Tuesday Night Takeaways

Typed up on the blackberry while delayed on the subway this morning.....

As a sad and irrational Red Sox fan, I guess it comes as no surprise that I'm actually excited about this team right now. The pitching is starting to come around and the bats are about as lively as they can get given the lineup limitations. Do I think they'll win 96 games and make the playoffs? Not in this division. But I'm still convinced they'll make some noise, and if they can make the right trade deadline move, who knows. I've yet to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing for my health...


On to some takeaways....


-Pretty safe to say I can call Lester "Big Jon Stud" again....with the approval of Soxin10' of course


-2-0 since the return of Heidi. Just sayin.


-Lowell is doing everything right, even managing not to freak out given the circumstances. Ortiz seems to be doing everything wrong, seems like an equation that's really easy to solve to me.


-Just in case you missed another priceless post game Pedey quote in the comment section yesterday: talking about Ortiz and his struggles: "He's only had 60 at bats, a couple of years ago, I was hitting 170 after 60 at bats, and then what happened?.....THE LASER SHOW!"


-Pedey talks the talk (see below post) and walks the walk. I love Tek and all, but it's pretty clear who has stepped into the captain role


-Lester's splitter was filthy. 120 pitches is nothing. He's the definition of a horse (that's what she said?)


-Hoy es cinco de Mayo...5/5/2010...it's also Nomar night at Fenway.I can hear Ozzie Guillen saying "that's as close to being Mexican as he'll ever get"


-We know the Angels are struggling (I can't type that word without thinking of Joe Namath anymore). They're a team with comparable issues to the Red Sox.....we assume we'll be there at the end of the year....but are they too flawed? (Keep in mind the same can be said for the Sox)


-With the above said, I still don't know if the Red Sox won that game or if the Angels just finally found a way to lose it. Juan Rivera looked like a 7 year old tee ball player trying to run down Hermy's 3 run double to put the game away.


-Ahhhhhhh Hermida?


Lackey against his old ball club tonight in the Fens, let's keep it rolling....

Hermy Powers Lackey to First Boston Win

We figured in honor of Lackey's first Boston win we'd include a picture of his wife........what? She's from Maine and got his first win in a Red Sox uniform.... why else we would use the picture?

Tim may have called it yesterday, don't be surprised if Jeremy Hermida is your everyday DH by May or June.

The 26 year old former first round pick is starting to make Tito's job a little more difficult.

Dustin Pedroia (who is acting like a cleanup hitter on my fantasy team right now) may be continuing to prove that he can "hit that pitch"....but it's Hermida who is stealing the media's print of late. (ITM note: from here on Hermida will be referred to as, "Hermy"...because it just feels right...and possibly because I spell his last name differently everytime.....and absolutely because we also somehow manage to tie it back to the "Herbie Hancock" joke from Tommy Boy....don't ask qustions.)

Hermy has started the past four games (partially as a result of Jacoby's injury) and through an admittedly small sample of 14 at bats, has five hits (3 doubles), one tater, and six rbi. Hey Ortiz...see how much he poured?

I'm pretty sure I recently read that Ortiz has more strikeouts than plate apparences...certainly believable, but I'll double check my sources.

You've read it on this blog before, we're not believers in Big Papi at this point, at least, not anywhere close to the 2007 levels of belief. We hope he proves us wrong, but did nothing to convince us today. We need realistic expectations (something, as Bostonians, we struggle with in nearly every facet of life).

Sure, Ortiz apparently had a double in the 9th inning today....but I didn't see it with my own eyes....which leads me to believe the story that he actually struck out, but the umpire felt bad for him and let Ortiz take a free swing off a tee. Rumor has it that he was somehow jammed and late on the ball despite it being on the tee....resulting in a blooper over the shifted third basemen's head.

The top of the lineup helped keep the game in the Sox favor early on, but it was Hermy's three run double in the 8th inning that broke the game open.

Turns out it was needed.....Bard continues to make ITM look bad (giving up a tater to Cudyer), and Pap was shaky at best. At least Ramon Ramirez and Manny Delcarmen have looked solid....

It's amazing how we can take a nice win and turn it into a negative post so easily right? Welcome to the real Red Sox Nation.

Regardless, Lackey once again stymied his opponent and gutted it out over 6 and 2/3rds. Hopefully Beckett and Lester were taking notes rather than seeing who can drop more F bombs in 30 seconds.

