The Madness of Prowler

I watched most of the game on mute as I had my regular Wednesday get together occuring. But when everyone left at 10:30, I turned the found back on. By then, it was already 13-1. I watched a little while longer and went to bed. Here are my thoughts.

First, let's not get cocky. Sox won game 1 of the ALCS 10-3 and then lost three straight. Nothing like an embarrassing loss to rally a team. To see the results of this game and assume the Sox are just going to handle the Rockies for the next three games is short sighted.

Second, FOX sucks. These games starting at 8:30 is nuts. I can barely stay up for them. How are kids supposed to watch them? Start the games at 7:30 and make life easy. Folks on the west coast can watch it on delay for all I care.

How ironic is it that Lowell was the only starter without an RBI? Lugo was the only starter without a run. Ellsbury was the only starter without a hit (he didn't need one, really). Now, keep in mind that if Crisp is in this game and doesn't get a hit, he's getting pounded on. I'm not being a hypocrite, I'd have got on him too.

BTW, I think Francona could have put the rest of his little league team in so they could have said they played in a World Series game.

Personally, I'd have put in "Mop-up" Gagne in right after Beckett came out. Gives the team more time to fix things if he managed to blow a 12 run lead.

12 men left on base, 7 in scoring position. That's just so funny because it shows how much more the Sox could have done.

I'm highly amused at watching Youkilis running scoring from first. Something really funny about watching him go all out and knowing that with half the effort, Lugo is twice as fast.

Looking forward to game 2, maybe I'll take a nap when I get home. Go Sox!

Nice to see Julio Lugo starting to get some hits. Nice if someone else would.

Ortiz and Youkilis are both playing hurt right now, this is not helping.

The Sox are 20-22 since the start of June. This is not helping. In that stretch they've only one one series against an AL opponent and that was Tampa Bay. They 4 series wins against NL teams. In that stretch they are 6-6-2 in those 14 series. And it all started losing 2 of 3 to the Yankees.

For reference, in May they were 16-8 and in April 20-8. In that time they lost only 3 series.

June 13-14
July 7-8

For comparison sake, last year by this time, the Sox were 57-36 having just swept the Royals. This year they are 56-38. Going into the all start break, their record was identical to this year. The difference? The Yankees were a lot closer and eventually, the Sox didn't even make the post season.

The lineups have been juggled around quite a bit. But when Julio was leading off and NOT hitting, the Red Sox were WINNING! When Drew was hitting 5th, the Sox were WINNING! Never mind individual slumps.

Anyway, if I were making up the lineup card, it'd look more like this:

Pedroia
Youkilis
Ortiz
Ramirez
Lowell
Drew
Veritek
Crisp
Lugo

Yeah, the only real changes from the start of the season for me would be swapping Pedroia and Lugo and Drew and Lowell. And I might rotate Crisp/Lugo/Pedroia through the lead-off spot depending on who was hot. They all have had spurts and droughts. And I will always have faith in Ortiz and Ramirez. Course, this year I have faith Ortiz will hit it to the warning track.

For now anyway according to this article with the claim of an unofficial deadline. This makes for one happy Sox fan.

Article also indicates the likely lineup is...

Lugo, SS
Kevin Youkilis, 1B
Ortiz, DH
Ramirez, LF
Drew, RF
Mike Lowell, 3B
Jason Varitek, C
Coco Crisp, CF
Dustin Pedroia, 2B

Which is pretty damn close to the lineup I predicted with Crisp 9 and Pedroia 8. I should not better than to think the unproven Pedroia would come up before Crisp.

Rotation is looking pretty good with Schilling, Papelbon, Wakefield, Becket and Lester (we hope). And the way the Sox are signing free agents, I can see them signing Daisuke Matsuzaka. That'd be six solid starts to begin the season with Lester probably coming in late in the season (by the time one of the starters goes on the DL). Tavares proved he *can* do it in the long run and Timlin is already signed. It really just leaves SoxNation worried about a closer. I dunno how I feel about Hanson or Foulke, the latter of which the Sox are reportedly in negotiation with.

There are lots of folks who know more than I. I'm really interested to see how this season pans out. Could be the last run for Schilling and Wakefield.