Week 9 observations

• Peaks and valleys. There’s really no better way to describe a baseball season than peaks and valleys. More so than in any other sport, the best teams will look crappy for a string and the worst teams will look dominant. The Yankees have lost 6 in a row earlier this season and the Twins are in the midst of a 4 game winning streak, their 4^th streak of 3 or more wins this year despite having a grand total of 21 wins. Perhaps no team is embodying the spirit of peaks and valleys better (worse?) than your Boston Red Sox. They started as the San Andreas Fault, then leveled out like a 300 mile stretch of Ohio highway, then peaked as hard as Everest all the way to first place. Then they take a trip to Sudden Valley at the hands of the Chicago White Sox only to scale Tiny Town in a jet pack over the Oakland A’s. Perhaps no player is capturing this spirit better (worse?) than…
• Jon Lester. He probably deserves a more in depth look (though you can get one here), but it is clear that Lester is not pitching like he has over the last 3 years. After his opening day stinker, Lester strung together 6 strong to excellent starts. In 5 starts since then he has had just one “Lesterian” performance. In those 5 starts, Lester has thrown just 29 innings, allowing 5 HR, 35 hits and 16 walks. As he has become one of the best strikeout pitchers in the majors the last 2 years, Lester’s walk rates have also grown. This is a strategy that can definitely work, but it has to correspond with keeping the ball in the park and limiting hits. So far, he is allowing 50% more home runs per 9 innings than he has over his career and in those last 5 starts has been the victim of some lucky hits by the opposition. If he can get the homers back to his career levels, the hits should start finding gloves and the old Lester should return. And if he doesn’t return to form, at least we have...
• John Lackey. Wilbur the Albatross returns from the DL with a vengeance! Ok, so vengeance may be a little strong. After nearly a month of inactivity, Wilbur posted a solid victory (5.2 IP, 3 ER, 3 H, 2 SO, 2 BB, 1 HR) against the A’s. Yes, the A’s offense is terrible (second to last in the AL in runs scored), but Wilbur did show some encouraging signs. I was busy being the John Lackey of golf yesterday (114 on 18) so I missed the game, but Sexy Boston Sports Field Reporter Joe Black was on the scene providing me with the following live analysis: “Why did they just pull lackey? Pretty early, no?”; “Dope game”; “(His velocity was about 92) but he was around 88-89 towards the end. It was an awesome game though.” If we look at the PitchFX report from BrooksBaseball.net, we see that Joe was pretty accurate in his assessment. Wilbur was dope and could have possibly stayed in longer, but it did appear he was tiring at the end. Lackey’s first two pitches clocked in at 92 and his third was 93.3, his fastest of the day. For the first 4 innings he maintained that speed but in the fifth the velocity started to decrease and he started relying on more off-speed pitches, ending the day with a couple fastballs in the 89 MPH range. Luckily for Wilbur, the Sox offense had done more than enough by that point, led by the new clutch king…
• Carl Crawford. If it seems like these weekly updates are dominated by Lackey and Crawford, it’s because they have had the most remarkable seasons (remarkable isn’t always a good thing) of anyone on the team. In the 3 Red Sox wins this past week, Crawford was truly a $20 million player. In Friday’s game, he salvaged a poor Clay Buchholz start with a bases loaded single in the 7^th that would score what would prove to be the winning run. Saturday afternoon, he drove in 3 insurance runs in the 6^th and 8^th innings that turned out to be absolutely necessary as Papelbon imploded in the ninth (must be because it was a non-save situation, riiiiight). Then, in the 14^th, Crawford hit a 2 out double and came around to score the winning run on J.D. Drew’s single. Finally, to pour some delicious Boston Market gravy on the weekend, Crawford staked Wilbur to a 3-0 lead with a 3 run homer in the second, his 5^th of the season, to help take a little pressure off the returning albatross. After another excellent week (.965 On Base Plus Slugging (OPS)), Crawford is on the road back towards respectability. The team will need this hot hitting as they gear up yet again to face...
• The New York Yankees. Winners of 6 of the last 7, the Yankees have reclaimed the top spot in the East heading into the rivalry showdown. It’s actually kind of amazing what this team is doing this year. Yes they have by far the biggest payroll in baseball and they are the Yankees, but a good handful of the key players driving the bus this year are not really a part of that group of hated Yankees. Curtis Granderson is among the league leaders in homers this year and despite his pinstripes is one of the best guys in the league. Russell Martin has slipped from his first month dominance, but he seems like a guy I would love to have on the Sox and he is Canadian so he’s probably nice. Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia are a couple reclamation projects that the damn Yankees always seem to find, but since they remind me of a possible WWF tag team (Rikishi and The Rock), I don’t really hate them very much. I still hope we beat the piss out of them, but I am having some mixed emotions about this team and I don’t like it. Let’s just move on to…
• The Toronto Blue Jays. I’m sort of confused why the Blue Jays don’t get more attention as a contender. They have an identical run differential (runs scored-runs allowed) to the Red Sox, which is a more accurate way of looking at a team’s true talent level than wins and losses. They have the runaway early favorite for MVP in Jose Bautista. I’ve mentioned it before, but Bautista is having one of the great seasons of all time. He has fallen off the Barry Bonds home run pace, but he is still destroying the ball, posting an OPS+ of 237 (which is 137% better than league average in case you forgot my tutorial from last week). The team is getting huge contributions from first baseman Adam Lind, fresh off the DL, and Braves castoff short stop Yunel Escobar. Probably the main reason they get overlooked is the fact that only one of their starters, Ricky Romero, has an ERA better than league average. I actually see this as a positive as they have been able to hang around thus far with mediocre pitching from pitchers who should all improve as the season progresses. With a couple difficult opponents this week, let’s keep our fingers crossed for a .500 road trip...
• Small ball.  I enjoyed seeing Drew get the game winning hit Saturday. It’s been a rough year for J.D., but as you will see in a post this week or next, I have a soft spot for the guy even though almost nobody else does...Another guy who’s been struggling, Albert Pujols, spent the weekend breaking the broken hearts of Cubs fans with walkoff homeruns in consecutive days. This is only the third time a player has ever done this, matched by the same named Albert Belle and former Cub Ron Santo…In the land of unsurprising news, Jacoby Ellsbury leads the Red Sox in steals so far with 22. What is surprising is who is second on the team. It’s not the guy who has topped 40 steals in 7 seasons, Carl Crawford. It’s the guy who has never stolen more than 20 bags in a season who also broke his foot last year, Dustin Pedroia, with 13…It looks as though we can finally wave goodbye to Shuushou (Daisuke Matsuzaka) for good. He is set to undergo Tommy John surgery this month, a surgery that takes at least a year to come back from. Maybe we’ll see him around next season’s All Star break but I think it would be good for everyone involved if he just rode off into the sunset…Extra props to Alfredo Aceves for his 4 innings of relief in the extra inning affair Saturday. He had a bad start earlier in the week, but his return to the bullpen saved the team after Papelbon’s boner of an outing…Since I’ve got serious writer’s block today, I’m going to be lazy and end this with a quote from a writer whom I will never match, Robert Frost, who aptly captures the peaks and valleys in a baseball season: “Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.”

