the bottom of the strike zone with his fastball more consistently. By leveraging the ball downhill, it also gives him the appropriate shape and finish to his curveball as well."

3. "He doesn’t have to overthrow. He can lose a little bit of location. Over the past three games, he’s been more consistent repeating his delivery and executing his pitches in that regard."

One item to note: Beckett's velocity certainly seemed diminished on Saturday night. A pitcher who normally averages 95 and 96 miles an hour on the radar gun topped out at 95 and averaged closer to 93 miles an hour against the Rays. When it comes with improved command and sharp breaking pitches, though, a 93-mile-an-hour fastball can be plenty effective -- as Clay Buchholz has demonstrated.

But let's talk specifically about the curveball.

As outlined here, Beckett had seen his curveball look more and more like a slider over the course of the season, its horizontal movement growing and growing as the season progressed. When he allowed five runs in five innings against the Blue Jays on Aug. 28, a curveball that normally has five or six inches of horizontal movement had stretched out to more than seven inches.

(This is a pretty technical description, but the idea should be pretty clear: Beckett throws more of a 12-to-6 breaking ball than, say, a side-to-side breaking ball. The more horizontal Beckett's breaking ball gets, the less 12-to-6 it gets, and the less effective it becomes.)

Against the White Sox on Monday, Beckett threw 24 curveballs (12 for strikes) with an average horizontal movement of 6.79 inches. He threw the pitch with pretty good consistency, too: Other than three outliers, he kept his curveballs well grouped on the movement charts.

What he didn't do, though, was keep his curveball down. Check out the pink dots:

Contrast that to Saturday.

Beckett threw 11 curveballs (five for strikes) against the Rays with an average horizontal movement of 6.84 inches. Even better, he attacked the strike zone with the pitch, throwing the pitch either for a strike or down and out of the zone to try to induce swings and misses:

Check out the pink dots again. As Farrell said, pitching down in the strike zone isn't just about the fastball. When Beckett can command the bottom of the strike zone with all of his pitches, he's tough to hit -- and he did just that on Saturday.

Another Josh Beckett diagnosis

From the Boston Herald on Tuesday:
Pitching coach John Farrell recently said a video breakdown of (Josh) Beckett’s motion, as well as discussions with the right-hander, revealed he isn’t creating enough of a downhill plane on his fastball. He has allowed 10 home runs in his past 18 1/3 innings.
“The one thing that he won’t back away from is a challenge,” Farrell said. “This isn’t a health-related issue. This isn’t a fatigue-related issue. This is a little bit more just some timing in his delivery to allow that execution at the bottom of the strike zone to be more consistent.”

OK, well, that's an interesting idea. Beckett isn't pitching effectively because he's not getting enough downward motion on his fastball.

You know what we do here at OneIf land. We go to the charts. As we go through the charts, check out the cluster of green dots -- Beckett's fastball.

Here's Beckett on July 12, his best start of the season:

Vertical movement: Between 5 and 14 inches, clustered around 10.

Here's Beckett on Aug. 12, his last good start before this latest slump:

Vertical movement: Between 2 and 11 inches, clustered around 8.

Here's Beckett on Aug. 28, the start in which he walked five and didn't reach the sixth inning for the first time since April:

Vertical movement: Between 3 and 10 inches, clustered around 9.

There certainly has been a loss in vertical movement since July -- but if you look at Beckett's seven-inning effort against Detroit on Aug. 12, the vertical movement already was diminished.

What else could it be, then?

Could it be his curveball?

If we go back to the charts, Beckett has seen the horizontal movement in his curveball tick upward steadily over the course of the season. Rather than going to the charts, we'll go straight to the numbers:

May 23 (8 IP, 5 H, 0 ER)
Curveball horizontal movement: 4.97

June 20 (complete-game shutout)
Curveball horizontal movement: 5.48

July 12 (complete-game shutout)
Curveball horizontal movement: 6.38

Aug. 12 (7 IP, 3 H, 2 ER)
Curveball horizontal movement: 7.35

Aug. 28 (5 IP, 5 ER, 5 BB)
Curveball horizontal movement: 7.29

(Thanks once again to brooksbaseball.net for compiling the data.)

