Fire Brand of the American League- Has Terry Francona Helped or Hurt The Red Sox?

Even though we are 70-51, in first place, and three games up on the Yankees, all is not right in Red Sox land. In our last ten, we are 7-3, and the Yankees are 6-4, but you wouldn%u2019t know it talking to Red Sox fans. Indeed, out of all the divisions in major league baseball, only the Padres and Braves have a worse record than the Red Sox, and that%u2019s only because the Braves have dropped three straight. Even if the Braves never overtake the Red Sox in the wins column, they seem to have a more well-rounded team than the Red Sox.

The Red Sox this year have had a plethora of issues that continue to make fans angry. Outsiders may look at the Red Sox and feel we are holding the team to some sort of unrealistic expectations, that we%u2019re a first-place team who has 24 of the final 36 games at home and whose direct competitors have the third toughest schedule of the way. Well, that is probably true, but our 70-51 record seems quite odd. It seems as if we should be the ones in second place, or even third place, the way the Blue Jays are playing. How is it possible, that with all this dysfunctionality, we are in first?

People have been clamoring to fire Terry Francona and have fallen short of that for Theo Epstein, esteemed General Manager of this ballclub, and are just simply demanding changes.

I think every Red Sox fan would agree that this dysfunctional team should have about five more wins under their belt, but the question here is if these wins would have been achieved with or without Terry Francona as the manager. I%u2019m going to set out to try to explain the answer I have concluded. The answer I have concluded is that not only should Terry Francona not be fired, but he should be commended for the way he is running this club. This runs awry to the thinking of most fans. While it is not really a secret that I have been a Francona fan since day one, I truly did enter into this theory not sure what I would find. I actually thought I would find a lot more dysfunctionality directly attributable to Francona than I truly did, which has caused me to alter my thinking.

There are, or have been, several problem areas throughout the season. They are:

First Base: Kevin Millar continuing to get playing time over a possibly more qualified Roberto Petagine,
Second Base: Mark Bellhorn continuing to be the starter until he got hurt,
Third Base: Kevin Youkilis not recieving any playing time,
Starting Rotation: Inconsistency all day long, and
Bullpen: It%u2019s like throwing gasoline on a fire.

If we all remember the 2004 postseason, we remember how excellent Francona managed. This was an aboutface from the regular season when he was generally just okay. In the postseason, he was excellent. He outmanaged Mike Scioscia, Joe Torre, and Tony LaRussa. In fact, a national columnist whose name escapes me right now penned after the World Series that no matter what Joe Torre tried, it failed. No matter what Francona tried, he succeeded. He brought in the right relievers, took the correct actions, and managed the Red Sox to a championship. He was not simply along for the ride or lucked into the job. He took this team, and managed it to a championship. A manager is vital to the club, and wins and losses can hinge on the manager. Grady Little has experience in this area.

I mention this because it ties in directly with the first base issue. Terry Francona seems to be a cold-hearted manager in the playoffs, when every win simply matters. In the regular season the last two years, he seems to be gunshy, and sentimental. %u201CIf you%u2019re not one of Tito%u2019s guys, you won%u2019t play.%u201D Why is it such a drastic difference? Why is he continuing to give Kevin Millar playing time? Well, has it ever occurred to us that Francona is trying to get Millar out of his rut and start bashing homeruns? Of course it has, but he hasn%u2019t done it to this day, so why keep playing him? Because we%u2019re in first (and we used to have a comfortable lead) and benching Millar won%u2019t serve the purpose of getting him hot. If he gets hot, we have another valid weapon on our team that we can depend on in the postseason, and that%u2019s vastly important to our team.

We do have superior options to Millar ready to go, right? John Olerud and Roberto Petagine. Well, John Olerud is Kevin Millar against right-handers (.299/.333/.418 as compared to Millar%u2019s .282/.360/.402) and as we see, Millar is actually more valuable because of the higher OBP, and the average is not vastly low enough as to matter. John Olerud deserves to play against left-handers, where he is hitting at a .345/.375/.586 clip whereas Millar is at .238/.336/.267. In the last 14 games that Millar has accumulated 3 or more at-bats, Millar has started four games against left-handers. In three of these games, John Olerud was on the DL. In one of these games, August 17th, Olerud played and Millar manned the outfield. In Olerud%u2019s last 14 games (previous criteria apply as well, Olerud has quite a few one at-bat games) Olerud has st