Kuzul

Everyone, myself included, appears to have been consumed with the idea of adding a player or changing things up for this Red Sox team.

However, I realized something last night watching the game against the White Sox. Fans have to look around and realize that this team is quietly winning games and have managed a five-game winning streak.

Granted, these are games they are supposed to be winning. The Minnesota Twins are certainly no Texas Rangers. The White Sox are not the Detroit Tigers.

Last night Daniel Bard went seven strong innings giving up seven hits and three runs. Not bad for your fifth starter.

Thursday night saw Felix Doubront go six innings and giving up five hits and three runs.

The fact that the bottom of your rotation only gave up six runs in 13 innings over two games is pretty good in my opinion. The offense did its job as well, scoring 20 runs over those two games.

It is worth noting that the offense has put up 44 runs in the past five games. That equates to eight more runs than they scored against the Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers and New York Yankees combined.

There are of course some areas of concern. All of which, in my opinion, hinge on the pitching staff.

Clay Buchholz does not look comfortable. The fact that he is yet to be able to get his curveball over is alarming. He had all of spring training to work it out and now he’s just getting beaten up on.

Alfredo Aceves is not your closer. Period. His ERA has slimmed down to a hefty 14.40 over the past few days, but watching him reminds me of 2007 and watching Eric Gagne come in to “save” opportunities. I have no confidence in him this season. He is far better off being your long reliever and spot-starter.

Mark Melancon. This guy who was supposed to be the setup man and now the team and fans alike are forced to hope he has some type of pitching epiphany in AAA and figures out how to deal with the pressures of pitching in Boston.

On the flip side, help is on the way.

I never thought I would say this, but I am looking forward to the return of Daisuke Matsuzaka. While watching him pitch is unnerving, we know what he brings to the table. All early indicators show that he should be back a bit earlier than anticipated.

Aaron Cook should be brought up this weekend. If not, they’ll lose him. By bringing Cook up he can either take a start here and there (especially is Buchholz needs to feign an injury to get his mind right) and can help shoulder some of the load. Is he the second coming of Sandy Koufax? Nope. Will he give the team another quality arm, you bet.

Andrew Miller is recouping right now as well. Miller had an impressive spring training and can add some depth the the bullpen down the stretch, assuming he can return to form.

Other positives include the resurgence of Big Papi. David Ortiz has been the all-out MVP of this team in 2012. I can eat crow on this one and say this: I was wrong. He is not done, he is not in decline. Quite the contrary. His .425 batting average is best in the American League, as is his 1.174 OPS. 

There also is the play of Cody Ross and Ryan Sweeney that needs to be considered. Both are performing above what most expected of them. Ross leads the Red Sox with five home runs and is currently batting .277. Sweeney is batting .383 and is leading the AL in doubles with 10.

Marlon Byrd is a totally different player in Boston than he was in Chicago for the Cubs. In 13 games for the Cubs he went 3-for-43 with a .070 batting average. In Boston, 7-for-22 with a .318 batting average.

Kevin Youkilis is finally hitting, adding a nice grand slam (second of his career) last night. While I do still believe Youk will be traded and Will Middlebrooks will be called up, it is nice to see him finally getting his game together.

Again, the team is winning the games they are supposed to be winning. For what it is worth, I’m grateful that they are at least winning.

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Nineteen-year-old Bryce Harper will make his Major League debut today against the Dodgers’ right-handed hurler, Chad Billingsley.

Billingsley enters the game with a 2-1 record, 3.04 ERA and 0.930 WHIP.

While there has been a lot of hype surrounding Bryce Harper and what he will mean to the Washington Nationals and the game of baseball in general, the fact of the matter is this: he is only batting .250 in AAA for the Syracuse Chiefs.

Is that any indicator of the type of player he will become? Of course not.

However, it should give a signal as to how he will fare in his first few major league at-bats.

Granted, in AAA this season facing right-handed pitchers, Harper posts a solid batting line of .275/.362/.431/.793 in 51 at-bats. I’m not prepared to classify that as crushing the opposition, but it is respectable.

Billingsley, on the other hand, performs adequately against left-handed batters. In his career, left-hand bats put up a .271/.360/.391/.751 batting line. For the sake of parity, that equates to 1,902 at bats.

This season in particular, Billingsley has been better against lefties. In 43 at-bats, lefties are posting a batting line of .182/.234/.409/.643.

The major concern being that when left handed batters get a hit, it appears they hit for extra bases off of him. Harper has not been an extra-base threat this season at all, having only four doubles, one triple and one home run out of his 18 hits.

At the end of the day, the Washington Nationals will be glad to have Harper on the big club; it’s just a shame for them that Billingsley will shut him down.

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On the heels of an utterly humiliating loss at home to the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox find themselves in the middle of a trade with the Chicago Cubs.