Check out that progression. Beckett's curveball is getting less and less 12-to-6 (fast-forward to the 0:28 mark on this video) and looking more and more like a slurve or a slider (fast-forward to the 0:16 mark on this video).

There are no pitching coaches around this part of the blogosphere, but when a trend like that coincides with a downturn in production, well, it raises an eyebrow.

Francona encouraged, Beckett not so much

"I actually thought he was better," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said in the aftermath of the team's rain-delayed win over the Toronto Blue Jays. "I thought his two-seam (fastball) movement was better. I didn't think his command was where he needs it. But I do think it was an improvement."

Josh Beckett surrendered five runs in five innings on five hits and five walks, striking out nine but allowing two home runs that left the Red Sox in a hole. It was his third lousy start in a row -- his ERA in his last three starts now is 9.94, and his ERA for the season has climbed from 3.10 to 3.80.

The nine strikeouts were encouraging. The walks and home runs were not.

Guess what Beckett chose to focus on?

"I was happy we won," he said. "Besides that, I'm not impressed by myself. We ended up pulling it out, and that's the good thing about being on a good team."

Was there any improvement over the last two outings?

"No, not really," he said, his voice dismissive. "Like I said, I'm happy we won."

Take a look at the charts, first from last Sunday's loss to the Yankees...

... and second from Friday's win over the Blue Jays.

Beckett isn't the type of pitcher to give in, to shy away from pitching to contact because he's afraid he's going to give up home runs. He was around the plate much, much less against the Blue Jays against the Yankees, and that's a sign of shaky command.

Here's another chart tracking the movement on his pitches, first from the game against Yankees last weekend...

... and second from Friday night's game against the Blue Jays.

Not only was Beckett around the plate more in his start against the Yankees, but he was more consistent with the movement of his pitches. He also didn't do much to differentiate his cutter or his changeup from a fastball that sat in the 93- to 95-mile-an-hour range.

In fact, he threw one changeup and just four or five cutters all night, and that turned him into a two-pitch pitcher who looked more like buddy Brad Penny than is going to sit well with Red Sox fans. He threw just his fastball and his curveball, and he didn't command either pitch particularly well.

As Jon Lester could tell you from earlier this season, it's easier to figure out issues with surrendering occasional home runs than it is to figure out issues with walking too many hitters. In that way, Beckett might actually have taken a step back.

It might have been the rain. Beckett pitched through a steady drizzle that eventually turned into a downpour, and that might have affected his command. The righty, to his credit, didn't choose to offer that or any other excuse.

Whatever the reason for his struggles, he's got some serious work to do starting right now.

A Josh Beckett diagnosis

A reporter -- OK, this reporter -- asked Jason Varitek late Sunday night if there was any surprise that the Yankees went up swinging at the first pitch the way they'd done with such brutal effectiveness. Both Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui launched first-pitch fastballs over the right-field fence in the first and second innings, and Jose Molina and Jeter swung at back-to-back first-pitch baseballs to open the third inning.

It wasn't until the fourth inning that a Yankee watched a first pitch go by -- and that was Nick Swisher, who has swung at just 17 percent of first pitches this season, fewer even than J.D. Drew.

An inning after Swisher took a first pitch and eventually grounded out on a curveball, Jeter again chased the first pitch -- a terrific cut fastball down in the zone -- and grounded to second base on a checked swing. An inning after that, Swisher came to the plate again and took a hack at the first pitch only to swing and miss. An inning after that, Molina again swung at the first pitch and missed.

Seven innings. Six first-pitch swings. This from a team that's swinging at just 22 percent of first pitches this season, fourth-fewest in the American League.

Was that a surprise, Jason Varitek?

"Not so much with Josh, no," the catcher said.

Check out the first three innings of Beckett's previous start against Toronto and the first pitch of each inning of that start:
First inning: Fastball right down the middle.
Second inning: Fastball right down the middle.
Third inning: Fastball away.

And the start before that against Detroit, a team that swings at 28 percent of first pitches:
First inning: Fastball right down the middle.
Second inning: Fastball away.
Third inning: Fastball right down the middle.

