Investigating Manny’s Sick Days
Posted by Adam Hart July 28, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Our friend Allan at the Joyofsox blog takes a look at the claim by Peter Gammons that Manny Ramirez is sitting out against the hard throwing pitchers this season. But Allan can’t do it all. So we’re answering his call for a deeper investigation into the games Manny has missed.
April 21 — TEX Kason Gabbard
Gabbard is not a hard thrower. But Manny probably thought he was, right Gammo? Or it’s because this was the Patriots’ Day game played at 11:05 am. Here is a portion of Ian Browne’s game report:
Manny Ramirez was resting. Jason Varitek (flu), Coco Crisp (left hamstring) and Mike Lowell (sprained thumb) were still recovering. The marathoners outside of Fenway Park were huffing and puffing.
This was the 14th game in a set of 20 straight for the Red Sox. I can’t believe Manny wanted to rest after playing the night prior. How selfish.
May 8 — DET Justin Verlander
“Heey Verrrrlandaaah!” You had to be there. Anyway, this was the 4th of a 4 game series in Detroit. Manny had started all 3 previous games in this series and 16 straight since his last day off. This was the time of year when the Tigers still sucked and Terry Francona was trying to keep his outfielders fresh. In this 4th game of the series he started both Coco Crisp and Jacoby Ellsbury. The two had been juggling time in the series up to this point. The Red Sox won 5-1. But don’t blame Jim Leyland for a rotation that set Verlander to start this 4th game. Blame Manny for taking the day off. So selfish. He should have demanded that either Crisp or Ellsbury not get any playing time. That’d be thinking of the team.
May 11 — MIN Nick Blackburn
I don’t have a very good reason for Manny missing this day, other than a continuation of keeping that outfield rotation going. JD Drew had the day off the day prior. The Sox lost 9-8. The following game was pitched by Livan Hernandez, and Manny went deep in the first inning. I don’t know much about Blackburn, but is he that much more of a hard thrower than Livan? Also, the 11th was Mother’s Day and I think Manny has something against swinging a pink bat. And no, Manny-haters, that doesn’t mean he is pro-breast cancer.
May 17 — MIL Dave Bush
This was the second game in a double-header, the makeup of a rainout from the night prior. The Sox won 7-6. The first game was started by Jeff Suppan.
May 24 — OAK Justin Duchscherer
This was the 8th of 12 straight games. The Red Sox lost 3-0. Manny started the game before this, which was started by Rich Harden. He also started the game after, which was started by Joe Blanton. Both are hard throwers. Manny’s never going to break Cal Ripken’s record at this rate.
June 6 — SEA Felix Hernandez
The Sox lost this game 8-0. It’s probably because everyone was depressed that Manny got to sit against King Felix and they didn’t. Brandon Moss started in left field. Here is an excerpt from Ian Browne’s game report:
It’s tough enough to face Hernandez at full strength. The Red Sox did it on a night they were without the superstar slugging tandem of David Ortiz (left wrist, disabled list) and Manny Ramirez (right hamstring, day-to-day), not to mention speedy leadoff man Jacoby Ellsbury (left wrist strain, might return this weekend).
All three of these fakers lost this game for the Sox. Oh, wait. No. Just Manny is to blame. Right, Red Sox Nation? My bad.
June 14 — CIN Edinson Volquez
The Sox won 6-4 in 10 innings. Jonathan Papelbon blew the save by giving up a home run to Edwin Encarnacion. If Manny wasn’t such a faker, he could’ve closed this one out. Here is an excerpt from Mike Petraglia’s game report:
In addition to David Ortiz, the Red Sox started the game without starters Manny Ramirez (right hamstring), Jason Varitek (strep) and Julio Lugo (stomach ailment), and without the DH in a National League city.
See. All the NL needs to do is implement the DH. Then Manny would have started………….
June 15 — CIN Homer Bailey
The Red Sox won 9-0. The Sox scored 15 runs in two days without Manny, and all against hard throwers. Manny would’ve simply dragged them down. Still, very selfish of him to continue resting his sore hamstring. If he just broke down and took HGH, he’d never have excuses like this. Be a man, do drugs.
