Buchholz will start Wednesday and take Wakefield's spot.  This according to the Globe.  Wake's injury is described as a lower back strain.  Since fanposts need to be 75 words long-here is the link:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/

and now some extra words: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

There has been much discussion in recent years concerning the "Verducci Effect" which states (more or less) that pitchers of age 24 or less who increase their innings pitched by 35 or more are subject to injury/diminished performance in the next year.  The annectdotal evidence for this seems strong.  On the other hand, there have been no real studies to quantify if the "effect" is large or if it even exists.  Since Jon Lester had essentially the largest innings increase of all eligible pitchers last year, I was quite interested to follow his and other potential Verducci victims during the year. Especially since Lester's early struggles were often linked in the press to the abuse he took over last year's long season.

Since this more or less marks the midway point of the season, I thought it might be interesting to look at this year's group of potential pitchers suffering from the Verducci effect.  I will look at the seven pitchers identified in Peter Bendix's Beyond the Boxscore article:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/1/5/709161/verducci-effect-update-7-r

These pitchers are

a)Jon Lester

b)Cole Hamels

c)Chad Billingsley

d)John Danks

e)Mike Pelfrey

f)Tim Lincecum

g)Jair Jurrjens

In looking at this group, we will compare their FIPs this and last year, so as not to bias (or at least limit bias of) outcomes based on possible random variation/defensive issues and the like.

a)Lester: Jon Lester has shown no signs of the Verducci effect.  Lester's FIP is a remarkably low 3.22 (among the best in the AL) and his K rates are up substantially. Despite the lingering effects of residual bad luck (his BAPIP is still a high .342), Lester has lowered his ERA to 3.87.  He is among the handful of best starters in the AL at this stage.

b)Hamels: Cole Hamels has struggled a bit with injury. While his ERA is significantly higher than last year (4.87 vs 3.09) his FIP is remarkably similar (3.90 vs 3.72). Hamels' FIP and BAPIP (.348 in 2009 vs .270 in 2008) suggest that his bloated ERA is largely beyond his control.

c)Billingsley: Chad Billingsley is almost the identical pitcher this year compared to last both in traditional metrics (ERA 3.38 vs 3.14) and FIP (3.56 vs 3.35).

d)Danks:  John Danks has seen a slightly diminished numbers (FIP of 3.93 vs. 3.44) but he has still pitched decently.  His FIP difference represents the largest negative amount of the group.

e)Pelfrey: By FIP Mike Pelfrey is essentially the same pitcher this year as last.

f)Lincecum: No problems here. Tim Lincecum is the most dominant pitcher in baseball, and sports a FIP a full 0.61 points lower than in his Cy Young winning year.

g)Jurrjens:  Jair Jurrjens' FIP is basically the same this year as last.

Amazingly, the annectdotal evidence *against* the Verducci effect are even stronger this (half) year than the 2008 evidence in favor of the effect.  All of these guys have been good this year, and none have serious health issues.  Hamels seems to have suffered the most, but the aggregate FIP of the pitchers listed above is actually lower this year than it was last year.  While statements like "Still, the results are convincing, and Verducci writes of similar results from past seasons as well" (from Bendix's article) seem sensible, the evidence so far this year strongly suggests that the correlation is overblown.  Either way, perhaps it is time that a serious (as opposed to superficial) look into this putative effect is performed. 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4170755

Rocco will DH for now.  After Papi's comments after yesterday, I can only assume this was a mutually agreed upon decision.  Unfortunately, this would be a good set of starting pitchers to face to turn things around.  Let's hope a break can clear up whatever issues he has.  If not, it may be a shorter period for Ortiz before he is done for good than I had assumed.

We have all witnessed Beckett's less than stellar performances this year.  After a great start against the Rays, he has had difficulties ranging from decent starts (as in last nights game) to horrible ones.  The traditional statline is clearly bad.  Beckett has a 6.42 ERA in 40+ innings and a whip of 1.77.  While the season is young, it is useful to look inside these numbers and see if we can learn anything about Beckett's struggles.

1)Beckett's walks are way up.  In 2007 Beckett walked 40 in 200 innings, In 2008 he walked 34 in 174.  He has already walked 20 in merely 40 innings to date.  Before 2007, Beckett hovered around a 8.5 BB%.  In 2007 and 2008 he cut that nearly in half below 5%.  This year, he is at a career high 10.47%.

2)There is nothing wrong with Beckett's arm.  Beckett's average fastball velocity is right in line with the last two seasons.  His K numbers have been good as well with more than 1K per inning.

3)He has been unlucky.  As we have all witnessed, Beckett "appears" to have been undone by weakly hit balls.  For example last night an infield single and a bloop hit the other way contributed to 2 of the Rays' 3 runs.  It seems like this has happened a lot.  A check of Beckett's BAPIP supports this.  Beckett currently has a BAPIP of 381, compared to a career average close to 300. On the other hand, his LD% is significantly up, at a high 25% (previous season high of 19.2% last year).  This suggests that part of the BAPIP issue is luck, but part is not. On the other hand, it is known that these two are empirically correlated (usually quoted as LD%+0.12=BAPIP).  We see that Josh's BAPIP is exceeding his "empirical" BAPIP a tad.  Overall this is bound to come down.

4)His HR allowed, are, so far, not his problem.  HR/BIA (5.33%) is below the good years of 2007, 2008, and not close to his awful 2006 of 10.75%.

So, from this we can say that control has been the biggest issue.  The rest seems beyond Beckett's ability to control.  What is different?  Well, for one thing, his pitch selection is significantly different from his 2 previous years. Just check out the numbers here:

http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfx.aspx?playerid=510&position=P

Beckett is throwing a far lower percentage of fastballs, and a far higher % of curveballs.  Clearly this seems to indicate either a plan that the Sox have, or the possibility that Beckett is not happy with his ability to command his fastball, which has seemed to be the case in several games this year.  In conclusion, the numbers show that Beckett's biggest problem has been location and command related, and is not related to HRs allowed or velocity.  He has been likely unlucky, but if you are repeatedly catching too much of the plate your BAPIP will be higher.  It is obvious, but if Beckett can start to command the fasball, he can throw more of them, and we should see the return of "good" Josh Beckett.  Otherwise, this could be a very disappointing season from our ace.

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