Week 7 observations

• All is right in the world. After a season full of disappointment and unfulfilled expectations, the Red Sox sit in third place in the AL East, a half game back of the Yankees and Rays. Most people expected the Sox to run away with the division, but those that respected the offense of the Yankees (1^st in the AL in runs) and the pitching of the Rays (tied for 3^rd in the AL in fewest runs allowed) and saw past the glamour of adding two $20 million players noticed that these three teams were still on fairly equal footing. Not to be forgotten, the Blue Jays behind the mighty Jose Bautista are just one game behind the Red Sox. With several underperforming offensive players, the Jays could also stay in this race all year. If the rain ever decides to let up this year, it should be a great summer for baseball in the AL East. Meanwhile, over in the AL Central…
• The Cleveland Indians cannot be stopped. Their sexiest, I mean best, player, Grady Sizemore goes down again with an injury to his other knee. The rejuvenated Travis Hafner also goes down with an injury. Top soph Carlos Santana is failing to recapture the glory of his rookie season. Shin Soo Choo, fresh off the knowledge that he won’t have to go back to South Korea to serve in the military, is getting a little too comfortable in his American civilian life. The rotation features 3 below average starters and 2 more that were expected to be average at best. And yet, the team keeps winning with Asdrubal Cabrera taking over the reigns as the AL’s top short stop, timely hitting and a strong bull pen. Case in point…
• Last night the Red Sox blew it. The Indians got their Asdrubal assist (3-4 with a homer and 2 RBI including the game winner), timely hitting (down 1 in the eighth scored two runs) and decent bull pen performance. But the Sox really blew it by only mustering 2 runs off Justin Masterson and not plating a run in the ninth. Masterson, traded by the Sox in the Victor Martinez deal, is having a terrific season as the Indians ace. He’s striking out fewer batters than normal, but still destroying right handed batters and inducing a ton of ground balls. But as good as he’s been, he still pitches with a MASSIVE platoon split. Righties this year hit .144/.245/.165 while lefties hit .302/.360/.416. And guess how many lefties the Red Sox ran out last night? Seven. And in 7.2 innings, Masterson held the team to 4 hits and 2 runs. The other missed opportunity came in the bottom of the ninth when Carl Crawford, who was having a good game until that point, came to the plate with runners on first and third and one out needing one run to tie the game. In this situation, the only thing you don’t want to do is hit a ground ball. Luckily for Crawford, closer Chris Perez was on the mound. Perez is a decent reliever and had a really strong year last year, but he is an extreme fly ball pitcher (over 50% of batted balls off Perez are fly balls) meaning Crawford had a better than 50% chance of lifting one in the air, a chance that increases when you consider the fact that he should be trying to put one in the air. Of course, Crawford grounded into a double play to end the game. Crawford is not the biggest goat of this game though. That honor belongs to...
• Daniel Bard. Bard has given up 10 runs in 24 innings this year (he gave up 16 runs all last year) and already has 4 losses. A deep look into Bard’s performance shows that he is doing some things differently this year. For the second year in a row, his strikeout and walk rates have declined, but his K/BB ratio is better than ever. He is throwing his changeup more than normal (10% of the time) which is probably the cause of an increased groundball rate. His home run rate has increased, which is most likely due to small sample size, but I think it is also an indicator of a slightly larger issue with Bard this year. Though his line drive percentage is down, Bard seems to be giving up a lot more hard hit balls this year. He is allowing batters a .184 Isolated Slugging Percentage (SLG-AVG, which shows a hitter’s true power numbers minus his singles), which would rank a hitter in the top third of the league this year. The flukey home run numbers are part of this, but just watching him pitch a lot this year you can see batters making solid contact on him. Part of this may be due to his low first strike percentage. Bard is only starting batters off with a strike 50% of the time, which means in half of all hitters he faces he is starting behind in the count. Usually being behind in the count forces pitchers to throw more balls in the strike zone that a batter can hit. It’s hard to judge a pitcher after 24 innings, but this is just something to keep an eye on. ‘Round these here parts we know not to judge someone after a handful of games, right…
• Jarrod Saltalamacchia? The much maligned Boston starting catcher has been on a tear lately. His overall numbers are still depressed (.229/.282/.385) but hitting from AL catchers this year has been a pit of despair (.227/.298/.367), so overall Salty has been about average. But in the month of May he has been crushing the ball. Since May 6, in 11 games, Salty is 10-34 with 2 doubles and 3 HR. His strikeouts, though still high, have started to come down this year (unfortunately at the expense of his walks). He is probably never going to hit for much average or get on base a lot unless he can get his walk rate back up to his career mark of 8.6%, but there is a lot of power in his bat. As he gets more comfortable behind the plate, the Sox could have a solidly average catcher with above average power for a few years while they work on developing his replacement. Sometimes calling a player average sounds like a knock on him, but really what it means is that he is better than 50% of his competitors, which is incredibly valuable. Also incredibly valuable…
• Solid Spot Starters. With Shuushou (Japanese for “agitation”) and Wilbur the Albatross (my new nicknames for Daisuke Matsuzaka and John Lackey) conveniently heading to the DL in the same week, the Red Sox needed two saviors. As bad as Shuushou and Wilbur the Albatross have pitched, it is always hard to replace two fifths of your rotation in the same week. As I’ve said before, the fill in options are pretty much what you’d expect from 6^th and 7^th starters. But last weekend, albeit against a weak Cubs lineup, Alfredo Aceves and Tim Wakefield gave the Red Sox 11.2 innings of outstanding pitching, only allowing 2 runs for a 1.54 ERA. Wilbur the Albatross will probably come off the DL soon, but whichever of Aceves and Wakefield (probably Wakefield) keep Shuushou’s spot should prove to be at least as effective as Shuushou and Wilbur, if not better. Credit to Theo for keeping respectable backups in place…
• Small ball. How about those throwback unis Saturday night at the Red Sox-Cubs game? Did the Sox unis remind anyone else of the uniforms that players wear when promoting non-league partners like Shaq’s purple outlined jersey in his Icy Hot commercials while he was a member of the Suns? And who are the “Ubs”?... I mentioned Jose Bautista earlier. Through the Blue Jays first 47 games (he’s played in 39) he’s hit 19 homers, has a .503 OBP, a .827 SLG and 1.330 OPS, which is .213 points higher than second place Lance Berkman. His OPS is 168% above league average. For comparison, through Barry Bonds’ first 39 games of 2001, the year he hit 73 HR, he had 15 HR with a .430 OBP, a .739 SLG and a 1.169 OPS. Wow…With interleague play and epic matchups like the Astros and Blue Jays usually comes talk of realignment because of the inequities of the interleague schedule. Most plans are pretty pointless and would not really solve any problems, but this is a pretty solid one I found last week…Check out this awesome video of Adrian Gonzalez swinging like Ichiro from the Sox game against C.C. Sabathia. As much as I don’t care for Ichiro, it’s kinda fun to swing like him and at least in Westboro men’s softball and apparently against C.C. it can be pretty successful…The Sox have series with the Indians and Tigers this week. It feels to me like Boston has played an inordinate amount of series against non-AL East teams so far this year and that we are going to be loading up on the division at the end of the year. Luckily, the internet shows me things and I can see that yes, in fact, in September the team plays just 3 games against teams outside the division. Woo boy that is going to be intense…With all the rain we’ve had, this quote from Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas is probably no longer accurate (probably more like 4/5), but it is still awesome, “Two-thirds of the Earth is covered by water, the other one-third is covered by Garry Maddox.”

