Calmer Than You Are, Dude
Royals 9
Red Sox 3
Our worst fears have been realized. The Red Sox faced a pitcher against whom they had little experience, and were predictably beaten. The Yankees picked up a game due to a meltdown by Jeremy Accardo and Casey Jannsen.
Obligatory “NOBODY PANIC!” diatribe.
Phew, now that we got that out of the way, some thoughts (bulleted!) on the AL East and last night’s game:
- Who’s Now? Alex Gordon. Kudos to the Royals for sticking with him through a miserable start.
- Is Mike Lowell going to cool off? His fast starts have been chronicled ad nauseum, and I called for his head in April, but could he be the answer next year? I’m still leaning toward no, but I’m a lot closer to “on the fence” than I was three weeks ago.
- John Buck has been one of the biggest suprises of 2007. His OPS+ is 121, compared to a career figure of 86, and he has solidified one of the Royals’ major voids. In a major slump after smacking three homers in two days against the Cardinals in mid June, he’s hit just .143 since the 18th. July has not been kind to him historically (62 OPS+), so look for more frequent rest and a possible late season resurgence.
- I had a laugh watching Wily Mo chasing balls around in the top of the eighth and flailing at breaking balls. Is this what it’s come to?
- The Red Sox haven’t been playing good baseball for the last six weeks, yet their lead is eight games. The glass remains half full.
Tonight, Julian Tavarez faces Odalis Perez – both have been awful of late. JOOL-ee-an could be nearing the end of his tenure in the rotation. He’s had a nice run, but Gabbard should stick upon The Return of the Schilling.
nice bullet points. How is that done?
WAKE UP DUDE! Mike “Iron Man” Lowell is the real deal. While his age may make him a liability in the near future, he is undeniably one of the team’s biggest producers on both sides of the ball, and has been since his arrival in Boston. What possbile reason could you have to trade him now? I think you’ve been doing a little too much shopping, and not enought watching. Loser.
No one is advocating a trade of Lowell. He’ll be at third base through the end of 2007. He’s a free agent after the season, and if anyone can make a case for a multi year deal (Mr. Dizzle?), i’d listen intently.
Jimmy, the unordered list tool is ctrl-I in wordpress. I copied it over from Google Docs and the formatting stuck, not sure why the line spacing went all screwy. Unfortunately, it reads like an auctioneer.
I’ve been wondering for a while now what kind of production we’d see out of John Buck if he played more than 60 percent of his team’s games. Would his OPS regress to his career average? Would he have 25 home runs? Would he get jelly legs and become like a polio-stricken child? These are the questions you ask when you have a John Buck-Jason LaRue platoon.
Re reminds me a bit of Chris Hoiles, Orioles catcher from the early 90′s.