Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Varitek: Throwing Out Your Baserunners

So, looking for updates on the Sox/Red game... first thing I see is "After Lester hit Jay Bruce with a pitch, Varitek threw him out trying to steal second. Nice throw by Variek, nice easy tag by Ivan Ochoa." (update courtesy of Adam Kilgore of the Globe). Good way to start a game. See! SEE! Tek can still throw out baserunners! I don't care that I have no idea how fast Bruce runs, or that it's still early in spring, he can be useful. So Varitek critics, stifle yourself, will ya?

I'm getting so ahead of myself, I know. It's only March 3rd (Opening day in just over a month!) and I'm already declaring that Varitek is proving all of his critics wrong. He's got a lot of work to do before he silences the critics, but I support his efforts.

POS has food poisoning? Are you sure it's not rat poisoning?... ok, that may have been a tad mean, but I don't like POS. Never have, never will. Can't bring myself to cheer for him, and can't give him credit when he does something right (not like that ever happens). I always have one guy, one player on my Sox, that just makes my eyes twitch. Lugo has been that guy for the majority of his years here. When he was injured, it was Kevin Cash. I hope this illness puts him at a disadvantage and Lowrider wins the starting job. I know it's unlikely, but I hope.

I will say, it's early enough for me to not panic about all the DP's our guys have been hitting into (ahem, Mr. Baldelli, I'm looking at you... or I would be if I were in Florida right now)... but if they keep this up throughout the season, I'm going to be bald. I don't know... perhaps it's just because I hate the DP so much that it SEEMS like our guys hit into an extraordinary amount of them, but really. I've got to look this stuff up... hold on.

Last year, the Sox grounded into 147 DP's... using the AL east for comparison... the Yankees had 149, the Rays had 111, the Jays had 150, and the Orioles had111. So, technically, the Red Sox weren't that bad by comparison. Really, this proves nothing to me and it doesn't make me feel any better. I kind of got off on a tangent. It happens sometimes.

Anyway, 20 pitches for Lester in 2 innings. Couldn't ask for a cleaner outing, but I'm wondering if he's actually getting enough work in with these quick spring starts.... same goes for Beckett.

And our guys fail to do any damage with their bats... sigh. Again?

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