Let's keep going, just for fun, with his Aug. 7 start against the Yankees:
First inning: Fastball up and in.
Second inning: Curveball in the dirt.
(Whoa. Hold on. Stop the presses.)
Third inning: Fastball right down the middle.

Dare we continue? Aug. 1 against Baltimore, a team taht swings at a league-average 26 percent of first pitches:
First inning: Fastball right down the middle.
Second inning: Fastball down and in.
Third inning: Fastball up and away.

With a track record like that, how could the Yankees not be going after the first pitch -- and how could they not be hitting the ball over the fence?

Pitching rotation: From Point A to Point B

Tim Wakefield will start Wednesday for the Red Sox in place of Brad Penny, the veteran who might have seen his Red Sox career come to an inglorious end in similar fashion to John Smoltz two weeks ago.

Smoltz was rocked by the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, and Penny was rocked by the Yankees at Fenway Park to the tune of eight runs in four innings. Red Sox manager Terry Francona didn't come with the "At least he was throwing strikes" optimism he's brought to previous post-Penny press conferences, and he told reporters this afternoon that Penny had lost his spot in the Red Sox rotation.

"I told him he's got to kind of hang tight a little bit and get through today, and then we'll go from there," Francona said.

Odds are long that Penny will make another start for the Red Sox this season. It would be easy enough to "skip" Penny in the rotation this week, optioning Enrique Gonzalez to Triple-A Pawtucket to make room for Wakefield and filling out the bullpen with extra arms when rosters expand five days later.

The return of Wakefield and the marginalization of Penny means just more upheaval in a Red Sox pitching staff many believed to be the deepest in baseball coming out of spring training. Francona and Theo Epstein developed contingency plan after contingency plan -- and they've had to put almost all of them to use.

It's amazing, really, how the Red Sox depth chart, to borrow a phrase from football, has evolved from its Opening Day incarnation to the way it looks right now:

Late March
1. Josh Beckett
2. Jon Lester
3. Daisuke Matsuzaka
4. Tim Wakefield
5. Brad Penny
6. Justin Masterson (in the bullpen)
7. John Smoltz (rehabbing)
8. Clay Buchholz (in the minors)
9. Michael Bowden (in the minors)
10. Junichi Tazawa (in the minors)

Late August
1. Beckett (3.38 ERA)
2. Lester (3.58 ERA)
Not much has changed at the top of the rotation. Beckett and Lester each have double-digit wins and a couple of complete games to go along with a strikeout-to-walk ratio right around 3.5. Only nine pitchers in the American League have a strikeout-to-walk ratio of better than 3.0, and two of them are atop the Red Sox rotation.

(Roy Halladay, by the way, has 151 strikeouts and 23 walks -- a ratio of 6.57. Amazing.)

3. Buchholz (3.99 ERA)
One thing Buchholz does better than anyone on the Red Sox pitching staff is induce the ground ball. As a team, the Red Sox have a ground ball/fly ball ratio of 0.73; that is, they allow four fly balls for every three ground balls they induce. Both Beckett and Lester do better than most -- they have GB/FB ratios of 0.90 and 0.96, respectively -- but they both still allow more fly balls than ground balls.

Not Buchholz. The 25-year-old righty has a 1.30 GB/FB ratio in his seven starts this seasno, and he's getting outs via the ground ball at a rate of better than 2-to-1. (Double plays, of course, inflate that rate. Still, though, even ground-ball specialist Justin Masterson only had a rate of ground outs to air outs of 1.59.)

If the season ended today, Buchholz almost certainly would start Game 3 of the Red Sox's first-round playoff series.

4. Wakefield (4.31 ERA)
The All-Star knuckleballer surrendered just two hits and one run in 5 2/3 solid innings for Triple-A Pawtucket on Friday and reassured the Red Sox that he could field his position well enough to pitch in the major-league rotation. He had an ERA of 4.31 in 17 starts before he landed on the disabled list with a back injury and, later, with pain related to a sciatic problem in his calf.

"He can cover his position and he's a really good pitcher," Francona told reporters on Saturday, "so I think we're OK."

He gets the edge over the team's No. 5 starter because he, if healthy, almost certainly would pitch Game 4 of any first-round playoff series. His knuckleball might always be a wild card, but he's far more difficult to bring out of the bullpen because of it.