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.

Week 5 observations

• What a weird week of baseball. Going back to the start of the Angels series, the Sox are 5-3 over the last 8 games, pulling within 1 game of .500. In that stretch, we saw two huge rain delays, two extra inning games, 3 players head to the DL, Carl Crawford’s second walk-off hit of the month, the return of Sloth Lackey, the worst umpiring crew in the league, Dice-K’s first relief appearance ever, the continued dominance of Josh Beckett, a beat down of two of the best pitchers in the league this season, and in baseball overall, 2 no-hitters and several other near no-hitters. Perhaps the most exciting news of the week, though, is the debut of…
• Jose Iglesias. With Marco Scutaro heading to the DL, the Sox decided to call up their “shortstop of the future” to get a little taste of big league action despite hitting a poor .253/.278/.253 (by the way, when AVG=SLG that means you have 0 extra base hits). Iglesias, 21, was signed by the Red Sox out of Cuba in 2009 to a Major League contract of over $8 million for 4 years. For those who don’t know, Iglesias is regarded as possibly the best fielding shortstop prospect since Rey Ordonez, who used to draw Omar Vizquel and even Ozzie Smith comparisons. The Red Sox are hoping that Iglesias can be more similar to Vizquel and Smith than Ordonez, because as well as he fielded the position, Rey Rey, as my buddy Decker will protest, could not hit a lick. His minor league numbers have been mixed to this point, but he has been young for every level and scouts like his swing and see a guy who could at least hit for average with doubles power. With his excellent defense he won’t have to hit much to prove valuable (think Elvis Andrus) especially playing with…
• The rest of the slugging Red Sox infield. With Jed Lowrie playing like he is and Derek Jeter slumping like he is, the Red Sox have arguably the best infield in the American League. Dustin Pedroia has also been slumping over the last month since the Yankees series, but assuming he is healthy I would expect him to snap out of it soon. Kevin Youkilis has been only an average defender at 3B, making no one forget Adrian Beltre, but his bat is coming alive and he ranks 5^th in all of baseball in walks and leads the team in On Base Plus Slugging (OPS). Just behind him on that list is the best player on the team, Adrian Gonzalez. After going the first month of the season with just 1 HR, he hit 3 in the last week, 2 of them absolute blasts to left field. There is nobody on this team that is more fun to watch hit. Though he strikes out a little bit, he rarely takes a bad hack and his opposite field stroke is something that should be videotaped and shown to every young lefty (I’m looking at you Curtis). Of course, Gonzalez isn’t the only $20 million man on the Sox heating up. He is joined by…
• Carl Crawford. Crawford is finally crawling out of his early season slump. He has gotten a hit every day this month (9 game hitting streak) including 2 game winning hits. He has exploded past the Mendoza line with his May line of .361/.378/.500. His overall line is still terrible (.551 OPS), but he looks more comfortable and seems to have put all the bad voodoo behind him. Also important is that his fielding is getting back to the superstar level that allowed this non-power hitter to earn such a large contract. Crawford has always been one of my favorite players to watch even with the Rays and it is good to see him having as much fun playing as I am watching him. Boston can be a great place to play if you can get used to the pressure so it’s good to see him slump busting. The same cannot be said for…
• Red Sox catchers. If you combine the OPS’s of Jarrod Saltalamacchia (.522) and Jason Varitek (.466), they would still rank just 6^th in all of baseball. Salty has allowed the most stolen bases in the AL and Varitek ranks third last in caught stealing percentage of all AL catchers with at least 15 starts. We are supposed to believe that Varitek has played a large role in Beckett’s and Dice K’s turn around and apparently Salty is getting much better at calling games. But when do we see some tangible production from this crew? Varitek is hanging on because he’s the captain and Salty is holding it down because he still has promise and is the same age as Varitek when it clicked for him. This is all well and good, and I can live with low production from this spot on offense, but it appears neither are doing anything well, which is just depressing. It becomes even more depressing when we face our next opponent…
• The Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays are awash in catchers at the moment. The starter is 25 year old hacker, J.P. Arencibia. Arencibia has struck out in almost a quarter of his at bats but he has a pretty big power stroke, with 4 HR already this year, and his SLG is the exact same as Varitek’s OPS (.466). The backup is the black sheep of the flying Molina’s, Jose, who is combining typical Molina defense with a decent start to the season (.250/.327/.409). The future starter, 22 year old Travis d’Arnaud, is struggling in his first stint in AA, but he was ranked as the 36^th best prospect in baseball by Baseball America this year. If the Blue Jays continue to struggle this year, look for the Red Sox to try and trade for Molina, even though it would be better to make a trade with the team with the best organizational catching depth in baseball…
• The New York Yankees. The Sox’ other opponent this week is hoarding catchers like a 75 year old spinster hoards cats. Sensing the defensive decline of their stalwart Jorge Posada, the Yankees really got to work over the last couple years. They groomed defensive backstop Francisco Cervelli to platoon with Posada in his final year behind the dish. The only bidding war they did win this offseason was for Russell Nathan Coltrane Jeanson Martin (over the Red Sox no less) who has reclaimed the glory of his first 2 years in the league with a surprising power outburst accompanying his typically steady batting eye (though he is coming back to Earth now). Then in the minors, the Yankees had 3 catchers rank on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list before the season. Austin Romine, the oldest of the group at 22 years old and ranked the lowest on the list at 98, has gotten off to a hot start at AA, but may eventually move away from catching. 18 year old Gary Sanchez (30^th on the list) has struggled with the bat in his first full season assignment, but again, he is just 18 years old. Finally, 21 year old Jesus Montero is widely regarded as one of the 5 best prospects in baseball and in his second season in AAA he has not disappointed. Montero may also have trouble sticking behind the plate as he is already listed at 6’3’’ and 235 lbs but may be way more than this. It will be interesting to see if any of these guys turn into the next great Yankees catcher (Berra, Howard, Munston, Posada) or if they get traded for someone like…
• Francisco Liriano. After returning to his dominating form last year following elbow surgery, Liriano has been a shell of a pitching man this year. With pre-season trade rumors swirling, Liriano proceeded to go 1-4 with a 9.13 ERA and giving up as many walks as strikeouts over the first month of the season. Then, last Tuesday, Liriano spun his first ever no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox. The game was also his first shutout AND complete game. Unsurprisingly, after throwing 123 pitches (he rarely even throws 100) Liriano had his next start pushed back. I would say this is the pitcher with the most impact potential who could be traded this year and would definitely draw interest from the Yankees and Red Sox...
• Small ball: As I mentioned earlier there were a lot of great pitching performances last week starting with Liriano’s no-no (although with 6 BBs and just 2 Ks, it was more lucky than good)…Just 4 days later, Justin Verlander threw the second no-hitter of his career against the Jays, which was a perfect game until he walked Arencibia in the 8^th inning. He still faced the minimum batters (27) as Arencibia was erased on a double play by the next batter. The most impressive thing about this start was that Verlander threw harder as the game wore on, throwing 100 MPH on his final fastball…One day after Liriano’s no-hitter, Tim Hudson held the Brewers to just 1 hit and 1 walk. In my opinion, and according to Bill James’ Game Score stat, Hudson’s performance was more impressive than Liriano’s…Two days later, Derek Lowe took a no-hitter into the seventh against the Phillies while his counterpart, Cliff Lee, struck out 16 Braves in just 7 innings. Sadly, it took Lee 117 pitches to get those strikeouts so he was not given a chance to tie the all time single game strikeout record of 20…Also on that day, Jaime Garcia of the Cardinals took a perfect game into the 8^th against the Brewers (where did their bats go last week) losing it with a walk to Casey McGehee, then losing the no-hitter on the next batter as well…To cap the weekend on Sunday, former Red Sox prospect (traded in the Hanley-Beckett deal) Anibal Sanchez took a no-hitter into the 7^th against the Nationals. It would have been his second career no-hitter…Finally, in the matchup to end all matchups thus far, tonight the Phillies-Marlins game will feature Roy Halladay and Josh Johnson on the mound. At the suggestion of Joe Black, I will be making this my Game of the Week and doing a write up about it tomorrow. And as this year has been so cleverly dubbed “The Year of the Pitcher Part 2” (must be the same Ad Wizards who came up with Fast Five), I leave you with a quote from the most mysterious pitcher of all time, Satchel Paige: “My pitching philosophy is simple. Keep the ball away from the bat.” Sounds good to me.

