Week 6 observations

• Sisyphus makes it to the top! Well not really “the top”, but after starting the season 2-10, the Boston Red Sox should be thrilled to finally reach .500. Three times before, the team sat 1 game below .500 only to have the boulder roll back down the hill. It was as if Zeus was punishing Theo Epstein for building such a strong roster. This time, heading into a weekend road series against the rival New York Yankees needing a sweep to get back to Even Steven, it seemed like they would be forced to chase the rock back to the bottom and start pushing up again. Luckily for the Red Sox, the problems we expected the Yankees to have when the season started (weak rotation, bad defense, aging hitters) all reared their ugly heads like Medusa’s hair (is she Derek Jeter’s new girlfriend? Is that why he looks so old and stiff?) and propelled the Red Sox to mediocre glory. But the Yankees crappy play wasn’t the only reason for this sweep. The straw that has been stirring the drink lately has been…
• Adrian Gonzalez. The best player on the Red Sox is finally showing the power that makes him one of the best hitters in baseball. For the month of May, Gonzo has 8 HR, 19 RBI (giving him 34 for the year, tops in the AL), and a 1.198 On Base Plus Slugging (OPS). Starting with the Twins series up until Game 2 of the Yankees series (8 games), Gonzo hit 7 HR. His early season power outage led some (me) to believe that the offseason shoulder surgery was still holding him back from unleashing on the ball. I’m no doctor, just a masters, but he appears to be just fine to me. Of course, Gonzo is not alone in carrying the Sox offense this month. He has been getting help from old friend…
• David Ortiz. The most clutch player in Red Sox history has combined with Gonzo and Kevin Youkilis (who is hitting well despite the high K rate) to form one of the strongest 3-4-5 combos in baseball (which I would rank at this moment: 1) Cardinals 2) Red Sox 3) Yankees 4) Rangers when healthy 5) Marlins/Reds). Left for dead at the beginning of the last 2 seasons, Big Papi has done all he can to give Dan Shaughnessy easy columns to write this spring. The cool thing about his start is that he’s hitting lefties and righties equally well, with more patience against lefties and more power against righties. The team has faced 13 lefty starters this year and Ortiz has started 10 of those games getting on base at a ridiculous, for him, .429 clip. He’s seeing pitches so well right now and he’s doing it completely without the aid of…
• ESPN’s Live K Zone. What an insulting piece of shit this Live K Zone is. In ESPN’s latest attempt to become 100% irrelevant as a place to actually watch sports, they are placing their patented K Zone on the screen during live action on Sunday Night Baseball. I am all for K Zones and Pitch Zones or whatever else they are called for replays of close pitches, but the Live K Zone is a complete slap in the face to baseball fans. They are basically saying that we do not understand what we are seeing as it happens and we couldn’t possibly be aware of where a player’s strike zone is. You know, because we can’t see where his knees and letters are and have no idea where that little white plate thingy is. Here’s a thought, figure out a way to get all of the cameras directly behind the pitcher instead of that off center shot that does actually make it hard to tell where the ball crosses the plate and leave the screen clear of extra bull shit that we don’t need. Speaking of bull shit…
• Jorge Posada. You make $13+ million this year and have earned over $100 million in your career. You are 39 years old and are hitting .165 and about to face one of this year’s hottest pitchers, Josh Beckett. You should be so lucky that Joe Girardi even wrote your name into the lineup Saturday. Begging out of a game because your ego is bruised is indefensible. “Wah, I don’t get to be a catcher any more. Wah, I have to DH. Wah, I have to bat ninth. Wah, I look like a giant mouse man.” The Yankees kinda screwed this situation up with Brian “Let’s See How Much I Can Get Away With This Season” Cashman throwing Posada under the bus, but he deserves every bit of criticism he receives. Maybe Cashman should ship him to play for the no-nonsense Buck Showalter and…
• The Baltimore Orioles. This plucky mix of past-their-prime-veterans and not-ready-for-primetime-youngsters has run off an 11-8 streak since the last time I wrote about them calling for them to blow everything up and now sit 1 game below .500. The young rotation (save for tonight’s starter Chris Tillman) have put together a decent stretch led by 4 strong starts from rookie Zach Britton. Former top prospect Adam Jones is having a scorching month of May with a .950 OPS and even Vlad Guerrero has turned it around, drawing 5 walks in the last 11 games after earning none in the first 27. As well as they have played, they are not the hottest team the Sox face this week. That honor belongs to…
• The Detroit Tigers. On May 2, the Tigers sat at 12-17, wallowing amongst the other disappointments of the AL Central staring up at typical doormats Cleveland and Kansas City. On May 16, they stand proudly at 22-18 just 3.5 games behind the Indians. Since returning from injury on May 4, Victor Martinez has been out of his skull, hitting .459/.535/.757 helping the Tigers to win 9 of those 10 games. Looks like Theo really whiffed on that one (Note: X Mark did too, but I stand by the fact that the team shouldn't have signed him in the long run). The pitching has been excellent with 3 shut outs in this stretch including Justin Verlander’s no-hitter and 2 hitter in his follow up start. Luckily the Sox only play two against the scorching Tigers (that’d be a cool band name). Unluckily they face Verlander in Game 2. As great as that match up will be (he takes on Beckett), something tells me it won’t get nearly as much hype as the return of…
• The Chicago Cubs. X Mark, The Spot and Mr. Barneby Jones will be in attendance for the Cubs first visit to Fenway Park since the 1918 World Series. You know the last time the Sox won the World Series before this. Funny how 1918 isn't uttered in Yankee Stadium anymore. Anyway, the Cubs have been a pretty unremarkable team, despite one moron (me) picking them to win the NL Central. The hype surrounding baseball’s Lovable Losers returning to play against their former partners in futility will greatly outshine any quality of play from this team. Disappointing and overpaid outfielders Alphonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome are actually having solid years at the plate. Matt Garza has been striking out everyone and their mommas, their mommas’ mommas and their mommas’ mommas’ mommas. But if there is one Cubs player to watch in this series, it’s 21 year old short stop Starlin Castro. Castro offers a glimpse of a best case scenario for Sox prospect Jose Iglesias with strong defense and a good bat. While he is fun to watch, it will be more fun to see a Sox sweep. I’m predicting a split of the two two-game series and a sweep of the Cubs for a 5-2 week while the Sisyphus Sox push the boulder down the other side of the hill.