New Lineup Could Become a Mainstay

The Sox have put up 13 runs in their last two games with Tito's revamped lineup (no real thanks to Ortiz however). Prior to that, the Sox had mustered 3 runs or less in their last 5 games, something that seemingly hasn't happened since Nam'.

While most, including Tito himself, consider it a brief change in an attempt to jump start a struggling lineup, I'm not so sure. Francona was on WEEI's Dale and Holley show today and indicated tonight's lineup will be exactly the same as last night. Tito has publicly mentioned numerous times that he believes a lineup with Jacoby leading off and Ortiz batting third gives the Red Sox the best opportunity to win....but I"m not buying into that, not right now at least.

With Lugo contining to suck/sulk on the bench, Nick Green will continue to occupy the nine hole in the lineup, allowing Jacoby to have free will on the base paths. If you have Ells on your fantasy team, expect a lot more stolen bases as he wont' have the same restrictions that he had when Pedey and other followed him in the lineup. Speaking of Pedey, his plus .400 OBP fits well into a leadoff role, and something in my gut tells me the same for JD in the 2 hole (perhaps it was last night's classic run in the first inning that sold me). Here's hoping JD sparks up offensively in the 2 hole this June like he did in the 3 spot last year.

With Lugo continuing to suck/sulk on the bench, Nick Green will continue to occupy the nine hole in the lineup....allowing Jacoby to have free will on the base paths. If you have Ells on your fantasy team, expect a lot more stolen bases as he won't have the same restrictions that he had when Pedey and others followed him in the lineup. Speaking of Pedey, his plus .400 OBP fits well into a leadoff role, and something in my gut tells me the same for JD in the 2 hole (perhaps it was just last night's classic run in the first inning). Here's hoping JD sparks up offensively in the 2 hole this June like he did in the 3 spot last June.

A 3-4 combination of Youk and Bay may not put the same level of fear in opposing pitching as Ortiz and Manny did a few years back, but they're currently comparable to nearly any 3-4 combo in the league (save perhaps for Tex and Arod). Ortiz himself led off with a single last night, but clearly still suffers from slow bat syndrom...and/or lying about his real age when coming to the US. Tito will likely stick it out with Ortiz in the six hole, but continued poor performance may force his hand. Papi was pumped with belt high fast balls in the mid 90's by Detroit's relief last night, and ending up looking like Henry Rowengartner from Rookie of the Year when he was forced to hit in a game:

Surely we may all have a vastly different opinion about this lineup if it doesn't produce this week, but thus far, I think Tito's moves make both short and long term sense to me.

Pedey: "It's Not Early Anymore"

The Red Sox dropped their second straight game to Toronto yesterday, extending a recent trend of mediocre pitching and a struggling offense. With the loss, the Red Sox drop to 28-22, their worst start through 50 games since 2005 when they began the season 27-23. You can point to injuries and/or bad luck as reasons why a team many picked as world series bound has struggled through the first two months, but Dustin Pedroia doesn't want to hear it.

"We got four hits [on Saturday]," said Dusty "We've got to find a way to score runs. We're not winning many games right now, and we need to start. It's not early anymore. We've played 50 games. We need to start doing things, offensively."

Good for you Pedey, someone needs to tell this team to take their collective skirts off. All we've heard is "we're hitting the ball well, but right at people" or "I pitched well, but made one or two mistakes that they hit hard." Well guess what, that can suffice for a few games, but we're nearly a third of the way through the season, excuses like those won't cut it in this town. With Youk and Jay Bay coming back to reality at the plate (and I am by no means pointing any fingers at them), this offense relied on Rocco Balldelli for their production yesterday....Rocco Baldelli.....who then proceeded to run himself into a wall and nearly sever his leg from the knee down. That's just Rocco being Rocco.

We all know Papi has been hitting bombs in batting practice, that's great, but it's called BP for a reason, and players sure as hell don't get paid millions for hitting taters during practice. Sure he's put good wood on a few balls of late, but at this point it's going to take back to back months of him hitting .325, with 10 taters and 20 RBI to get him back to a respectable level.....and I don't think any of us see that happening.

Forgive me for my pessimistic rambling on this beautiful Sunday morning, but the aforementioned issues have been combined with the thought of being scared that Lester takes the mound today... and presto, I'm all worked up.

Maybe the Sox can salvage the weekend for me, perhaps Lester will bounce back and inject some optimism into my Red Sox blodline, because apparently, 75 and sunny doesn't cut it when the Sox are struggling.