Week 3 observations

• As Happy Gilmore might say (in the as yet unreleased sequel Happy Gilmore 2: Happy Takes the Hill), “somebody learned how to pitch”. Since my last observations, the Red Sox are 5-1 and the starting pitchers have given up a total of 4 runs over those six games. To put that in perspective, in the first 2 turns through the rotation, every pitcher but Josh Beckett gave up at least 4 runs in one start. Since the first game of the Toronto series, the staff ERA has held constant or gone down in every game thanks to a 0.88 Starters ERA over that span (granted the staff ERA was at 6.79 at the time, but now is down to 4.50).

  Rk	Gtm	Date	Opp	Rslt	ERA
  12	12	Apr 15	TOR	L,6-7	6.79
  13	13	Apr 16	TOR	W,4-1	6.32
  14	14	Apr 17	TOR	W,8-1	5.92
  15	15	Apr 18	TOR	W,9-1	5.58
  16	16	Apr 19	OAK	L,0-5	5.58
  17	17	Apr 20	OAK	W,5-3	5.42
  18	18	Apr 21	LAA	W,4-2	5.16
  19	19	Apr 22	LAA	W,4-3	4.99
  20	20	Apr 23	LAA	W,5-0	4.73
  21	21	Apr 24	LAA	W,7-0	4.50

  Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
  Generated 4/25/2011.
  Maybe it was the weak bats of the AL West (Anaheim and Oakland both rank in the bottom half of the league in runs scored and OBP), but for the most part, all the Red Sox starters looked strong last week, starting with the much-needed-or-else-Red-Sox-Nation-would-mumify-him-in-82.5-million-one-dollar-bills turn around from...
• John Lackey. With Sloth the only pitcher to get 2 starts between my weekly observations, the Red Sox could have lost the little bit of momentum they had built up at the end of week 2 with their first winning streak of the season. While Sloth took the loss in his first start of the week (6 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 ER), thus ending the win streak, he looked much more like the slightly above average starter that the team pays $15+ million to and a lot less like the 75 year old man that threw to Josh Hamilton when he hit a million home runs (approximately) in the Yankee Stadium derby a couple years ago. Then after the Sox reeled off 4 wins in a row, Sloth decides to come out and pitch like the guy who drew the Game 1 start for the Angels in their first World Series appearance as a rookie (8 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 6 K, 0 ER). With this mountain of a man now back on the straight and narrow, all we need is another guy who is straight and very narrow to get back on track…
• Clay Buchholz. Fire Marshall Bill has been pretty bad this year. I’ve discussed his out of the ordinary home run problems, which aren’t so bad yet if you remove his first start fluke, but the more concerning trend is his strike out to walk ratio. The last 2 years, Fire Marshall Bill has had a pretty low 6.5 strikeouts per nine and a sort of high 3.5 walks per nine, for a strike out to walk ratio around 1.85 (league average last year was 6.8, 3.2 and 2.11, respectively). This year his SO/9 is 4.4 and BB/9 is 6.2. So much for Cy Buchholz. A lot of people expected a regression from his sparkling 2.33 ERA because of the below average SO/BB ratio, but not to this level. While I think he’s still got the best stuff on the team, he’s returning to Deer in the Headlights Buchholz (wow 3 nicknames in one paragraph) from 2008-09 that would wet his pants, dry heave and sob uncontrollably every time he put a batter on first. He needs to learn to trust his stuff and take a cue from fellow nibbler…
• Daisuke Matsuzaka. Another awesome start from Dice K (8 IP, 1 H, 3 BB, 9 K, 0 ER). In his last 2 starts he has allowed 2 hits and 0 ER. The 3 walks were a little high, but when coupled with 9 Ks and 1 hit, we are looking at probably the second best start by any Sox pitcher this season (behind Beckett’s Yankees demolition). I don’t really know what is happening here and I definitely am not expecting it to continue, but he is throwing his fastball much better than I have seen in quite a while and using a good mix of pitches to get hitters out. His walk rate is currently the lowest it’s been since his rookie season and if he can keep that up maybe the city of Boston won’t take to the streets with pitch forks and torches in order to run him out of town. Maybe Curt Young is to thank for finally getting through to him, or maybe it is, as the Boston media wants you to think, due to the healing powers of…
• Jason Varitek. The Captain was brought back for his 14^th season with the Red Sox to serve as a mentor for Jarrod Saltalamacchia (spelled that right without even looking it up!) and be one of the better hitting back up catchers. To this point he has failed on the latter duty, with just 2 hits in 27 at bats, but his former role has morphed from “mentor” to “caddy”. Varitek has started 8 games this year, which includes 3 Josh Beckett starts and 3 Dice K starts. Each pitcher had a rough start to the season, but has seemingly found their way in the last 2 or 3 starts with Varitek behind the dish. Red Sox pitchers have a 2.07 ERA while throwing to Varitek and just a 6.14 ERA while throwing to Salty. Does this mean Tek is the superior game caller and should be catching even more? Or is this just the vagaries of small sample sizes from early season results? Later this week I will look more in depth at personal catchers (as it appears Varitek will now be for Beckett and maybe Dice K) and in doing so will examine the effect of catchers on pitchers’ performance. My guess is that whoever catches this week, we will still see some great results against the likes of…
• The Baltimore Orioles. The darlings of the first week of the season after starting 6-1 have plummeted back down to the sad and lonely basement of the AL East at 8-12. Their pitchers have given up the second most runs per game in the AL and their young starters besides Zach Britton have been bad. Their offense, which was supposed to be much improved this year with the import of veterans Vladimir Guerrerro, Mark Reynolds and Derek Lee, currently features only two players with an above average OPS (Matt Wieters and Brian Roberts). Whatever good juju that Buck Showalter brought with him at the end of last season has vanished faster than a Bugle Boys t-shirt at Mike Leake’s nearest Macy’s. Come mid-season I would expect to see a massive fire sale from this team of guys like Guerrero, Reynolds, Lee, J.J. Hardy and Jeremy Guthrie and it may be time to give up on Nick Markakis and Roberts and try to build around the young starters and Matt Wieters. At least they have the pieces to trade off for a rebuild, which is more than I can say for the Red Sox other opponents this week…
• The Seattle Mariners. They have given up just slightly fewer runs per game than the Orioles, but they also have the defending AL Cy Young (Felix Hernandez) and the front runner for AL Rookie of the Year (Michael Pineda). They are just barely staying out of the basement in runs scored thanks to a strong start by Justin Smoak and Ichiro doing Ichiro things, but their offense is complete garbage once again. There are a couple nice pieces in the minors (the team ranked in the middle of the pack on most prospect rankings this year), but they have very little to trade away unless they decide it is time to send Ichiro packing. Chone Figgins has been an epic bust and has a big contract. Milton Bradley makes Ron Artest look like a Jonas brother on horse tranquilizers. Erik Bedard is striking guys out but also giving up home runs like Way Back Jon Wasdin. It just doesn’t seem like this team is well positioned for a quick turn-around. I’d be shocked if the Sox didn’t go at least 4-2 this week…
• Small (basket)ball: Due to family obligations, I wasn’t able to watch much of either Game 3 or Game 4 in the Celtics-Knicks series, so I will not be doing a full write up of the end of the series. But I will provide a couple quick hits before giving a full preview of what will probably be a Celtics-Heat Conference Semis battle for the ages…What can you say about Playoff Rondo that hasn’t been said already? For all his flaws, Rondo will go down as one of the greatest post season performers of all time. He does stuff that we have never seen and will never see again. If the Celtics are to have any shot at 18, it will come down to Rondo, and though I had my doubts before the playoffs started, I am starting to believe the little guy could do it…What a fun game last Friday night. A great teammate shootout by Paul Pierce and Ray Allen (combined for 70 points!) and some strong defense and rebounding from KG and JO. No starter had a plus/minus lower than +23. I always say that I don’t really think playoff experience means anything, but I do think the playoffs can bring more out of certain players and I think we have 4 of them on our team…Unfortunately, the playoffs have had the opposite effect on the bench. I’ve already written enough about my doubts of Glen Davis and Jeff Green, but this is getting out of hand. These guys cannot keep giving away the leads that the starters build up if we expect to get through to the finals. If they were struggling against other team’s starters I would understand, but to do it against the scrubs of the Knicks? Thankfully Doc will have a week to figure out what to do with these guys. Please do not sign them long term Danny…4 wins down and 12 more to go before we hang number 18. It was a fun series win, but in the immortal words of our injured starting center, Shaquille O’Neal, “We’re focusing on the whole pie, not a slice. A slice is good, but it’s not good enough to get you fat. We’re trying to get fat.”