June 18 — PHI Kyle Kendrick
Let’s jump straight to the excerpt from Ian Browne’s game report:
Manny Ramirez (right hamstring) and Kevin Youkilis (back) were both out of the lineup with nagging injuries. David Ortiz was still on the disabled list. Coco Crisp was forced to leave Wednesday’s game with a left hand ailment.
So everybody is going down with little injuries. I’m sure Youk just wanted to mess with Tito’s mind by claiming that his back was hurting. Maybe he really went down to the Sweets Shoppe to purchase some candy. How wild of him. Manny was probably pouring acid over little puppies, or worse — hunting rabbits for sport in a swimming pool.
July 6 — NYY Joba Chamberlain
After 15 straight games, Manny took a seat. But this excerpt from Ian Browne’s game report from the day prior tells it all:
Down, 2-0, J.D. Drew led off the top of the ninth with a single up the middle. Manny Ramirez was then hit for the third time in the game, making it first and second with nobody out. In all, there were seven hit hit batsmen in the game, matching the all-time record.
Getting hit 3 times in any one game earns a slugger like Manny the rite to take the next day off. Plus, Joba is crazy enough to add Manny to his bounty list. I don’t blame Manny one bit. But when have I ever blamed him?
July 23 — SEA Felix Hernandez
We all know this song and dance. Manny went to Francona on game day saying that his knee was hurting him. This came after Manny attended the All-Star Game. You know, the All-Star Game which he has missed in the past, leading fans to question his respect for the game of baseball. Fans should’ve seen this coming. One way or another, Manny is going to get his days off. It’s either coming All-Star Weekend or during the season. It’s a given. Oh, and Manny didn’t call out sick when slated to face NL fireballer Ben Sheets. Just saying. And the Sox won that game against King Felix 6-3.
July 25 — NYY Joba Chamberlain
The Red Sox lost this game 1-0. Manny surprised Tito by saying that he couldn’t play due to the knee injury. That prompted the team to send him for an MRI on both knees. The MRI’s came back clean. And that led to this on Sunday:
WBZ has the video of Manny’s announcement to reporters yesterday. We got scooped, having no videographer down at Fenway Park. Still, watching it breaks my heart.
So you decide. After this in-depth, partially biased investigation, does Manny stay? Does Manny go? Give us your choice here. And watch Sports Late Night tonight at 11 and 11:30 on NECN. We’ll have the latest.
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You’re so detail oriented. How about running down a similar list on Schilling?
i like the run down but I wish you did it w/ just some numbers and left it up to us to come to a conclusion rather than making it such a pro-manny, *f*-reporters bit. i think a lot of yall interweb folks seem to take the rumor mill and drama surrounding manny a wee bit too personally
Let me see if I get this right? As long as the Sox win when Manny’s out (whether it’s justified or not), then it doesn’t matter that his real reason for being out was that he’s dogging it? That’s actually the exact same line of thought behind Gammo’s write-up! Except he points out that Manny has done plenty more besides just sitting out a few games to demonstrate that his attitude is degrading. Gammons rightly says that we win with him, great, but it means selling ourselves short on integrity to let a guy run over the team in the clubhouse with phantom injuries or whatever else comes up that lets him, say, visit with out-of-town visitors from opposing ballclubs.
If your only point is to show that he sat out for the fastballers AND other guys too, then you only serve to extend Gammons’ point that he rests whenever he needs it, whenever he feels like it, AND whenever others needs some playing time. Hell, this season he’s been extensively (31 of his 98 games this year) used as the DH(!) while Papi has been out…and then he still needs days off in the midst of all that?
Did I misunderstand (sarcasm doesn’t travel well by text) or is one of your comments that he played the All-Star game only to sit out just after as a trade-off? Whoa, all 2 ABs! Rough life! You do also know that there are 2 days that no major league sports are played, right? Before and After the All-Star Game…those don’t count as days off for Manny? So, I guess the 23rd really was warranted to make up for having toughed it out at the All-Star Game.
All in all, your “in-depth” analysis of his off days is pretty shallow.
