Entries Tagged 'Ortiz' ↓

Alright. The Rays couldn’t handle the Cardinals, and the Brewers couldn’t get anything out of the Sox, so the Fenway Faithful get to see their boys back in the top slot of the AL East.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t think the Sox would fare as well as they did (even with all the errors this weekend) against the Brewers. In fact, I had my mental prediction the other way around. If I were to pick a group of National League players to follow, I’d follow J.J. Hardy, Braun, Fielder and Gwynn. They all have a massive amount of talent and the Brewers will definitely do some major damage once their pitching is settled.

Speaking of pitching, Justin Masterson will make his second MLB start tomorrow (Tuesday) against the Royals and … drum roll… is that the smell of “Colon”? Why, yes… it’s Bartolo Colon, who will make his first Red Sox start on Wednesday. Personally, I think this is going to be a HUGE difference maker to the season. Bartolo is currently throwing in the upper 90s and seems to have his head back in the game. It’s like picking up a #4 free agent for nothing.

Other thoughts:

• Ellsbury got caught for the first time in his career. 25 straight without being tagged. That’s two shy of Tim Raines’ record.
• Varitek is such a great catcher, but he looks so weak at the plate sometimes.
• BOOM, Papi. Boom.
• Pedroia takes every opportunity he can find, doesn’t he?
• Beckett found his long ball pitch. Let’s put that back in the locker and hide it again, shall we?
• Craig Hansen is nowhere near the prospect he was when he pitched at Saint John’s. It may be one contract and out for that kid.
• The Yankees don’t have a chance this year unless they find a way to hit out of the cellar; pitching is not going to do it for them.
• Manny is deeply mired in a lack of power; no doubt putting pressure on himself over the next 2 homers.
• The Sox need to keep it going against the Royals. Losing this series will hurt them in the long run.
• The Celtics game was WAY too close. Par for the course on their season. Hopefully they won’t end up with the same destiny as the Pats (all this way for nothing).

If you don’t know anything about baseball, that sounds incredibly lascivious.  Thankfully, most of the people here have a little baseball knowledge to know that Youk is so hot with the glove AND the bat that he took the spot of the ailing Big(?) Papi. Ortiz’ right knee, the one he had surgery on a few months ago and that troubled him all of last year, is bugging the hell out of him and relegating him to the least dangerous place he can be: el bencho.

If it weren’t for past utter destruction in the clutch with said ailing knee, Ortiz would be thrown on the disabled list quicker than you can say Mike Hampton.

Youk, on the other hand, is doing unrealistically well this young season and definitely deserves to sit in the 3 hole for a bit. Well, at least until Papi decides to be himself again.

Yesterday afternoon’s game was filled with some great “stoopit” trivia stuff. As pointed out by Boston.com:

• Kevin Youkilis has broken the record for consecutive games without an error by a first baseman (194)
•  Jon Lester is the first left-handed Sox starter to record a win in Oakland since 1995.
• Terry Francona still misses chew. (Yes, I made that one up, but I guarantee you he does.)

It’s not a bad thing to take care of Oakland, regardless of their 1 and 2 starters. They needed to walk out of there with the series win and give the fans a nice start to the season.

With J. D. Drew starting last night, the team finally felt a little like normal, I suppose. Tomorrow night, Tim Wakefield gets the start in Toronto’s home opener and Kevin Cash will begin the campaign to prove he’s not Mirabelli.

First homers for Papi and ‘Tek felt good as well. Nice to see it starting to become a “regular” season.

We’ll start with Schill:

Schilling today agreed to an $8million contract and has incentives that could climb to a final $14 million contract. Not a horrible deal if he likes money, because that’s the motivation for him to drop 20 pounds of weight and gain 10 pounds of muscle in those shoulders.

Papi underwent arthroscopic surgery today to repair torn cartilage in  his knee. The release from Dr. Gill said it went fine, but I’m also worried about his shoulder. I’d be thinking rotator cuff surgery if rehab doesn’t work. If that’s the case, he’ll be out until May or June at the least.

YOUUUUUUUUUK!!! Congratulations to Mr. Defense. Youkilis is a gold-glove first baseman and he absolutely deserves it. This kid comes out of the minors with a lot of people talking about his walk to hit ratio and what does he do? Everything else. He didn’t have any errors in the regular season and can blame the only one he had in the post season on bad dirt. Nice, nice job man.

Sports Illustrated released this story yesterday regarding Papi’s season and the verdict is: he’s perfect.

Combined scores for 2006 and 2007 make David Ortiz only the seventh player since the statistical formulas and compilation rules were established in 1981. Not too shabby for a bad shoulder, a bad knee and a goofball hitting behind him.