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April 29, 2008
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TAKE A BEAT: And on the 21st day, they rested. Or, shall we say, most of them rested; Joe McDonald reports that Bartolo Colon somehow threw a bullpen session through the raindrops at Fenway, and six other Sox came in to work out. (Projo Sox Blog) But the remainder were elsewhere, enjoying (we presume) a day away from the ballpark for the first time since Monday, April 7. Which for those us who write baseball for a living, or read baseball as a vocation, means . . . it's off-day story time! Today's batch includes . . .
-- McDonald's piece on Jacoby Ellsbury, whose base-stealing prowess (as evidenced above) led the Rays' Carl Crawford to exhort the Sox to give the young man the green light whenever he's on the bases. McDonald also talks to Tommy Harper, who helped Ellsbury hone his baserunning skills as a Red Sox consultant and who believes his former pupil will break his Red Sox single-season stolen-base record of 54, set in 1973.
-- The Globe's Gordon Edes catches up with Manny Ramirez' march toward 500 career home runs. The Herald's Rob Bradford examines how Ramirez' rigorous offseason workouts helped him get off to such a fast start.
-- Bradford notes that opposing hitters have swung and missed at an astounding 41.5 percent of Jonathan Papelbon's pitches this year and analyzes why that is (beyond pitching coach John Farrell's summation that Papelbon "throws the heck out of the ball").
-- The Herald's Michael Silverman does a statistical comparison that shows the '08 Sox pitching staff isn't performing as well as it did in '07.
-- Edes leads his notes with an item on Jon Lester, tonight's starting pitcher, from whom the Sox are hoping for more consistency.
-- Ian Brown of mlb.com has a feature on the Sox' consecutive sellout streak.
-- Away from the sports pages, the Globe talks to Dustin Pedroia's wife Kelli, who was diagnosed with stage two melanoma at age 18 and now, at age 24, is taking her anti-tanning message to teenagers. She also gives us a glimpse into life with Dustin. Back in sports, Silverman notes that her husband is avoiding the sophomore jinx in '08.
-- This isn't really an off-day story -- he writes these types of pieces all the time -- but Chad Finn's 10 free throwaway lines include, among several Sox items, a defense of Terry Francona, the worry that David Ortiz is morphing into Mo Vaughn, and happiness that Coco Crisp is still in Boston. (boston.com/sports/touching_all_the_bases)
(To address Chad's worry about Big Papi: Jayson Stark's poll of big-league managers identified the two-headed Ortiz/Ramirez monster as a proud member of the All-Guys You'd Least Want to Pitch to Team.)
-- Even somebody else's off-day stories have a Red Sox tinge. In Los Angeles, Derek Lowe compares playing on the West Coast with playing in the East and concludes: "Some people who have played this game for a long time say there is a certain mentality out here, that it's more about entertainment than winning . . . I'm not saying that's true, but a lot of people say that about Southern California." (dailybreeze.com)
Back to baseball tonight: 7:05 p.m. vs. Toronto. And we can wait until May 15, the next scheduled day off, for more stories like this Wall Street Journal feature on the financial and emotional worth of a baseball signed by each and every member of the 1948 Red Sox.
LOOKING AHEAD: The Blue Jays come to town having snapped their six-game losing streak and they have their ace, Roy Halladay, ready to throw at the Sox tonight. (mlb.com) They'll also have a lineup that will look different than the one the Sox faced the first weekend of the season in Toronto, as manager John Gibbons struggles to find a combination that clicks. (London Free Press) Jeff Blair of the Toronto Globe and Mail, meanwhile, wants Vernon Wells to step up and assume the role of team leader. And ex-Jay Jesse Barfield, on his cbc.ca blog, says Toronto's struggles stem from a lack of clutch hitting.
LOOKING BACK: The Rays -- or at least the people who've watched them for these last miserable 10 years -- are still pinching themselves over the weekend sweep of the sox. (Bradenton Herald) And the good news just keeps on coming, as Scott Kazmir pitches 5 1/3 strong rehab innings in Durham and pronounces himself good to go (Tampa Tribune). He's scheduled to make his season debut with Tampa Bay on Saturday night against the Red Sox at Fenway. And now, says the Tribune, the Rays suddenly have too much pitching. (This, of course, is the giddiness that comes with the rush of first-time success; as Terry Francona and Theo Epstein always say, the minute you think you have too much pitching is the time you should go out and get some more, because you never, never, never have too much pitching.) But the St. Petersburg Times says there's no question the Rays have plenty of good pitchers in their bullpen, which, as anyone who played them 18 or 19 times a year knows, had been a toxic waste dump prior to this season.
