Since when is TBS showing a Sunday afternoon game? I didn’t even know the Sox were on TV!
Sox look tired. Looks like all that traveling is catching up with them. I’m sure they can’t wait to get home. Especially Julio Lugo - who has made 3 errors today. Everytime I consider jumping on the “Bench Lugo for Cora” bandwagon, I remember that I was also on the “Bench Pedroia for Cora” bandwagon this time last year. Letting Pedroia work himself through his slump turned out pretty well in the end.
JD Drew looks like he’s swinging the bat pretty well early in the season. And so does Varitek, now that he is out of Japan. He hit some balls in Oakland that ended up being out despite the fact that he made excellent contact. I would simply love it if Varitek proved me wrong and hit better than .250 this year.
The Blue Jays look like they can beat anybody today. Their bats are on and Halladay is pitching. I don’t think they can sustain this level of excellence throughout the season. They aren’t a real threat to the Yankees and Red Sox because they simply don’t have the organization depth. If anyone gets hurt on their time (and every season involves injuries), they can’t absorb the losses in a manner that the Red Sox and Yankees can. A.J. Burnett will get hurt at some point this year.
3 Comments
I think it is easy to dismiss the blue jays but they definitely have the pitching depth - starting and relieving - to challenge for one of the top two spots this year.
The sox have some good young guys on their team as do the yanks, but i’m not sure what kind of organizational depth they have that allows them to recover better from a few big injuries.
Let’s say beckett goes down for the season…how do we do then? how about if we lose ‘tek? or ortiz?
i think the jays have been a bit snake bitten the past 3-4 years with injuries-if their starting pitching and closers can have a healthy year, they’ll be good. btw, aj is in an “opt out” contract year so i’d be willing to bet the farm he pitches in more games this year than in years past.
as for lugo, he is not a good fielder - we got him to bat lead off and steal bases…i guess he has stolen a bunch of bases but he has hit about as well as he has fielded…unfortunately, i think b/c of the deal they signed him to, he ain’t going anyplace until that contract is done and done. so he either has to dig himself out of he hitting slump he’s been in since he signed with us and make up for his fielding woes with his bat and feet or we just have to live with having him be our week link.
If Beckett goes down and the Sox have a team that can win it all (meaning: it’s not a wasted year) the Sox have some resources in the mingors to make a trade. Such as Jed Lowrie. Obviously, you’re not going to find an exact match of his beckett’s caliber and you have to hope that dice-k, lester, bucholz can step up a bit…hope that Schilling can pitch effectively, but it can be done. And lets not forgot the pile of cash the Red Sox are sitting on (that the Blue Jays aren’t).
Lugo played great defense in the playoffs last year…when it counted most.
i don’t remember him fielding particularly well but maybe he did…i do remember him getting more hits than normal…i certainly don’t think you can look at lugo and jd drew and say they “stepped it up” during the crunch of the playoffs…they were so bad in key situations throughout the year that i think they just started to hit little hot streaks at the right time..there were just too many lugo and drew killing rallies to give them any clutch ratings for their playoff hitting.
that doesn’t mean they couldn’t both have great years this year or in the future though…that’s pretty much why they each got such good contracts from the sox..to hit the snot out of the ball.
regarding the sox, they definitely have more money to spend than most teams, no doubt. but that doesn’t do you much good in july when you are trying to trade for an ace…which almost never happens…in fact, with all of those great resources, can you name an ace the sox acquired mid-season who helped them make a playoff run?