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July 10, 2007
Sean McAdam is on vacation, so it's sports editor Art Martone and sports producer Mike McDermott doing the honors today on projo SoxTalk. Click here to listen to the audio file. Today they look ahead to the second half of the season, and particularly at how the Red Sox will address the problems that we saw over the last couple of weeks of the first half.
Here are some excerpts from Art's comments:
On the team's problems: "They have to address, certainly, offense. They've been unable to generate offense against quality pitching for the most part this season, and that's mainly because people they depend on in the middle in their order are not as productive as they have been, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez specifically, but also a few others. Also, with Curt Schilling out, you would think their starting pitching could be a bit deeper. Right now you're looking at two guys at the back end of the rotation, in Julian Tavarez and Kason Gabbard, who won't necessarily give them the kind of pitching they got in the first part of the year, for the most part. You wonder if Beckett is going to stay at the level he's pitching at. And the bullpen, while very effecive, is a little bit thin right now; they could be looking for other arms there as well."
Will Clay Buccholz be a relief pitcher this season in Boston? "The Red Sox haven't said too much. What they have said, at the beginning of the year, is that they're not going to rush this kid. They're not going to bring him up until he's ready. But in this situation they did a very similar thing with Papelbon in 2005. He had been in the rotation, they saw him as a starter, but because they needed bullpen help, they kind of put him into the setup role, and he actually filled it very well. When they went into the playoffs in 2005, Papelbon was arguably the best relief pitcher ... This could happen with Buchholz as well. Depending on what he does in Pawtucket, it's a possibility -- I don't know if it's a probability -- it might be something they'd look at six weeks down the road or so."
On the next 30 days in the American League East: "I think within the next month or so we're going to know if we're going to have a race or not. The Yankees are playing 29 straight games against teams that are presently under .500. Now that includes Toronto, which is only a game under .500, so it's not quite as easy as it looks, but they have a very easy road ahead, and the Red Sox do for the most part as well. So if the Red Sox can just hold their serve, keep the lead where it is, or right around where it is -- eight, nine, 10 games -- and a month passes, then I think they're going to be in pretty good shape, because once they finish that last road trip in August they're home virtually the entire month of September, they shouldn't have a problem. I think the key to whether or not there'll be a race will be the Yankees. If the Yankees can finally begin to get hot, finally be able to put together some sustained streaks that they haven't shown they're capable of yet, they can probably make a little bit of a run at this, because they seem to have too much talent to be kind of piddling along at .500."
Posted by Mike McDermott 
at 11:30 AM | Permalink
Bill howard | July 10, 2007 8:32 PM link
david siff | July 11, 2007 11:34 AM link
In my opinion ,if the Sox can put together a run, and they haven't in the last month,they will nail down the division no matter what the Yankees do. If Schilling comes back healthy and they put togethjer a 7-10 game run I think the division race is over.