Week 2 observations

• A 3 game winning streak! And it easily could have been 5 with some more timely hitting last Tuesday and a better bullpen performance Thursday. But let’s enjoy what should be the first of many winning streaks this season. 5-10 is still not a good record and nothing near what we would have expected from this team opening the season, but it’s no longer worst in the league; Seattle and their banjo hitting (does anyone know how this saying started?) offense get that distinction (poor King Felix and Prince Pineda). It would be great to point to this streak as that which turned the season around and reminded this rag tag group of insanely rich people that they should be the best team in the league. There are a lot of people to give credit to but we will start with…
• Me. Ok, maybe we should credit Jed Lowrie here, but I have to pat myself on the back for getting one right because typically my predictions are pretty terrible (Brandon Belt, my NL ROY pick is about to be sent back to the minors). To refresh, last Wednesday, I suggested that if the Red Sox made the simple switch of playing Lowrie over Marco Scutaro, they would instantly see an improved and more balanced offense. In the four games since (3 starts, 1 pinch hit appearance), Lowrie has done his best Nomar impression (big nose and all) and has gone 9-15 with 2 HR and 8 RBI while the Sox have won all 3 of his starts. He now has a .516 average through his first 31 at bats and appears to have picked up right where he left off last year. Great job Jed and an even better job me. Now we just need Jed to share a little bit of that magic with….
• Carl Crawford. He appears to be completely lost at this point and even his all world defense is being affected by his slump at the plate. He has fewer hits this season than Lowrie has had in his last 4 games. His strikeout percentage is equal to his on base percentage. Last week I dug deep to figure out what may be wrong with him from a strictly performance level, but this may be an old fashioned mentally driven slump. As a guy who has played in the post season twice, including a World Series, and countless series against the Red Sox and Yankees, I would not think that the market size would be a factor, so more likely it could be the pressures that come with a shiny new huge contract. I’m reminded of Edgar Renteria’s Boston debut in 2005 when he hit .228/.283/.359 for the month of April and was hammered with boos. We need to remember that Crawford is a legit great player. While he won’t put up eye popping numbers with the bat, especially in the power department, his combination of good hitting, great base running and incredible fielding forms a phenomenal all around player. If we give him time, Crawford is sure to rebound just like…
• Daisuke Matsuzakkka. Can we even call his Patriot’s Day performance a rebound? Don’t you have to have done something good in the past, fallen off and then return to that goodness in order to RE-bound? I think he just bounded. Whatever it is, yesterday was a great performance from the Big Mistake in Little Japan. 89 pitches through 7 innings is Maddux-esque. While he didn’t exactly look dominant (he seemed to be missing Tek’s targets a lot), he was mixing his pitches really well, throwing a lot of them in the zone and inducing weak contact. For one day at least, Dice-K saved his job. If I were him, I would send a huge bouquet of flowers to…
• The Toronto Blue Jays. Color me unimpressed. This is a team that was supposed to contend for a Wild Card this year. They were supposed to be a team with a strong offense and a good young pitching staff that could withstand the its second ace in two seasons being traded. I see a very mediocre staff without an ace to fill in for Shaun Marcum. I see an offense that scored the 6^th most runs in the AL last year despite having the 12^th best OBP, which means that the baseball gods will not allow so many runs to score for this team this year without an improvement in not making outs. I see a team who got 2 hugely flukey seasons last year (John Buck and Jose Bautista) and is not likely to see a repeat from the hold over (Bautista) and a matching from the catching replacements (rookie J.P. Arencibia and Molina Model 6378). I see a team that was extremely lucky to get out from under the vicious Vernon Wells contract, but that failed to replace his still solid production. I see a team that is still waiting on two former prospects (Adam Lind and Travis Snider) to break out and form the offensive core for this team. With a young GM who made some great long term moves this off season, I think a lot of people were expecting this team to be an out of nowhere contender. It seems like those people were wrong and the actual out of nowhere contender is actually…
• The Cleveland Indians. Cleveland is 12-4. They have the second best run differential in baseball (to Texas). They are getting what could be a sustainable rebound (because he actually used to play great) season from Travis Hafner, who finally appears to be healthy for the first time in years. They are getting strong production at the top of the order from youngsters Asdrubal Cabrera and Michael Brantley, who also play strong defense. They have hand shake master Orlando Cabrera sprinkling his left over fairy dust from the 2004 Red Sox season all over his teammates. Grady Sizemore made his triumphant return this weekend, playing in his first game since last May, and stroked a Home Run in his second at bat simultaneously sending a tremor down the pants of Cleveland’s female fan base. Hell, even Drew Carey debuted a new improv show on the Game Show Network last week. Cleveland rocks indeed and at least they're not Detroit! Best of all, their two best hitters, Carlos Santana and Shin Soo Choo (or “that Asian guy” as my buddy called him), are off to terrible starts. If the pitching can remain even average, this success could be for real in a weakened AL Central, especially if bad things keep happening to…
• The Minnesota Twins. Joe Mauer (one of the best players in baseball despite what Odo says) was just placed on the DL with a mysterious ailment that is causing both of his legs to be constantly fatigued. Joe Nathan has been disastrous in his return from Tommy John surgery. Francisco Liriano is all kinds of screwed up in the early going as he supposedly tries to pitch to contact more (because why would you want your pitcher to strike out 9.4 per 9 while only walking 2.7 per 9?). My dad’s buddy Tsuyoshi Nishioka is out with a broken leg leaving an already weak middle infield weaker. Jim Thome has finally showered off all that Fountain of Youth juice that he was covered in last year. Delmon Young is remembering that he is now and always will be a bust. The Twins certainly seemed like contenders at the beginning of this season with the Tigers and White Sox, but with their budget maxed out they needed the current collection of talent to hold up and produce over the full season and it appears like that won’t happen. This season was extra important for this team because as soon as next year they are going to start having to worry about…
• The Kansas City Royals. Along with Cleveland, the Royals are surprising everyone in the AL Central; at 10-6 they sit in second behind the upstart Indians in the division. This is a team I am a lot more dubious about than Cleveland though. Currently they are riding the hot starts of a couple former golden boys in addition to the one really good player in their everyday lineup. Alex Gordon and Jeff Francouer have posted an .895 and .883 OPS, respectively to this point.  Both are hitting with power and they each have even taken a couple walks! Unfortunately, Gordon’s strikeouts are still an issue and Francouer’s specialty is starting out hot with a new team leading to renewed promise only to have that promise crushed like a pack of Tic Tacs in C.C. Sabathia’s back pocket (seriously, look at Francouer’s starts with his new teams, it’s like he has some innate ability to do this). Billy Butler is playing great and channeling Edgar Martinez and I expect him to at least maintain some of his hot start. Where this team is truly torpedoed is in their rotation, which is why they will ultimately fail this year. As it was last year, this year their best pitcher is Bruce Chen. Ouch. Maybe the Red Sox can steal one of the Royals’ prized pitching prospects with the promise of improving their rotation by trading them…
• John Lackey. Lackey hasn’t pitched since my last observations, which I’m sure is in no way related to why I have good things to say about the Sox this week. Francona decided to skip his start this week with the rainout and off day and kept the other three starters minus Dice K on their regular turns. I loved this move. I don’t know what the hell is going on with Lackey, but giving him this extra time to get some work in with the new pitching coach has to be a good thing. In addition, in the time since we skipped his start, we haven’t had a bad start, which I think is really helping the psyche of this team. I don’t think we will ever see a return to the quasi-ace that Lackey was last decade, but if we could just get him to be what he was last year we should be all set. Last year he was an average starter who could usually keep the team in games, especially down the stretch. While I was never bullish on this bull dog of a man, I at least thought he could be an average starter with a good defense behind him. Fortunately for Lackey and all the Nation, our defense and offense will be anchored for the next 8 years by none other than…
• Adrian Gonzalez. Finally agreeing to his monster extension (wink, wink), Gonzalez assumes his role as the make up call to the Mark Teixeira situation two years ago. While his bat hasn’t been the Green Monster’s worst enemy like we expected yet, watching him play is just an absolute joy. He has a beautiful, compact swing that really will bruise the monster with ease. His defense has been nothing short of incredible so far. One of the best parts about rooting for a large market team is the ability to get superstar players in their primes. While it may not be entirely fair to the San Diego-ites, San Diego-uns, San Diegones, I feel very lucky to be able to watch Gonzo for the next 8 years. He is a super duper star and having him in the middle of our lineup places us in immediate contention every year. Even this year.
• Small ball: Last week before the Rays series I wrote “Sam Fuld (who?)”. I knew who he was before I said that, but didn’t think much of him. So I looked into his minor league career and even though he was always old for his league, he posted a .372 career on base percentage. He’s not going to be a .400 hitter the rest of the year, but clearly this man knows how to get on base. Another win for Andrew Friedman and the Rays…Troy Tulowitzki may have super powers. 7 HR from the shortstop position in 16 games? He’s the MVP of the NL, MLB, the USA and all the world right now…Dan Haren and Jered Weaver are single handedly keeping the Angels alive. I’m trying my best to think of a Spahn and Sain rhyme for them but coming up empty. Weaver and Haren then our rotation is barren? I’m open to suggestions…The Phillies have no such issues. While Hamels and Lee have had only average results so far, each is striking out over a guy per inning and the Roys have been lights out. They’ll need all 4 to be absolutely dominant all season because that bullpen and offense are suspect. But damn it must suck to have to face 3 of those guys in a series…Brad Emaus is about to be designated for assignment. For those who don’t know who he is, he was a Rule 5 pick of the Mets this year and opened the season as their starting second baseman. He is also a guy I gave an Honorable Mention to for Rookie of the Year in my NL Preview. Another reason why I felt the need to congratulate myself for Jed Lowrie…Josh Beckkkkkkkkkett with another great start. This turn around could be real…Finally, in honor of Dice-K’s fun start, a quote from Willie Stargell that X Dad used to love to say: “When they start the game, they don’t yell, ‘Work Ball!’ They say, ‘Play Ball!’” Amen.

