All of a sudden work is crazy again so blogging might be a little squirrelly over the next few days. A few observations left over from an unintended, extended weekend off from blogging, and, given the gruesome results of the Red Sox-Yankees series, I have to talk some baseball first.
So the Red Sox break their 6-game losing streak by beating the Tigers tonight. Excuse me for not getting overly excited. The Red Sox have already proven they can beat average to mediocre pitching – after all, they did bitch-slap the Orioles pretty good just before heading to Tampa Bay last Tuesday to meet my expectations. Let’s face it, this team is being measured on how well they perform against the good teams, and they ain’t doing the job. And not even the Detroit Tigers are gonna mask that fact.
I will say this – I did like the lineup Terry Francona put out there tonight. When it comes to baseball I’m no sentimental fool – it’s all about the Ws. As much as I cherish the contributions of Jason Varitek, Mike Lowell, and David Ortiz in seasons past, none of them should be in the lineup every day anymore. Lowell should split time with Big Papi at DH, and Varitek should assume the role of once-every-fifth-day catcher to give Victor Martinez a breather. But that’s it. The AL Wild Card race is now a sprint, and Lowell, Papi, and Varitek are just gonna have to suck it up. There’ll be plenty of time this winter for moaning and groaning about lack of playing time.
And it’s time for J.D. Drew to start earning his keep.
Unfortunately, what truly ails this team is not something that can be fixed this year. Even if they were to get Daisuke Matsuzaka back, he’s never been more than a 6-inning pitcher, you still have Brad Penny who has yet to work into the seventh inning once this year, and Tim Wakefield and Clay Buchholz can’t be counted on to pitch deep into games. So you’ve got an exhausted bullpen that isn’t going to see any chance for prolonged rest anytime soon. I mean, just watching them all being trotted out there game after game, you can see they’re fried – especially Manny Delcarmen and Ramon Ramirez.
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Mark the date down: August 7th the pool dropped below 90 for the first time, and with the nights dropping into the low ’80s we’re heading downward. Mind you, it won’t be fast – there’s still plenty of 100+ degree days to keep the water around a perfect 86 for a month or more.
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