So, while Theo Epstein may not have been involved in the 100 year anniversary of Fenway Park, his name is linked to the team on this historic weekend.

The Boston Red Sox have sent Michael Bowden and a player to be named later to the Chicago Cubs for center fielder Marlon Byrd and cash (via ESPN).

Numerous questions come to mind; however, the two most pressing are:

“Is this a desperation move?”

“Will Jacoby Ellsbury be out longer than expected?”

Addressing the first one, it seems hard to say no considering how absolutely terribly the team has played this weekend.

The loss at home on Friday followed by an insanely unpredictable finish to Saturday’s game leads one to think that general manager Ben Cherington and Co. are desperate and trying to piece things together.

Is Marlon Byrd going to be the answer to their problems?  Obviously not, considering his 0.70 batting average in 13 games so far this season.

The team hopes to see him return to his career .278 form of course, but adding Byrd while sacrificing any pitching, albeit Michael Bowden, seems counterproductive at this point, does it not?

In addition, one has to ask, how injured is Ellsbury?

If the front office feels compelled to add another outfielder, Ellsbury‘s injury has to be more significant than what the team has let on.

Obviously this is only another chink in the armor.

The team is hurting across the board. The Yankees are having their way with us, the manager is a laughing stock, half the team is injured and there is no light in sight.

But, hey, at least we can all still sing along to “Sweet Caroline” in the middle of the eighth.

Good times never seemed so good, so good, so good.

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There are two things in this world that I can’t stand: those intolerant of other people—and John Lackey.

I never cared for the man when he was in Anaheim and I cared even less for him when the Boston Red Sox decided to sign him in 2010.

I’m sick to death of his attitude and arrogant remarks, the latest only being another in a slew of stupidity.

In case you missed it, here we are in March of 2012, a full six months after the whole “beer and chicken” fiasco was exposed and five months longer than it should have taken Lackey to address the situation.

In a move that can only be classified as ill-advised, he went on the record by stating the following:

 “Guys having a beer after their start has been going on for the last 100 years,” Lackey said (Boston.com). “This is retarded. It’s not like we were sitting up there doing it every night. It’s not even close to what people think.”

No, perhaps it was not, but let’s face it: fans in Boston are tired of your act and tired of your 5.26 ERA in town. Voicing your opinion now about an issue that you should have saddled up and faced months ago is just poor timing and your choice of words was ever poorer.

I’m all for free-speech. I have to be, I’m a writer.

However, I believe in tact and courtesy.

He came back a day later and offered this apology:

“I apologize for my thoughtless choice of words that appeared in print earlier today. I meant no harm, and I am sorry to all I offended.”

It just doesn’t cut it for me.

There are very few things that light my fire, but having an apathetic, overpaid baseball player make silly and crass remarks out of sheer ignorance just gets my fire lit.

Okay, and it might be exacerbated by my dislike for Lackey in general. 

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One of my favorite wrestling matches of all-time came on January 24, 1999.  It was the WWE’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view and the match was between The Rock and Mankind.

It was an “I quit” match to rival pretty much any other that came before it or after. 

The crux of the storyline centered around The Rock, at the time being Vince McMahon’s “boy” for lack of a better term.  Vince wanted Mankind to be taken out.  It was a bit of a power struggle.  The Rock was at the time probably the greatest heel of the WWE “Attitude” era. 

I won’t bore you with the details of the match, but for some reason that match came to mind when I read Christopher Gaspar’s piece in the Boston Globe this morning regarding the divide being wedged between Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine and general manager Ben Cherington. 

Picture this:  Ben Cherington is sort of like the Mankind character in this scenario.  Wrestling fans know that Mick Foley (aka Mankind) fought Vince McMahon over the character and development of Mankind.  Foley wanted to do things one way, Vince had other ideas in mind. 

Bobby Valentine is kind of like The Rock in this scenario.  He is outspoken (to say the least) and, as we all know, was the choice of Larry Lucchino’s to be the manager of the Red Sox, not Ben Cherington. 

And ahh, Larry—the Vince McMahon of the Boston Red Sox; he who pulls the strings behind the scenes.  

According to Gaspar, the wedge between the manager and general manager exists over the usage of two players in particular: Jose Iglesias and Daniel Bard. 

Gaspar said that Valentine has told scouts outside of the Red Sox organization that he wants Iglesias to be the man at shortstop and he has been openly cynical about Daniel Bard’s transformation from closer to starter. 

Chernigton on the other hand views Mike Aviles as the opening day shortstop for the Sox and Bard as a fourth or fifth starter for the club. 

As Gaspar writes:

 “Whose evaluation wins out, Valentine’s or Cherington’s, is going to signal how the Sox are going to be run and who wields the power in baseball operations.” 

