Are the Red Sox Cuckoo for Coco?

Prior to last night’s impressive shutout victory over the Yankees, the Red Sox had lost five consecutive games, their longest skid of the season. Each of those five defeats had something in common — something other than an utter lack of clutch and miserable meltdowns from formerly reliable relievers. It took copious amounts of root beer and a post-game chat with Evan for me to realize it, but those five games were the same five games for which Coco Crisp was suspended.

The Red Sox defeated the Houston Astros last Friday, and Coco was in the lineup. They silenced the Yankees last night, and Coco was in the lineup. They lost the five games in between those two victories, and Coco was not in the lineup — or the dugout, for that matter.

Coco Crisp is batting a fairly pedestrian .270/.313/.434 this season, with five homers, 22 RBIs, and a dozen stolen bases. In all likelihood, his presence in the lineup would not have been the remedy to the Sox’s failures with runners on base the past several days. After all, Coco’s line with runners in scoring position plummets down to .222/.260/.311, and sinks even farther when there are two outs (.217/.250/.304). Yet, even though Coco’s offensive contributions are seemingly mediocre, the Sox appear to be a much better team when he’s on the field.

Need evidence? The Red Sox are a terrific 42-23 this season in the 65 games in which Coco has appeared. They are a horrific 9-14 in the 23 contests he has not partaken in, whether due to injury, suspension, or rest. And the trend is even more extreme in the month-and-change that Big Papi has been shelved. Since June 1st, the Red Sox are 17-6 when Coco appears in the game, and 0-7 otherwise. Believe it or not, the Red Sox have not won a game without Coco’s participation in more than a month.

That, inevitably, begs the question: does Coco’s impact on the Red Sox go far beyond the numbers? Or, in other words, is Coco really so important to this team that they can’t win without him?

My gut feeling on this is that it’s a complete — albeit incredibly weird — coincidence. It seems very unlikely that Coco — who is three fielding runs above average and zero batting runs above average this season, according to Baseball Prospectus — could have that significant an impact on the team. But, then again, it seems equally, if not more, unlikely that a team could go an entire month without winning a game sans one of its players, unless that player is quite important to the team.

I’m sure we can all agree that the Sox would not be 0-88 this season if Theo had shipped Coco out during the winter. But, after unexpectedly stumbling on the aforementioned numbers after I realized the apparent correlation between Coco’s suspension and the Sox’s skid, I couldn’t help but wonder if there’s something Coco contributes that we can’t see with our naked eyes.

So, I ask you, my fellow Fire Branders: is this completely coincidental, or unbelievably Coco-licious?

—Daniel Rathman