I wonder if Gammons ever made the assertion that *every* time Manny was out, there was a hard-throwing pitcher, or if what he meant was, every time Manny was out *for no reason*–i.e., not a day off granted by the team but a day in which he took himself out of the lineup–there happened to be a hard-throwing pitcher on the mound…
From the title of your article, I was really interested in reading.
But, seriously?
You think just b/c Manny played 14 straight games in a row that gives him the right to sit out? He makes $20M/year to play ball, not warm benches.
I don’t make $200K and there have been plenty of times I have had to work 14 days in a row without a “day off.” If I decided to sit one day, during a new site release b/c I had worked “hard” the past two weeks my boss and my co workers wouldn’t think it was ok.
I’m sorry I don’t think any hard-working people are going to feel he deserves the time off with his salary.
Now this is the type of discussion I was looking for! I’m reading through what I wrote, and I believe about 10% of it to be serious. This post was meant to be fun. Sort of a “I’m the only person sticking up for Manny, but I need to make ridiculous excuses to do so” argument. Maybe I should have thrown a disclaimer up there. Maybe I should be more serious about such things. Or Maybe I just missed the mark altogether. Either way, thank you all for taking the time to comment.
Oh, and there are two “off-days” surrounding the All-Star Game. But the first day was used as preps for the All-Star Game (Manny did not attend — the media portion, at least). And the day after the game was a travel day, as Manny, Ortiz, etc. needed to be in LA for the start of the series against the Angels. A cross country flight is not much of a break compared to spending a couple days on the beach or taking up in Las Vegas for a gambling spree befit Pete Rose.
I think the All-Star Game comment is my only serious point. Fans were up in arms when Manny didn’t play in All-Star Games past. Now he plays, and people are shocked that he missed a few regular season games. Manny has never, ever played a full 162 game season. For whatever reason, he is determined to get his days off. It doesn’t mean we have to agree with it. I don’t agree with it. But it should surprise no one that it went down as it did. Like it or not, he will not be denied his days off. And now it looks like he will be taking those days with the Florida Marlins.
Adam said: A cross country flight is not much of a break compared to spending a couple days on the beach or taking up in Las Vegas for a gambling spree befit Pete Rose.
Do you think he heads out on the Blue Line to lay in the sand or bet on the dogs when he takes one of his mid-season days off and they’re not traveling the next day?
Come on. The guy chooses when he wants to play baseball or not. They’ve let him get away with it so far. He doesn’t take them off to go gallivanting, he still has to show up in uniform even if it’s a “day off”. I imagine sitting on the bench for 3-4 hours is about the same comfort level as a cross-country flight in most of the planes these guys fly in. I know you’re probably trying to be funny again, but seriously, he takes days off when he doesn’t like the opposing pitcher. It happen more often than not. That’s not being a team player.
Kaz. The point was that the players not attending the All-Star game do go to the beach, Las Vegas, on a fishing trip, etc. It’s an All-Star “break” for those players. Mike Lowell said before the break that he wasn’t even going to pay attention to the game. While I understand that playing in the game is an honor, Manny (or Pedro in the past when he’d leave before the break to go home to the Dominican Republic) may think along different lines. To Manny, he is deprived of a mini-vacation, a “break” from the game. It’s not impossible to think that in missing out on whatever it is that he wanted to do, he decided he’d take a few days off at his leisure — both before and after the break. So sitting on the bench for 3-4 hours instead of swinging the bat 4 times may be his next best option.
I’m not saying that he isn’t taking days off against tough pitchers. It seems to make sense at this point in his career, with his goal being a fat new contract. And now he is gone. Traded to LA. He’s their problem now.
“Now this is the type of discussion I was looking for! I’m reading through what I wrote, and I believe about 10% of it to be serious. This post was meant to be fun. Sort of a “I’m the only person sticking up for Manny, but I need to make ridiculous excuses to do so” argument. Maybe I should have thrown a disclaimer up there. Maybe I should be more serious about such things. Or Maybe I just missed the mark altogether. Either way, thank you all for taking the time to comment.”
Sounds like the old “I realise I was wrong, but maybe if I pretend I was being ironic everyone will let me off” spiel. Nice try anyway.