Ben Cherington wanted Dale Sveum to be the manager of the Sox, not Bobby-V.  Let’s not forget that.  Lucchino swooped in and, though he has said time and again that Cherington was in on the decision making, those that chose to read between the lines know that Valentine got the job because Vince, erm, Larry, wanted him to do so. 

Right now, what we are witnessing is an Attitude Era slobber-knocker between two egos with the biggest ego of them all acting as the special guest referee. 

I’ve thought that Cherington was an empty suit, pretty much from the day he was appointed the job. The best thing he’s done, so far, is tell Red Sox Nation that John Lackey would be out all of the 2012 season. 

While, like Mankind, he is a likable guy in this situation, something tells me that Larry and Bobby, aka The Rock and Vince, are going to double up and beat Cherington and his authority with some “Good ‘Ol Boy” steel chairs. 

Buy your tickets now folks, this show is going to be amazing.

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Talk about beating a dead horse, right?

Just when I was fully prepared to turn the page on the whole Roy Oswalt coming to Boston notion, the Boston Globe‘s Nick Cafardo had to lure me back into the saga.

I’m like Michael Corleone, just when I thought I was out…

The reality is, even if fans are growing tired of hearing that Oswalt might, could, should, is thinking about, wants to, doesn’t want to, wants to pull a Clemens, thinks he might want to join the Red Sox, fans should pay attention.

For all of the faults that many have come up with as to why the team should not sign him at this point: age, decreased K/9, increased ERA – what have you, he is still one hell of a solid pitcher.

Furthermore, at this point, he is going to be a lot more affordable than if the team sought to sign him at the beginning of free agency, where he likely could have demanded $14 million.

Now, Oswalt can likely be had for around $7 million to be the fifth starter on this roster.  Think about that for a second.

Roy Oswalt as the FIFTH starter for the Red Sox.

Does that not tighten up the starting five to a point where the Red Sox pitching staff could be mentioned in the same conversation as the Angels, Yankees, Phillies and Rays?

I feel that it does.

True, the man that many believe to be the fourth starter, Daniel Bard, is still relatively unproven, his numbers this spring have been inspiring. Of course, you can say that he hasn’t had to pitch many innings or throw that many pitches, I get it.

The point is, with the addition of Oswalt, the Red Sox go from being a team that others have laughed at for their “penny pinching” ways of signing plenty of reclamation projects, to now having potentially the deepest core of starting pitchers in the Majors.

“Oh, Oswalt needs to skip a couple of starts?  No sweat, let’s throw Ross Ohlendorf in there.”  Perhaps, “Jon Lester bruised his thumb, give Aaron Cook the ball.”

You get my point.

Inevitably this saga will come to an end.  Hopefully sooner than later. Personally, I can’t take much more of this. With the Red Sox being the only team that appears to still have any interest in Oswalt, this could mean for some very good news for Sox fans by the end of the month.

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In Boston the weather has been a tease this week.  

Two days ago the temps were in the mid 50’s. Yesterday, it snowed. The Fenway Faithful are starting to salivate for the start of the 2012 season. The team was disgraced last year. Hopefully that means there is a chip on the shoulder of many men on this roster.

Most of all, the pitchers.

With a lot to prove and a fanbase anxious for baseball, here is a look at what we can expect from the starting pitchers in 2012.

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Former Nationals outfielder Elijah Dukes has been arrested again. After being pulled over driving his 2011 Chevy Camaro in Tampa, police noticed he had a bag of marijuana on his lap.

He proceeded to try and eat the bag.

As much as I would like to lie to you and say that this is surprising (the attempted ingestion of the bag, not the arrest), I simply cannot. The man has literally been arrested countless times, including charges related to domestic violence, failure to pay child support and marijuana possession. Most of the charges were not prosecuted or were dismissed.

Dukes considers himself to be blackballed by Major League Baseball for coming forward with allegations of fellow players smuggling drugs on chartered airplanes.

Sure, that’s it. It has nothing to do with his arrests and confrontational style in and out of the game.

It truly is a shame to see a player like Dukes just spiraling down. The man, at one time, had pretty solid potential. I’m not labeling him the next Willie Mays, or anything preposterous like that, however, Dukes could have developed into a solid piece of the Nationals outfield.

It is unfortunate that his sample size is so small. Having only played in 240 Major League games, Dukes showed a decent ability to get on base.  

Back in 2009, every projection for Dukes was positive. He was slated to be another star in the making in the Tampa Bay Rays system. He was thought of as an elite athlete with the bat to back it up.

His .242 career batting average doesn’t really support that.

It is a shame, the kid had a lot of potential. He is still young enough that if he got his head on straight, perhaps he could have another run in MLB. However, judging from what history tells us, we’ve seen the last of Dukes trolling any Major League diamond.

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Are you aware that by using the name Frank McCourt you can come up with dozens upon dozens of other words?  Most notably (and, well, PG enough to post) include “crock, amok and mock.”

