« Baseball Today: Thursday, July 5
Main
Thursday lineups »
July 5, 2007
Sean McAdam joins us once again today for another edition of projo SoxTalk. Click here to listen to the full audio file. The Red Sox are not a perfect team but, as days like yesterday show, they have a lot going for them, and they are not a team that has a whole lot of glaring weaknesses right now. Today, Sean talks about the reserves coming through once again, the possible emergence of Manny Delcarmen as a right-handed setup man, and why the team doesn't have an urgent need to trade for a replacement for the injured Curt Schilling.
Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments:
On yesterday's win, despite an unusual starting lineup: "It shows their depth, particularly at a time when the middle of the order -- guys like Ortiz and Ramirez -- don't seem to be contributing much. ... Sitting out a player or two for a couple of games is not catastrophic, because they have people who are comfortable coming off the bench in a reserve role and contributing when they're asked."
On Delcarmen: "They could use someone from the right side [to get to Jonathan Papelbon], and they've been talking about maybe targeting that as their top trade wish as the July 31 deadline gets closer, but it's conceivable that in the next three and a half weeks or so, Delcarmen could emerge as that guy internally, and have the Red Sox focus elsewhere on filling needs when July 31 rolls around. Certainly he's pitched well enough. You can see that Terry Francona has confidence in him to bring him into big spots."
On filling in for Schilling: "I think they believe they're going to be OK. They get through the end of this weekend in Detroit, that's the end of the first half, and then really you're only looking at about three weeks in the second half before Schilling would come back. And I think that when you look at the margin of error that they have in the standings, with their double-digit lead over their closest competitors, the fact that even back-end-of-the-rotation guys like Julian Tavarez and Kason Gabbard, who filled in and took Schilling's spot, have performed far better I think than anyone could have hoped for, and then consider that Jon Lester is only a short trip up 95 away ... there certainly isn't the sense of urgency that you've got to go out and get somebody to come in for a month or so."
Posted by Mike McDermott 
at 11:44 AM to McAdam
| Permalink