Week 1 (and a half) observations

• Last I checked the sky has not fallen. Despite the 0-6 start (now 2-7), up is still up, dogs and cats still don’t get along and America is still the world’s greatest super power with a thriving economy. Well 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. The point is, things are not as bad as they seem. The team got over its mental block with the first win Friday and then took their first series of the season Sunday with a commanding win over their rivals. 0-6 is not a fun hole to dig out of, but it is by no means an impossible one. Especially when we have the following team coming to town…
• The Rays. They could seriously be in trouble. With Sam Fuld (who?) leading off, Dan Johnson batting cleanup and Felipe Lopez (who the Sox couldn’t even get free agent compensation for because nobody wanted to give him a big league deal this offseason) batting sixth, this offense could be really bad, even when Evan Longoria comes back from his injury. The whole thought that maybe the Rays could still be good this year hinged on a still strong starting rotation and the hope that two aging bats could find the fountain of youth enough to passably replace the departures of Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena. Johnny Damon has looked as bad as ever to this point, and then of course there is…
• Manny Ramirez. We all knew this guy was dumb. His antics in Boston were legendary and loveable almost until the end. Then he quit on the team one too many times, threw an old man to the ground and was shipped out of town, only to blow up with the Dodgers playing like a cross between Barry Bonds and Jesus. Of course, almost immediately the next season, he was suspended for PED use and most people started to question his legitimacy. And now this. Faced with a second possible suspension (he would be the first to EVER receive the 100 game suspension), Manny decided to screw over yet another team and retire before taking his punishment like a man. Manny’s steroid use will never taint the way I viewed him as a player.  Thousands of players probably took steroids and none of them could hit like Manny Ramirez. He was the greatest right handed hitter I ever saw, and steroids or not, his picture perfect swing will always be what I remember most about him. Unfortunately, Manny’s steroid use will also never taint the way I viewed him as a person. He was an ignorant man-child who seemed to care for very few others besides himself and was either so arrogant, stupid or both that he thought he could continue to take drugs even after the new policies were put in place. This weekend we lost another great player who was a lot of fun to watch. But luckily, we still have…
• Dustin Pedroia. I wish he was 6 feet tall so people could stop focusing on his height and focus on the fact that Pedroia is a great baseball player. He was absolutely crushing the ball this weekend, looking like there was no way he was going to let the Sox lose this series. And did you see the double play he turned Sunday on the Brett Gardner grounder up the middle? He’s moving around like a jack rabbit on crack and looks to be back in full health. The same may not be true for…
• Kevin Youkilis. Youk has never been known for slow starts; in fact April is his second best hitting month. He’s clearly not lost at the plate (his 11 walks lead the American League) but he is not hitting anything with authority. His injured thumb was on his right hand so it shouldn’t sap his power, but I wonder if it is doing something to his mind where he can’t make the same swings he is used to. I expect he will snap out of this once he is more sure of himself, but the slow start is frustrating out of a guy who typically fades down the stretch. Perhaps more troublesome is his early season defense at third base. He seems a step slow and his reactionary instincts have left something to be desired. With a pitching staff who will feature 3 guys with average or below strikeout numbers, we need strong defense all around. Watching Youk’s chubby ass flop after balls at the hot corner makes me yearn for the days of one of my baseball man crushes…
• Adrian Beltre. He is off to a semi-slow start with the bat, but his defense is no doubt contributing to the Rangers having the lowest ERA in all of baseball (I told you they wouldn’t need Cliff Lee). When they have Josh Hamilton in left and Julio Borbon in center, this is an absolutely dominant defensive team that will allow their starters to put balls in play and last longer into ball games. The rotation looks great, the hitting IS great and the bull pen should be just good enough. For the first time in a long time, the Rangers look like the team to beat in the American League, not the…
• New York Yankees. I have to say I was a little underwhelmed by this team this weekend. The pitching is definitely going to be an issue all year especially if Phil Hughes is sitting 89 on his fastball the whole time. The offense also may not be as good as advertised. In game 1 I was definitely nervous about this lineup. The 3-4-5 of Tex, A-Rod and Cano is the best I can remember probably since the Griffey, A-Rod and Edgar core of the Mariners. Add in the fact that the rest of the lineup was going home run crazy (in game 2 also) and this looked like a scary lineup. Then I remembered that John Lackey was pitching and realized there are some holes in that lineup. Derek Jeter still looks like a player on the decline to me rather than one who just had an off year last year. Jorge Posada is 38 years old and a former catcher, so his hold on the DH spot does not bother me much. Russell Martin is definitely not this good and Curtis Granderson is almost this bad. Nick Swisher is a decent bat, but any inning where 3-4-5 does not come up, should be a huge sigh of relief from a pitching staff. This is definitely not your older brother’s Yankees, where every batter 1-9 knew how to take a pitch and make you pay for your mistakes. I still think they will finish in the top 3 in runs scored at the end of the season (with the Sox and Rangers), but it could be on the backs of a lot of solo homeruns. Of course, any offense would have looked silly Sunday night when they ran into the buzz saw that was…
• Josh Beckkkkkkkkkkett. 10 strikeouts. 94 MPH fastballs. Knee buckling curves. 89 MPH changeups (in Spring Training and his first start, his changeup was sitting around 86 MPH. Usually you want an 8-10 MPH split between your changeup and fastball for deception’s sake, but I wonder if Beckett was changing his mechanics in order to get the bigger split because the pitch was not very effective. Sunday he got back to the fast change, which ends up working more like a sinker and if we look at it that way instead of a changeup, it can be a nasty pitch when he locates). A bat sawing cutter. This was 2003/2007 Josh Beckett. The man regularly compared with Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens. The dude who won a World Series and ALCS MVP. The hombre who wouldn’t take no shit from no one. If we get this consistently from Beckett along with typical Jon Lester, it may not matter that John Lackey now pitches like he looks (as my old boss Jeff Maultsby used to say, “He’s Oscar Gamble ugly”). Now that the O-fer is finally over, we can all enjoy this incredible collection of talent that Theo has assembled. It’s going to be a long season, but I would strongly bet that it will be glorious.
• Small ball: Albert Pujols off to a ridiculously slow start, batting .143/.225/.229 with 1 HR. By comparison, Willie Bloomquist is batting .394/.429/.545. Yet another reason why you don’t panic over early season performance…Are the Tribe for real? After sweeping back to back series from the Sox and Mariners, they are on a 7 game winning streak and have the second best record in baseball. The offense may be better than expected, but I’m guessing the pitching looks good due to a slumping Red Sox lineup and a still historically bad Mariners one. Also, after drawing 40,000+ fans for opening day, the next 4 home games didn’t even equal that in combined attendance. I know it’s cold there, but this is probably as well as that team is going to do all year. Fan up!...My buddies in Cincy are looking real good. Joey Votto is absolutely destroying National League pitching. Must have been that offseason batting practice he received in 2007 from X Mark (ya that was a heavy name drop)…The Braves are in last place. What idiot picked them to win the East over the greatest 4 man rotation of all time? Oh ya…If the playoffs started today (they don’t), Baltimore, Cleveland and Kansas City would be in, the Red Sox, Yankees, Rays, Twins, Tigers and White Sox would be out…Finally, in my best impression of Russell Hammond, I dig baseball.

