To the Diamond

It's time for me to focus on the team that is actually playing. The Sox have been a bit of an anomaly to this point in the season. The bats have been producing (most notably with runners in scoring position and two outs--they're hitting over .300) but the starting pitching has been horrible. Couple the lack of pitching with an error every 4 games at shortstop and you'd think I was talking about a team from the American League West. Strangely enough, the local nine are a game up on the Evil Empire in the A.L. East thanks to their offense and bullpen. It was common knowledge that the Sox were supposed to have one of the top rotations in the majors this season given their talented top 3 in Becket, Lester and Matsuzaka a combined record of 7-8 in 22 starts. You know it can only get better when Tim Wakefield and Brad "Lucky" Penny are your top two pitchers when they're supposed to be the fourth and fifth guys in the rotation. The solution? Go to a six-man rotation and give Clay Buchholz the spot that he has earned with his ridiculous performance down in Pawtucket. The extra rest will only help Becket, Lester and Dice-K when September comes around and the stakes are much higher. Then again, the other side of this is the roster breakdown and adding another pitcher who can only be used every six days would be a bit of a waste, not to mention the time it would take for others to adjust to six or seven days of rest. Whenever the A. L. East is won, it won't be until late September (although Toronto won't be there in the end) and I predict that two teams from the division (Sox, Yanks or Rays) will be there. What can also be done is to deal Penny for a shortstop who makes half as many errors as the Green/Lugo platoon in the event that Lowrie isn't back in full form. Dare I mention Orlando Cabrera? He plays solid defense and can still hit better than Lugo--and he's cheaper! If the shortstop situation pans out and Lowrie is the answer (which I think will happen), Penny could be used in a package to get a hitter to replace David Ortiz's production. It's obvious that Ortiz and Lugo are unmovable and Papi is well-liked in the clubhouse. A package of Penny and perhaps Manny Delcarmen/Michael Bowden/Ryan Kalish might do it for a hitter like Victor Martinez. This would ultimately mean that Papi becomes your DH only against righties and probably would play only a third of the games remaining from the time of the acquisition, maybe less depending on how well whoever it is hits. He might even benefit from spending some time down in Pawtucket trying to get his swing back--Globe blogger Chad Finn mentioned his mechanics have declined and I agree. If they don't deal for a slugger, they should bring in Saltalamacchia and have him move in with Jason Varitek so that they at least have a long-term answer at catcher. I think that the Yankees will sign Joe Mauer the same way they got Tex. In the mean time, as long as Ellsbury, Pedey, Youk, Bay, Mikey Lowell and Nancy Drew keep the runs coming, the Sox can afford to have an easy out at short with the occasional ball sailing into the first base seats.

In other news, I can't wait for John Smoltz to come back in July and beat his old mates from Atlanta. Hopefully by then the starters' ERA won't be so astronomical and the bullpen will continue to shut everybody else down. Maybe even Papelbon will figure out that keeping the ball down and on the corners of the plate will make it a lot tougher to give up game-losing dingers to third string catchers and Mauer.


Lastly, what are your thoughts on the three man rotation that NESN has implemented to replace Jerry Remy? Personally, Buck Martinez's voices bores me to death because they featured his name in an old EA Sports MLB game. I'm glad they only used him for a few games. I like both Eck and Dave Roberts because Eck provides some pretty good insight about pitching and Dave Roberts is just a cool guy who had the most important steal in Red Sox history. Then again, he seems pretty uncomfortable while Eck has been a NESN analyst for a while and knows how to talk in front of a camera (except for the occasional slip-up that cost NESN a pretty penny from the FCC). Personally, I'll give Eck the slight edge but I miss Jerry Remy.