Fitting, wouldn’t you agree?

Most people living around LA think of McCourt as a crock who has run amok all over this team and turned the franchise into a mockery.

As it stands today, he is still the owner of the Dodgers. There are nine prospective buyers left on the market for the team, any of whom would be foolish to agree with McCourt’s latest shenanigans.

In case you haven’t heard, McCourt insists upon selling the team and the stadium, but keeping all of the surrounding parking lots. Really? I understand there are a lot of wealthy potential buyers (I’m looking at you, Steve Cohen) but the idea of letting McCourt have his finger in anything associated with the Dodgers whatsoever at this point is asinine.

It really is hard to imagine a more hated man in greater Los Angeles than Frank McCourt. In a piece by Steve Dilbeck in the Los Angeles Times, Dilbeck points out the fact that if McCourt muddies up this deal any more than he already has, the fans will boycott the team once again in large numbers.

More power to them.

Is it a bad situation for the players? Certainly.

Is it worse for the fans? You bet it is.  

Dodgers fans are diehards and passionate about their ballclub. They don’t deserve an owner like Frank McCourt, a man that is so wrapped up in himself he can’t see the forest for the trees.

Believe it or not, this ordeal will come to an end sooner or later. It has to. The question is, how much more can Dodgers fans take?

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This past week the Washington Nationals announced the signing of Rick Ankiel to a minor-league deal.  Along with Mike Cameron, Ankiel gives the Nationals some depth (albeit aged depth) in the outfield heading into spring training.

While neither name will shake the Capitol building, both stand a chance of making the opening-day roster.

While general manager Mike Rizzo has not found his long-term option for center field, this spring could provide for a pretty interesting competition for that spot.

Ankiel’s deal involves an invitation to spring training, and one can assume that Rizzo would like to at least retain Ankiel’s services in the minor leagues, where he would be ready for major league call-up.  Ankiel, after all, possesses the strongest arm of all the Nationals outfield options.

Camerson also has signed a minor-league contract with an invitation to spring training.  Cameron’s deal includes a $1 million bonus if he makes the Opening Day roster, and he can earn $750,000 in incentives as well.

Obviously, both players want to fill that center field role for the Nats, currently held by Roger Bernadina, according to the team’s depth chart.

It would appear that this is a three-dog race.

Cameron, who is 39 years old, actually has  the best overall offensive numbers going back to 2008.  Rick Ankiel has the second-best, followed by Bernadina.  The irony being  that their offensive finish came in accordance to their age from oldest to youngest.  

Here is a look at their basic batting lines:

At the plate, it is obvious that no one hits for average much better than the other.  The difference is minute.  However, Cameron shows the ability to get on base more often, and when he does get a hit, it usually it results in multiple bases.

Ankiel is your median player pretty much across the board.  He will be  32 years old to start the season (and will turn 33 in mid-season) and is pretty even-keeled across the board.  There is nothing that will blow your mind.  The same can be said for Bernadino.

Looking a bit more closely at the figures, Ankiel has played in 438 games since 2008.  That is 43 more than Cameron and 184 more than Bernadino.  However, Cameron has managed to eclipse Ankiel in plate appearnces by 63 (1,585 to 1,522) while Bernadino is not even in that conversation.  

Actually, the only conversation in which Bernadino belongs is age and batting line.  His offensive numbers will fall short unless prorated due to his lack of games played.  To be fair, I will do just that: prorate his numbers, which will be indicated with an asterisk from here out.

While Ankiel leads the charge with hits, Cameron is just one hit behind him:  335 to 334. Bernadino would fall short at 291*.

For power numbers, Cameron leads in home runs, hitting 62. Ankiel has managed 51 and Bernadino 27*.

In runs scored and RBI, not surprisingly, Cameron finished first as well: 198 runs, 182 RBI. Ankiel had 192 runs and 170 RBI, and Bernadino 155* runs and 114* RBI.

On the other side of the ball, age could  prove to be a negative for Cameron and Ankiel.  They have many more miles on their legs than Bernadino.  Though Ankiel has the strongest arm, he is also, as I mentioned, almost 33 years old.  Bernadino is just about four years his junior.

The three-dog race during spring training should prove to be a very interesting one.  While Cameron appears to be the top choice on paper (including an impressive resume consisting of three Gold Glove Awards), his age makes him susceptible to injury.

I find it highly improbable to not see Bernadino on the major league roster, either as the starting center fielder or fourth outfielder.  The true race comes down to Cameron and Ankiel.

Without knowing the exact parameters of Ankiel’s deal, it is hard to gauge whether the final decision will be a financial one.  While Cameron historically has been the better player, the team could opt for Ankiel if  that saves money without seeing a drastic drop in offensive numbers.

Then again, who knows? Maybe Bryce Harper comes in and  takes the job away from all three of these guys.

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