Daily Red Sox Links: Josh Beckett, Andrew Bailey, Pedro Ciriaco

It was another night and another loss for this reeling Red Sox team. This time, they fell to the Orioles by a score of eight to one. Josh Beckett had yet another struggle of a start, as he allowed six runs and six hits in five and one-third innings, while striking out two and walking two. He also gave up two home runs in the outing. This continued a string of poor starts this season from Beckett. His stuff has been on the decline, as is expected of a pitcher who is in his age-32 season. Yesterday morning, Dan Brooks took a look at Beckett's stuff from perspective of the Pitch F/X tool. (Dan Brooks; Baseball Prospectus)

• Many members of the mainstream media have been maligned all season for their narratives and articles written to support those narratives. Well, to give credit where credit is due, Nick Cafardo wrote an outstanding article yesterday taking blame away from the ownership that many fingers seem to be pointed at. (Nick Cafardo; Boston.com)
• In a season where positives have been hard to come by, the Red Sox bullpen has performed admirably. The group has missed production from its top two expected performers coming into the season, Andrew Bailey and Mark Melancon, but it has gotten solid production from some unexpected places. (Chris Cwik; Fangraphs)
• Last summer, Mike Fast published a phenomenal study that attempted to value pitch framing. In the article, Jose Molina came out as one of the premier pitch-framers in the game. Jeff Sullivan compared Molina's abilities in this facet of the game to those of Jesus Montero, and the results were staggering. (Jeff Sullivan; Lookout Landing)

• Andrew Bailey returned from his thumb injury in last night's game and faced two batters, walking Chris Davis and striking out Mark Reynolds. Before coming back, he discovered that he gripped the baseball differently than all the other Red Sox pitchers, placing his thumb on the bottom of the ball. He decided this wasn't the reason for his injury, though, and elected against changing his grip. (Rob Bradford; WEEI.com)
• Last night was Boston's first look at Orioles' top infield prospect Manny Machado, who went 0-3 in last night's game. He was called up after only 928 plate appearances in the minor leagues. His call-up brings some extreme risk, says Jeff Moore. (Jeff Moore; Hardball Times)
• One of the biggest surprises this season, along with being one of the biggest fan favorites, has been Pedro Ciriaco. However, as John Leary points out, he likely can't keep up this pace if he keeps walking at such an alarmingly slow rate. (John Leary; Green Line Outfit)
• The new playoff format has been criticized all year long, for many different reasons. In my opinion, the 2-3 format for the first round is the most egregious error made by Major League Baseball in this new format. Jay Jaffe wrote a great piece describing just how unfair this format is. (Jay Jaffe; Sports Illustrated)