When in doubt, it's always easiest to blame Javy Lopez (was he, per chance, involved with the work on the Big Dig?).Huh? What? Why would we blame Javy Lopez? Why would we blame any position player? The offense scored 15 runs yesterday. He only caught ONE of the games where the pitching gave up double digit runs. Why would we blame him? I mean, I don't like the guy, but that's just weird.
The Boston brass takes the hardest hits for this indecent exposure at the Fens. The Sox fell to 3 1/2 games out of first place (four in the loss column) and the blame goes to Theo Epstein and the minions. Guess they really are thinking about 2007 and '08.Did you see all those walks Jed Hoyer gave up? Jeez. And that bases-clearing double didn't help, either. How did he get to the majors with a 16.18 ERA and a 2.14 WHIP? I demand that Jed Hoyer be designated for assignment.
Seriously, blaming the front office for the pitching staff being several orders of magnitude worse than every Little League pitcher I watched yesterday is asinine. No one in their right mind could see them being so bad over a 3-game stretch. They hadn't been great all season, but 39 runs in 36 hours? That's 100% on the pitching staff, not on Theo or Jed or anybody else. Yes, the front office signed them, but they can reasonably expect a better performance than what we saw yesterday. These guys aren't good, but they aren't as bad as what they've been showing, either. They haven't been performing up to the lowest of reasonable expectations, and that is in no way the front office's fault. They can't pitch for these guys.
Damon's demonstration thoroughly exposed counterpart Coco Crisp, who went 0 for 5 in Game 1, losing his leadoff job again with his latest in a lengthening line of performances as ``The Invisible Man."First of all, Coco shouldn't have a leadoff job. Him "losing" it is more a reflection of Terry Francona finally turning his brain on than a reflection on Coco (although he hasn't been any good). Second, I could point out the racial undertones in the "Invisible Man" reference, for those of you that have read it, but I'm sure it wasn't meant that way. He's not that clever. I just felt the need to point out that I managed to slog through that book in 11th grade.
Let's evaluate every single non-move at the trade deadline based on various players' performances in 2 games! That's a really good way to do things!Bobby Abreu, deemed too expensive for the Red Sox when the Yankees dealt for him at the trading deadline, went 6 for 9 with two walks. He reached base in 9 of 12 plate appearances.
Manny Delcarmen, Jon Lester, and Craig Hansen, the Baby Bulls deemed too precious to trade at the deadline, all failed miserably in their trials by fire against the Bronx Bombers.
This is true. Now, let's play a game of "Find the Spelling Error." Hint: it's in the 2nd sentence.
Clearly, neither of these teams is anywhere near complete. Both pitching staffs are pourous and any New York-Boston battle of bullpens shapes up as something akin to a Battle of the Bands at the Hampton Beach Casino. Long, loud, and ugly.
Was the Big Dig line supposed to be funny?
ReplyDeleteMinion: An underling or follower of a powerful person, esp. a servile or unimportant one.
Why does anyone in the front office talk to this guy (let alone invite him to his house) when he calls people things like this?
I'm tired of the Boston Media kissing Johnny Damon's ass. Maybe Coco isn't the guy but signing Damon for 4 years would have been a mistake.
I need to correct you on something, Jenny. "Mourning", the way he means it, is correct. Sorry.
Mourning: The expression of deep sorrow for someone who has died.
I remember The CHB writing a column right after the Sox got Beckett that basically said 1) who needs Theo and 2) that Beckett is the second coming of Roger Clemens.
ReplyDeleteWonder when that retraction will come?
I should add that, in the very same edition, the Globe notes that Abreu would have cost the Sox "$27.7 million for the rest of this season and next."
ReplyDeleteThat's Manny money. And Bobby Abreu, while a good player, isn't Manny. Hell, he's not even Ortiz, who comes in at considerably less.
Put another way, by spending 1/5th or so of their payroll on Abreu, the Sox would not only not solve their biggest problem -- pitching -- they would also be signing away any hope of winning the division outright in 2007.
Spelling error: "Pourous" should be porous. Unless the CHB was suggesting that we should all pour us another drink for suffering through that column.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't do research & apparently doesn't use spell-check. Maybe that's why he was seated all by his lonesome in the pressbox yesterday. People got sick of being asked how to spell words.
While I'm tirading here - who exactly is to blame for Beckett's abjectly underachieving performance? I seem to recall that Theo was not the general manager when the Sox traded for him.
Porous. Yes, of course. How did I miss that? Sorry Jenny.
ReplyDelete