5. Tazawa (3.57 ERA)
The 23-year-old rookie erased the memory of Penny's disastrous start by tossing six shutout innings and, perhaps even more impressively, outpitching A.J. Burnett, the Yankees' No. 2 starter. Tazawa now has a 3.57 ERA in his four appearances in the major leagues and appears to be getting more and more comfortable with his role.

Barring injury, it appears he'll be the fifth starter in the Red Sox rotation the rest of the way.

One thing he did particularly well was attack the strike zone -- especially against the Yankees' lefties. Tazawa pitched mostly away from the lefties in the Detroit lineup in his first start two weeks ago, conceding the Green Monster in order not to give up solid contact on the inside half of the plate. That's a mark of a rookie pitcher, a pitcher who doesn't quite believe that his stuff is good enough on its own.

Against the Yankees, though, he pitched inside to lefties with both his fastball and his curveball, and he got results. Check out the two graphs. First is his strike-zone chart -- as viewed from behind the plate -- against Detroit on Aug. 11...

... followed by his strike-zone chart against the Yankees on Saturday:

He also disguised his curveball far better in terms of release point, not giving away his pitch simply with the location of his hand when he let go of the ball. (The idea is for each pitch to come out of the hand in the same spot, so if the purple data points are distinguishable from the other data points, that's a problem.)

The first chart, again, is that start against Detroit...

... and the second is Saturday against New York.

Tazawa has all the goods to be a terrific major-league pitcher. He's not exactly the ground-ball specialist Buchholz is -- he recorded 11 fly-ball outs on Saturday and just four ground-ball outs -- but he's making a case right now to be part of the Red Sox rotation from the get-go next season.

6. Matsuzaka (rehabbing)
The pitcher who finished third in Cy Young voting is expected to make a rehab start in the Gulf Coast League on Monday and begin to climb the minor-league ladder from there. He might be a maddening pitcher at times, but he did throw seven shutout innings in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series a year ago and was viewed as the team's clear-cut No. 3 starter before the season.

If Matsuzaka returns in time to show off his progress before the season ends, he might again be that No. 3 starter in the team's postseason rotation.

7. Paul Byrd (in the minors)
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the struggles of Penny and Smoltz prompted the Red Sox to sign Byrd to a contract in hopes he could round himself into form in time for the stretch run. The veteran threw 74 pitches in four innings for the PawSox on Wednesday, surrendering three runs on six hits, and he'll likely pitch twice more in Pawtucket before rosters expand on Sept. 1.

8. Bowden (in the minors)
Don't make too much of Bowden's disastrous two innings against the Yankees. For one thing, he's been a starting pitcher all season and not only did he have to pitch in relief on Friday, he had to do so (a) after having warmed up once already only to sit back down; (b) with runners on first and third and no outs; and (c) against a lineup already feeling good about itself, as Francona would say.

If Wakefield gets hurt again and neither Matsuzaka nor Byrd pan out, Bowden likely would become the team's fifth starter in September.

9. Brad Penny (in limbo)
Here's the chart from Friday that tells the story:

Penny threw his fastball with good velocity (95 miles an hour) and even offset it with changeups, sliders and curveballs. But everything he threw was right down the middle of the plate. You can't win pitching like that.

Penny indicated earlier this season he has no desire to pitch out of the bullpen. He might not, however, have any say in the matter. His repertoire actually makes him a better fit as a reliever than as a starter, and he'd have a vested interest in performing well in mop-up duty as he heads back out on the open market this winter. (You can bet the Mets will be watching.)

With rosters due to expand a week from Tuesday, the Red Sox appear to have no reason to release Penny outright. If they can stash him away for seven or eight days, they can use him in mop-up duty out of the bullpen. If something goes terribly wrong in mid-September -- such as half the starting rotation catching swine flu -- he can make a spot start. Otherwise, though, he's all finished pitching meaningful innings in Boston.

N/A. Smoltz (DFA'ed) and Masterson (traded to Cleveland)
Both are gone. Neither is coming back.

Masterson, though, earned his first win as a member of the Cleveland Indians on Thursday night, tossing 6 1/3 strong innings to beat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He now has a 3.78 ERA since the Red Sox traded him to the Indians as part of the Victor Martinez deal on July 24.

