Slide, slide, slippity-slide …
Playing nine innings while hoping for some more at-bats . . .
1. Knowing Terry Francona, he’ll give the disconcertingly discombobulated David Ortiz anywhere from another month to June 2014 to solve his troubles at the plate. You know I believe Tito’s the ideal manager for the Sox, but if he has a flaw it’s that he gives too much leeway to his struggling veterans. So there’s probably a better chance of Francona hiring Jay Payton as a bench coach than there is of him dumping Papi from the No. 3 spot anytime soon. But the question to you is this: How far would you drop Papi? Fifth? Seventh? Tenth? Sixth seems about right to me, though it will mess up the lefty-righty alternation through the heart of the lineup. I wouldn’t be opposed to J.D. Drew batting anywhere from first to third in the lineup, either — his finickiness at the plate could be more of an asset at the top of the order, where he’d see a lot of pitches ahead of Pedroia, Youkilis and Bay. Anyway, tell me your thoughts in the comments — should Tito stick with Papi in the three-hole longer? And if he moves him, what does the new lineup look like?
2. I don’t want to believe this powerless start suggests the end is near Papi. I just can’t bring myself to give up on the player who gave Sox fans the faith to believe in their team when the skies were darkest. I hope that a visit to the Yankee Stadium pinball machine cures everything that ails him. But it’s getting increasingly more difficult to find a counter argument to his feeble numbers that is based in anything more than blind hope. Ortiz, as you probably know, has no home runs in 114 plate appearances entering tonight’s game. In Jim Rice’s in famous last, lost season in 1989, he had three home runs in 228 plate appearances — yet he hit all three in his first 73 trips to the plate, so his start power-wise was actually better than Papi’s is now. The case is similar for George Scott, another Sox bopper who suffered a sudden decline in bat speed and power. In 1979, his last with the Sox, he hit four home runs in 175 plate appearances before being dealt to the Royals in June for outfielder Tom Poquette. But Boomer’s four homers came in his first 137 plate appearances through mid-May, and he was batting .250 with a .733 OPS after 32 games. Try as we might to believe that Papi’s redemption is just a mighty swing away, it is beyond worrisome to think that his start to this season is discernibly worse than two of the more memorable career collapses in recent Sox history.
3. The loyal lieutenants in the Tek Army probably won’t believe me given my history of actually recognizing his flaws, but I felt bad for him yesterday as the Go-Go Rays ran a relay around the basepaths. Johnny Bench in his prime would have had a hard time on some of those swipes. You don’t need to tell me that Varitek has been average at best at throwing out basestealers the last few years, and given the surprising struggles of the Sox’ starting rotation, it’s hardly a surprise that there’s not a lot of chatter about his magical game-calling skills these days. But overall, given the logical expectations that he’d continue to decline, this has been an extremely impressive start to the season for the 37-year-old, who looks considerably quicker from the left side of the plate. Yes, Carl Crawford and his fast friends made Varitek look bad Sunday. But he’s looked good for most of the season, and he deserves to be acknowledged for that. Especially from someone who didn’t think it was possible.
4. While wishing the RemDawg a heartfelt speedy and complete recovery, we have to admit we’re looking forward to the Don Orsillo-Dennis Eckersley pairing in the NESN broadcast booth over the next couple of days. The one and only Eck is terrific at his usual studio gig because he’s candid — almost unfiltered — with his opinions, and it will be interesting to see how that translates to doing color commentary. If I recall correctly, one previous time when he was pinch hitting for Remy in the booth, he said that the opposing pitcher — I believe it was Glendon Rusch — “doesn’t belong in the major leagues.” That’s just hurtful. Hopefully he gets to say that about a few Yankees over the next couple of days.
5. The Red Sox need a starting shortstop. Maybe Jed Lowrie will be the answer, maybe he won’t, though I’m beginning to wonder if he’s on the Tim Naehring career path. But this much is certain, and frankly, it has been for more than two seasons now: There has to be a better alternative out there than Julio Lugo. There has to be. I’d feel bad for judging him after a small sample-size, except that this is the same maddeningly erratic player we’ve seen in his two previous seasons. He’s done little in his Sox career to justify Theo Epstein’s odd fascination with him, and I don’t expect that to change in his time here. It’s time to admit the mistake and find a legitimate alternative. Enough’s enough.
6. Don’t make the mistake of convincing yourself that Nick Green is the answer, either. The 30-year-old journeyman has done a fine job of filling in — his .304 average and 110 OPS+ has exceeded probably even his own hopes and expectations — but he’s become increasingly mistake-prone in the field (though not so bad as to be Lugoesque, mind you). He looks like a pretty dependable utility man, but if you’re expecting much more than that going forward, you’ll be wondering what you were thinking soon enough.
7. A few years ago, I got into a debate with a Yankees fan buddy (yes, I have a couple — they make for great comedic straight men nowadays) that ended with him slamming down the phone and hanging up on me. The debate in question: Who would be a better big league pitcher, Jon Lester or Phil Hughes? After last season, during which Lester looked like a future Cy Young candidate while Hughes pitched like a one-man Hideki Irabu tribute band, I was pretty convinced I was vindicated. Now . . . well, I’m still pretty certain Lester will have the superior career, but with his sluggish start, the concerns over the Verducci Effect, and the 22-year-old Hughes’s return to his previously promising form so far this season, there’s a decent chance he’ll be every bit as important to the Yankees over the next several seasons as Lester is to the Sox. Makes for a pretty intriguing pitching matchup tonight at the very least.
8. Matt Taibbi, one of the must-read magazine writers of this generation, has the talent to take apart his topics with a deft and subtle touch. But in this month’s Men’s Journal, he forgoes all nuance and basically breaks out the hatchet on Yankees GM Brian Cashman. In the piece — which is sporadically vulgar, if not quite NSFW — he convincingly paints Cashman as an incompetent, two-faced survivalist with a remarkable gift for pinning his mistakes on others. Oh, and did we mention greedy?
With his shameless, blatant attempt to buy a World Series with a half-billion-dollar shopping spree at a time when the rest of the country is scrounging under the couch cushions for ramen money, Cashman has laid the foundation for 2009 to be maybe the most entertaining year for non–Yankees fans in the history of baseball. We are all trailing six car lengths behind, waiting for the pinstriped truck to jackknife and explode in a giant conflagration of scandals and finger-pointing. In an age when huge, irresponsible financial bets have brought Western civilization to the edge of collapse, Cashman’s Yankees are perfectly positioned to become an object lesson in everything that has gone wrong with American society in the past eight years or so.
The piece was so vicious — and spot-on vicious — that even Cashman’s close confidante The Headwarmer probably thought it was too rough. Yeah, I loved it.
9. As for today’s Completely Random Baseball card:
The Rooster is 58 years old. And yet if Tito somehow found a way to start him over Lugo tonight, I’d be totally cool with that.
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