AND LOOKING AHEAD: Baseball Musing's David Pinto points out that all the Rays are doing is exactly what many people expected them to do this year.
GO FIGURE: Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times notes that of the 16 "new" managers the Red Sox have hired in franchise history, only four ever were hired again . . . but almost all of them did well with the Sox. "They come. They win. They disappear," he concludes. Among the familiar names on this list (at least to me) are Joe Morgan and Eddie Kasko.
HURTS SO GOOD: The Yankees finished the never-ending road trip with a victory in Cleveland, but Alex Rodriguez re-aggravated his strained right quad muscle and is headed back to the sidelines. (New York Daily News) This on the same day that Jorge Posada landed on the disabled list. (Daily News)
IT'S TIME: Peter Abraham on the LoHud Yankees Blog says Joba Chamberlain's continues dominance in relief actually demonstrates the need to get him into the starting rotation.
IF YOU AIN'T WITH US, YOU'RE AGIN' US: Judging from the parenthetical comments on his game thread, it sounds like Abraham is getting fed up with fans who take any negative comments as a personal affront from the Our Yanks Right Or Wrong crowd. Boston media members who attempt to comment on Manny Ramirez' foibles feel his pain.
THINK IT THROUGH: The Yankees' Morgan Ensberg does a guest spin on Phil Hughes' blog and admits that players not only hear insults shouted from the stands, but laugh at the really good ones. However, simply shouting "You s---k" means "we know that you don’t know what to say and you probably aren’t very funny. To us it is like saying 'um'. We hear it all the time and it is just a sound with no meaning." His advice: "Take your time and don’t get caught up in the moment."
CONFIRMED: Country singer Mindy McCready said the New York Daily News story of her long-time affair with Roger Clemens is true. (Daily News) Yahoo.com's Tim Brown wonders -- as do I -- if Clemens "regrets not following the Andy Pettitte path of disclosure and apology and getting on with his life. His denials, his roundabout explanations, his circling of the truth, have only fueled further examination" -- which probably led to this McCready news -- "because there is no way to listen to him and conclude he is innocent."
SEE YA: The blog My Pinstripes presents a litany of complaints against Yankee TV announcer Michael Kay under the misleading heading "Michael Kay, Yea or Nay?" (Misleading because it's all Nay with no Yea.)
STORY? WHAT STORY? MAYBE IT'S A STORY TO YOU, BUT IT'S NOT A STORY TO ME: Adam Rubin of the Daily News prints the transcript of an interview with Carlos Delgado in which the Mets' first baseman says his decision not to acknowledge the fans' pleas for a curtain call Sunday was not a snub, but that he's not surprised the story has grown to apocalyptic importance in New York.
LET'S GET REAL: Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan lists five things we know are real after one month of the season.
THE UPSTAIRS HOT SEAT: SI.com's Jon Heyman lists seven general managers who could join Wayne Krivsky on the unemployment line. Krivsky, meanwhile, discusses some of his decisions as Reds' GM. (Dayton Daily News)
AND FURTHERMORE . . . : Foxsports.com's Shaun Payne notes that Andruw Jones' disintegration is not only hurting the Dodgers but also damages his Hall of Fame chances.
LESSONS LEARNED: The Cardinals say Josh Hancock's death last year in an alcohol-related traffic accident has had a long-range impact in how the team deals with alcohol. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
WASHED UP? HAH! Frank Thomas answered his critics by by falling a home run short of the cycle -- Frank Thomas, hitting a triple?? -- in the A's 14-2 rout of the Angels. (San Francisco Chronicle)
HERE AND THERE: To no one's surprise, the Giants have sent Barry Zito to the bullpen (San Francisco Chronicle) . . . Mike Lieberthal will retire as a Phillie (mlb.com) . . . The Rangers' Hank Blalock is headed to the disabled list (mlb.com) . . . Gary Sheffield says he plans to play through the pain (Detroit News) . . . Tom Glavine will make his first start since April 13 tonight, and is concerned about being rusty (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) . . . Mike Cameron has completed his 25-game suspension for the use of performance-enhancing drugs and will return to the Brewers tonight (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) . . . Trade time may soon be approaching in Pittsburgh. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
OLD FRIENDS: Wily Mo Pena is front and center on Rich Lederer's list of April Fools (i.e., the players who have put up the worst numbers in the season's first month (Baseball Analysts) . . . Rich Garces will be back with the Nashua Pride this year . . . The Reds' Bronson Arroyo finally pitched well after a string of bad starts. (Cincinnati Enquirer)
NEW FRIENDS: Rotoworld.com has short updates on Red Sox farmhands Lars Anderson and Daniel Bard.
-- ART MARTONE
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