But you have to give something to get something, right?

Beckett still trailing in Cy Young race

A year ago, both Francisco Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera received votes for the American League Cy Young Award. That, though, was largely a function of a serious dearth of serious candidates behind Cleveland's Cliff Lee and Toronto's Roy Halladay. (Daisuke Matsuzaka received more votes than any starting pitcher other than Lee and Halladay. That should tell you something.)

Voters won't have that type of problem this season. The American League Cy Young Award race is shaping up to be a doozy down the stretch. Five pitchers feature an ERA+ of 150 to this point, and several other pitchers on contending teams could pitch their way into the discussion down the stretch thanks to inflated win numbers and impressive strikeout-to-walk ratios.

Here's how the ERA+ numbers break down thus far:
1. Zack Greinke, Kansas City: 180
2. Edwin Jackson, Detroit: 163
3. Roy Halladay, Toronto: 160
4. Felix Hernandez, Seattle: 159
5. Josh Beckett, Boston: 152

Cliff Lee ranks sixth on the list with an ERA+ of 145, but he ain't winning the American League Cy Young Award this year.

That, though, is a pretty good list of candidates. Let's start there. Here's how the strikeout-to-walk numbers break down for the above five pitchers thus far:
1. Halladay: 6.57
2. Greinke: 5.06
3. Beckett: 3.45
4. Hernandez: 2.98
5. Jackson: 2.45

Finally, because it matters to Cy Young voters, the win totals:
1. Beckett: 14
t-2. Halladay: 12
t-2. Hernandez: 12
4. Greinke: 11
5. Jackson: 8

Jackson deserves to remain in the conversation at this point based on his sensational first half for the first-place Tigers, but his ERA is going in the wrong direction and his win total currently ranks him in a tie for 25th in the American League, tied with Vicente Padilla and Nick Blackburn.
Unless Jackson goes on a scalding-hot run over the last six weeks of the season, this is a four-horse race between Beckett, Greinke, Halladay and Hernandez. Greinke and Halladay ought to have an edge at this point -- the ERA+ standings suggest it's still Greinke and everyone else -- but whoever has the best September likely is going to walk away with some hardware.

For Halladay, it would be his second Cy Young. For everyone else, it would be first-time occasion.

Who's it going to be? Who's going to have the best September?

Beckett
As you might imagine given his tremendous playoff resume, Beckett is a spectacular September pitcher. His career ERA in the final month of the season is 2.77 to go along with a career strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.08.

Two years ago, Beckett went 4-0 with a 2.25 ERA and a 30-to-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio from Sept. 4-21. But he stumbled in his last start, surrendering five earned runs in six innings at Minnesota, and that might have been enough to lose him the Cy Young Award.

Greinke
The Royals' 25-year-old wunderkind doesn't have spectacular career numbers across the board -- this is his first Cy Young-worthy season, after all -- but he's always been an outstanding September pitcher. He has a 2.80 ERA and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of almost 3.5 in his career in the season's final month.

A year ago, perhaps foreshadowing the dominance he would display this season, Greinke finished his season by throwing 14 straight shutout innings in back-to-back wins over the Mariners and Tigers.

Halladay
Surprise, surprise: The Man Who Would Not Be Traded has a 2.51 ERA in September and a strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.85) better than any other month. He made a hard charge for the Cy Young Award last season, even as Lee seemed to have it wrapped up, recording a 2.06 ERA in August and a 3.34 ERA in September.

He sealed the first Cy Young Award of his career in 2003 with an unbelievable September: 5-1 with a 1.41 ERA and a pair of complete-game shutouts.

Hernandez
It's hard to believe the Mariners' ace still is just 23 years old -- but, then again, that's why Theo Epstein wanted so badly to trade for him back in July. It's tough to look at the history with a pitcher so young, but in the last two years, he's had polar opposite Septembers. The Mariners lost each of his final five starts a year ago, including a season-ending outing in which he surrendered 13 hits in six innings.

In 2007, though, he went 4-0 with a 3.35 ERA, throwing 8 2/3 impressive innings against Texas on the final day of the regular season.

The verdict?

