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July 6, 2007
Sean McAdam takes a break from today's appearance on WEEI to join us for another edition of projo SoxTalk. Click here to listen to the full audio file. In today's conversation with Art, Sean talks about the woeful state of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who will start the All-Star Game for the American League, the decision to call up Jeff Bailey and what that means about Kevin Youkilis' quad injury, Jacoby Ellsbury's short and memorable stay, and the coming showdown series with the Tigers.
Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments:
On the Devil Rays: "If you had some sort of fire sale, there would be people lined up to bid for the likes of Carl Crawford and Delmon Young and Scott Kazmir and, of course, Rhode Island's Rocco Baldelli when he's healthy. But for whatever reason the pieces fitting together are not moving the team as a whole forward anymore, and it seems their ignominious achievement of not having ever won more than 70 games is not about to change this season either."
On who starts the All-Star Game: "To me it's down on merit to probably four guys: Sabathia, Dan Haren from Oakland, Verlander from Detroit and Beckett. It lines up so that three of those guys -- Verlander, Sabathia and Beckett -- all pitched yesterday, so they would have plenty of rest. So that's not going to be the deciding factor ... I don't know. It's a tough decision, and Terry Francona was saying he doesn't envy Jim Leyland going through it, because he did it a couple of years ago as the manager of the American League champions in the 2005 All-Star Game. My guess is that it is either Beckett or Sabathia, but that's just totally a gut feel, and I don't have any hard evidence to back that up."
Is Youk more hurt that we thought? "I don't know if it's hurt more than we thought, but it's certainly an opportunity for them to rest Youkilis for the final three games of the first half, and not have him make that any worse by playing in three games leading up to the break. Bailey is a converted catcher who has been mostly a dh and first baseman the last couple of years, a little bit of power from the right side, and Terry Francona has always liked him. He goes out of his way to sort of make note of him in spring training every year. And he'll get an opportunity to, I don't know about start, although I think Detroit has three lefties going this weekend, but at the very least it gives them some depth if they want to continue to play Hinske, which they'll do at first."
Posted by Mike McDermott 
at 11:30 AM to Martone
, McAdam
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