This
happens almost every year. I may well be jinxing a season that could end up as
bad or even worse than the tragic 2006 campaign. This is a ball club that’s infamous
for starting strong, raising your hopes all summer long, then punching you in the
gut when it matters most. There are 151 games left to play. It could all go
south tomorrow.
But I’ll
say it anyway. I’m starting to really
like this team.
Let’s just go
down the lineup for yesterday’s
game, shall we? (Thankfully, Coco did not
play; I have not lost faith, but the less
said about him right now, the better.)
Julio Lugo. Um, like, wow. That lead-off double
to get things started yesterday was sweet enough. (He leads the team in hits, BTW.)
But those three Web
Gem-worthy plays? Wow. Just...wow.
Maybe he’ll stick
around for a while.
Kevin Youkilis. The beard has got to go. But he’s
shown nothing so far to suggest he won’t have a great season. OPB (.386) and
SLG (.421) are about where they should be. And at the bag, he’s a pickin’ machine.
David Ortiz. He hit his fourth home run
yesterday, his second of the weekend. He has more than the rest of the team
combined. And he’s hitting them to deeeeepest center. Could he crack 60?
Manny Ramirez. He’s only hitting .200, but he’s in
the team’s top five for RBIs, and he just got profiled in the New
Yorker — “reading material,” sez
Edes, “that is as likely to be seen inside a baseball clubhouse as Crochet!
Magazine.” Actually, I have it on good authority that Manny is a subscriber
dating back to Robert Gottlieb years, and that he regularly enters the cartoon caption contest
using a variety of pseudonyms. (Actually, that’s not true at all.)
J.D. Drew. He’s
hittin’ good. Real good. With a .342 batting average he’s ninth and the AL,
and he had what could’ve been a ten-game hitting streak ended on Saturday
thanks only to Terry
Francona’s heedlessness.
Mike Lowell. He seems to get the big hits at the
right times. He’ll seldom kill a rally. He loves that left field corner. Drove
in three runs the other night. Six doubles and counting.
Jason Varitek. He’s got to start hitting. Got to. (Hey,
he did, uh, draw a walk yesterday!) But — and I know you’ve heard this before —
he’s handles this pitching staff like a master. And that’s important. And
it’s a lot harder that you might think.
Wily Mo Pena. Can’t hit curves. Can’t hit
off-speed stuff. But, boy, can he mash those fastballs. At least he could last
year. He
needs more playing time. I wanna see that crabwalk ‘round the horn again. Soon.
Alex Cora. Smartest player in the majors? Future
manager? Perhaps. But that’s for another day. Yesterday, he had sweet
two-out RBI in that huge first, and a nice little heads up play in the sixth. Supersub!
Josh Beckett. 3-0 so far. 1.50 ERA. .83 WHIP.
He will win 22 games. He will win the Cy Young. He will hit 15
more batters. He will make this face 47 more times:
All that
and a slice of pie.