At this point, it's still Greinke and Halladay and everyone else. Neither has shown a tendency to let up in the season's final month, and both lead Beckett -- who has an edge over Hernandez for third place at this point -- in every meaningful category except wins. (As an aside: If you judge a pitcher primarily by his win total, we can't be friends.)

Then again, of course, there's a lefthanded pitcher with more strikeouts than Halladay and fewer walks than Hernandez and a better chance to get to 15 wins than Greinke. With more than a month still to play, you can't count out Jon Lester, either.

Contrasting Beckett's two Stadium starts

(This is all part of an ongoing effort to understand and explain some of the data included in PitchFX charts, an incredible reservoir of information about pitchers and pitching and everything that goes into that part of the game. You can find those charts for every major-league pitcher in every game at www.brooksbaseball.net.)

Josh Beckett, like fellow ace Jon Lester, found himself knocked around a little bit to start the season. He had a 7.22 ERA at the end of April and allowed 10 hits in three straight starts, a stretch that included a May 5 start at Yankee Stadium in which he escaped having allowed just three earned runs in six innings.

He then went back to Yankee Stadium on Friday night and pitched seven spectacular innings, holding the Yankees without a run on four hits in a game that eventually went deep into the night before Alex Rodriguez went deep against relief Junichi Tazawa.

When you look at the PitchFX charts, you can see some significant differences between the way Beckett attacked the Yankees on May 5 and the way he attacked the Yankees on Aug. 7:

1. Using the whole plate against lefties
Part of the issue with the new Yankee Stadium is the short porch in right field, the only place in the world where Dustin Pedroia can hit an opposite-field home run. A strong lefty can get a ball in on the fists and, as long as he gets his body turned just a little bit, muscle a ball over that fence.

Check out the way Beckett pitched lefties on May 5 -- keeping in mind that the chart is from the perspective of the catcher...


... and the way Beckett pitched lefties on Aug. 7:

He consciously pitched away from the inside half of the plate against lefties -- and switch-hitters like Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher, naturally hitting lefthanded against him -- and instead worked the outer half. He didn't give lefties a chance to take the ball over the fence in right field, but he did give them a chance to extend their arms and a chance to dive out over the plate a little bit. If Beckett gives up the inside half of the plate, he gives up quite a bit of his effectiveness.

The next time he pitched at Yankee Stadium, he didn't pitch to the ballpark. He pitched his game. He attacked the inside half of the plate. In doing so, he regained control of every at-bat.

(One thing he also did: He buried his curveball. Rather than throwing his curveball in a spot where it could be hit, he threw it down and in and even in the dirt occasionally. If it's going to be a strikeout pitch, that's what he has to do with it.)

2. Reintroducing the two-seam fastball and changeup
Beckett is dangerous enough with two pitches. When he can throw a third pitch with effectiveness, it makes him all the more lethal.

Check out two more charts, first from May 5...

and, second, from Aug. 7:

It helped that he threw his fastball with a little more velocity, of course. But the key to pitching isn't speed as much as it is differential and timing: The more a pitcher can keep hitters off-balance, the better. Throwing a 95-mile-an-hour four-seam fastball isn't going to help much if your two-seam fastball is 92 or 93 with similar movement. You might as well ditch the two-seamer and just throw four-seamers all night long.

In Beckett's Aug. 7 start at Yankee Stadium, though, he found a way to differentiate his two-seam fastball from his four-seam fastball. Both pitches had the same type of movement but were separated by six or seven miles per hour rather than three or four miles per hour.

On top of that, he threw his two-seamer with consistency. Graphs like the above graphs can be overwhelming, but what's often most telling is how closely grouped the points of data are. A pitcher always strives to throw his pitches with consistency, to have the same velocity and the same movement on every fastball and simply to vary the location and pitch selection to keep the hitter off-balance. If fastballs show different amounts of movement, they're going to be difficult to control and thus throw with pinpoint control.

The chart from May 5 shots Beckett throwing two-seamers and changeups with varying wildly varying amounts of movement. You couldn't draw a circle around that group of data points; you'd have to draw an awkward-looking oval. His changeups and two-seamers from Aug. 7, though, fit neatly into a confined area and indeed could be contained within a pretty small circle.

That's what consistency and pinpoint control looks like.