Boston Red Sox 2007: Rolling the Dice-K

Some thoughts going into the season:

- Dice-K. Could be great. Unfortunately it seems like anything short of 15 wins will be considered a disappointment. Hopefully that won't weigh on him. I still think he's got a good shot at a 16-8, sub-4.00 ERA type season.

- I started to feel a lot better about the upcoming season when Papelbon went back into the bullpen. It certainly ends the closer issue (the thought of platooning again made me very nervous). And it leaves the fifth starter position open if and when Jon Lester is able to go. Hopefully Tavarez will keep rolling on like he did at the end of last year.

- New faces. J.D. Drew could be a huge pick-up, if he stays healthy. Huge if. Wily Mo is a nice player but he's still growing into himself and it could get dicey if he has to pick up a lot of time in right if Drew gets hurt. I don't know what to think about Lugo yet. Gonzalez was a brilliant defensive shortstop. But Lugo seems like a true leadoff hitter, which we didn't have last year after Damon left. Don't know about Dustin Pedroia yet either. Loretta was solid last year. Hopefully Pedroia can keep his average above .250, but more importantly he needs to play solid defense.

- Although I hope it wouldn't be at the expense of injury, I'd really like to see Devern Hansack crack the big league team roster this season. The guy's electric.

It's certainly going to be tough keeping up with NY and Toronto this year. With Bedard the Orioles will be good to win a few, and the Rays always play hard. Maybe they'll come together with their youngsters this year.

Let's get it started.

They certainly came out flat today but I think that had as much to do with Meche than anything. Meche owned them today, and Peralta closed things down nicely on the back end.

But those 4 pm games are dicey because of the shadows. Tough to pick up the breaking pitches.

Possibly Ramirez or Damon.

With the other two, yeah, they had good days, but Trot just isn't a full-season player anymore (he might have been as a DH, but that wasn't happening), and Renteria just couldn't hack it in Boston. (Though when I saw that he'd hit two HRs I threw up in mouth a little.)

What I'm worried about is the possibility that it seems sympomatic of how the year might go, i.e., we win every game 10-1 and we lose every game 2-1. Despite the fourth inning last night, Dice has pitched well enough to be 3-0, but so far he's not getting the run support he needs.

Still, that home run Wily Mo hit was a shot. Upper deck in straight away center.

Absolutely. The knock on him is plate discipline, but that won't improve without substantial at-bats. If Coco continues to struggle, I don't see why Wily Mo couldn't play center. He's not as fast as Coco obviously, but center, despite the ground to cover, is less tricky than right, where Wily Mo has more experience. Playing right, nearly every ball his has spin and tails one way or the other (not to mention dealing with caroms off the side). After learning (to some degree) how to do that, he could play center.

But if Ortiz played in the field, where would Youkilis go? I suppose that would make Lowell expendable and Youkilis could take over at third. The issue then would be whether it was worth losing Lowell's bat to get Pena's. Between those two I'd say no.

Having said all that, Crisp certainly came up big tonight.

A bit (not helped by the fact that he misplayed a catchable ball anyway).

But I was being sincere, and I was referring to his going 2-4 with a game-tying triple. That triple was, you know, kind of a big deal in the win and stuff.

What, you wouldn't be intimidated if you saw Rick Schroeder giving you the evil eye from sixty feet away?

I can't remember which telecast it was for certain but I think it was Saturday's game on Fox, where Buck and McCarver brought that up, that mimicking Pap's look-in is the hot new thing among kids in Sox fandom. I thought, if I'd ever done that in wiffle ball as a kid I would've gotten my goofy ass kicked. And the whole time I would've thought, "Christ, I deserve this beat down. What was I thinking? I'm a pasty white kid."

What is it with the fucking Blue Jays?

Fuck.