Click the play button below to hear Sean's comments, recorded this morning. The topics: whether the Red Sox are missing David Ortiz more now than a week ago, the odd situation at first base last night, and the prospects of a trade for a second starting pitcher.
Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments:
On missing Ortiz: "I think it is starting to catch up to them. They seemed to be OK for the first couple of weeks. They were certainly riding J.D. Drew for the first couple of weeks of June, as he slid into that number-three spot and for a while at least there was no dropoff. But I suppose that it's inevitable that if you take a run producer of that magnitude out of the lineup for this long, it starts showing some effects, and I think we've seen it in the last week."
On the market for starting pitching: "Last year and the year before there was virtually no quality starting pitching available [at the trade deadline]. This year it looks like there's going to be a number of guys, including a number of left-handed guys, who are usually at even more of a premium. There will be some opportunities if the Red Sox want to upgrade. It will not be cheap of course. ... There will be plenty of teams looking -- the Yankees, Philadelphia, a number of teams are going to be in the market for starting pitching, and the Red Sox have to, like every other team, weigh the cost."