Week 1 Thoughts

1. I am slacking: Writing a sports blog, a burger blog, working 40 hours a week, having a girlfriend, and partying is a tough mix.  Some things have to suffer.  Unfortunately Sexy Boston Sports has taken the hit thus far.  I shoulda known my 25 player profiles were a little too ambitious.  I'm such a dick.
2. We know nothing: Just as is in any other season, we do not "know" anything purely from Week 1.  Some previously formed thoughts are backed up and others are contradicted, but that doesn't mean anything is set in stone.  Yet.  Mostly.
3. Jon Lester is cooked and Jason Varitek is BACK!!!:  Of course neither of these are true.  This is my point about not "knowing" anything after Week 1.  Lester has been a slow starter the past couple years for whatever reason and faced the best offense in baseball (Yankees) and a much much much improved offense in Minnesota.  And as for the Captain, 2 HR in his only game this year is a nifty trick (especially with one of them coming off Cy Greinke, who gave up 11 HR in 229 innings last year), but let's not go pushing Barry Bonds aside as the Home Run King.  If Tito handles his bench properly we should expect Tek's numbers to look much better this year than in years past.
4. Papi...is done: This may be one of those things we do know.  Despite his "hot" last four months last year (really from a DH these were only good months), his season overall was pretty pedestrian.  The truth is Papi is (listed) 34 years old, benefited to some degree from steroids at some point in his career, and his top comparable is Mo Vaughn, and Sox, Mets, and Angels fans all know how that went.  I really thought he would still be able to crush righties this year, but his bat has been slow and he is losing his formerly stellar batting eye to compensate.  Of course Tito has left him in against Sabathia and Pettite which should never happen at this point especially with Lowell and Varitek on the bench.  This should change.
5. The Yankees are really good: They went 4-2 against the Red Sox and Rays on the road, easily the toughest first week schedule.  Their 2 weaknesses are age and bullpen, but if no injuries happen and if this particular group of relievers has a good season (which is mostly random chance) then this might be a scary good team.  Of course, I already declared them AL East champs months ago, so I guess I already knew this.
6. What's with all the off days?: The Red Sox get 14 non-All-Star-Break days off this year (ya I counted).  Over 1/5 of those came in the first week of the season!  When players are most rested.  WTF schedule makers?  Must be in their name (Feeney).
7. The offense is going to be ok: With the focus on "run prevention" this offseason, a lot of media members (especially a-hole Michael Felger on 98.5 the Sports Hub) assumed this meant the Sox offense would collapse.  "How could you possibly score enough runs without Jason Bay?"  "Mike Cameron is a striking out bum who does nothing!"  "Marco who?"  Well, what a lot of these idiots failed to notice was how deep the Sox bench got as well as the actual changes between this year and last year.  This year we have a full season of V-Mart, a big shortstop upgrade in the OBP department, a former top 3 prospect in Hermida as our 4th outfielder, a versatile backup IF/OF in Billy Hall, and two righties who mash lefties in Tek and Lowell.  Now we gotta do something about Papi...
8. Baseball is still the best: Good God I love baseball.  Opening day almost brought me to tears.  So many intriguing teams this year.  Four great prospects who will make their debut this year (Heyward, Strasburg, Chapman, and Posey), all of whom play in the NL, hopefully closing the gap.  The Holy Trinity Teams of the AL East.  Roy Halladay playing Goliath to the National League's toddlers.  I could go on forever, but I just need to say how glad I am to have baseball back.

Hopefully I can put more words to screen over the rest of the season and I am sure to return to the Celtics now that the playoffs are starting soon and this mythical switch is about to be flipped.    I cannot wait to see how the rest of the 155 games play out this year.