Power Outage

Kurt Cobain once said, "its better to burn out than fade away." It seems as if the prolific slugger that was David Ortiz's power is disappearing faster than a beer in front of David Wells.

Twenty games into the season, and the man they call Papí has not visited the monster seats, perused the bullpen or soared over Pesky's Pole once with a ball yet. Not sure about you but I'm alarmed. He is mired in the second longest power outage in his career. Longest with the Red Sox, despite an 8 game hitting streak that has him batting .344 over that span and has raised his batting average more than 50 percentage points.

Now here comes the alpha question. How long does Tito stick with a number 3 hitter that doesn't remember how to hit home runs? My answer: Mid may. Mark my words if he doesn't have a round-tripper by the Ides of May he will be moved to the 5-6 hole probably flip flopping with a often injured Nancy Drew.

There are many factors that I can see leading to the demise of our heroic DH:

1. Mental- He has still not gotten over the fact that the freak show that was Manny Ramirez has moved to Mannywood.
   
2. Age- After hearing that Vlad "The Impaler" Guerrero is a year older is it wrong to think that Ortiz may be approaching Julio Franco's age? If I were to use a term from the links I'd say that he's on the back nine in terms of his career which means he won't be turning on an AJ Burnett fastball anytime soon. But, that does beg the question, why can't you hit Anthony Reyes' 89 mph blazer? But, I digress.
   
3. Hurt/Stubborn-He claims he's healthy but a healthy Ortiz should have at least as many HR's as Nick Green and Jonathan Van Every, right? His stance has changed ever so slightly since yesteryear when he hit 35+ long balls. Maybe he should re tool his swing or get a lighter bat…your hands and swing aren't what they used to be.
   

The optimist and Sox fan in me says he will be fine, everyone goes through droughts. But the cynic and baseball realist says Big Papí is Papíto or little Papí now and 20 HR's out of him would be a god send. Oh how I miss you David Ortiz, you were a hero among mere mortals.

Stay Tuned

Ryan

Roll the Dice

With all the hype and pressure that comes with signing a $102 million contract for the Boston Red Sox, I guess Dice-K has done a serviceable job. But for that kind of dough we should be able to expect more than 167.2 innings per season.

Fact: Daisuke won 18 games last year

Fact: A sub 3 (2.90) ERA is excellent

Fact: He finished 4^th in Cy Young voting (no first place votes)

But on the contrary

Fact: he threw the least amount of innings for anyone with 18 wins in a season in baseball history

Fact: His K/BB ratio is 1.63 to put that in perspective that's not as high as Nick Swisher's for the Yankees right now.

Fact: He was the beneficiary of some stellar bullpen work and a lot of luck last year.

Throughout history Japanese pitchers in the Majors have been nothing short of mediocre. Because of their fan base and how highly they are regarded in the land of the rising sun they have come here and essentially flopped.

The Two/Three Year Wall Theory~
Looking back at the stats EVERY Japanese born pitcher fits this bill to some degree. Examples:

Hideo Nomo~ Bursts onto the scene in '95 and dazzles.

	Wins	Losses	ERA
1995	13	6	2.54
1996	16	11	3.19
1997	14	12	4.25

As you can see the stats are getting progressively worse…but unlike the following people on this list he actually has had a few other double digit win seasons but hit a Wall for about 3 seasons in between. In 2002 he regained some form when he went 16-6 for LA.

Hideki "The Big Toad" Irabu~ He also hit this proverbial wall with the Pinstripes.

	Wins	Losses
1997	5	4
1998	13	9
1999	11	7

After these three seasons he has never had a season with more than 3 wins.

Takashi Saito~ Yes Sox fans our newly acquired Saito-Samurai makes the list as well

	Saves
2006	24
2007	39
2008	18

Now one month into the season has a 5.14 ERA and has been anything but consistent or dominant coming out of a deep Boston 'pen.

What does this all mean you ask? That Dice-BB's early numbers this season could be from overuse in the WBC or could be a pre-cursor to a "clunker" of a season in the near future for the gyro-balling righty. I say maybe you strike while there is still value there and trade for our "catcher of the future" or a middle of the order bat. Theo has been known to make bold moves and with the dirth of pitching they have in the farm system don't be surprised to see a blockbuster. But what kind of PR repercussions does that have between us and Japanese baseball? Time will tell.

Stay Tuned

Ryan

Defense-less?

Don't look now, but the Red Sox winning streak is over. And surprise, surprise, Julio Lugo can get some of the blame for the loss. Maybe this is a small sample size, maybe I'm reading too much into this but Nick Green (becoming a favorite of mine) has hit almost .300, played OK(better than Lugo) defense and had come up with the timely hit when needed. Not to mention the Red Sox had the best record in the "Bigs" entering last night's game, and an 11 game winning streak with Green manning down shortstop.

Yes we all know that Lugo signed one of the most lucrative contracts that Theo has dished out, but the Boston Red Sox are a juggernaut that can afford to eat a few bad acquisitions. I was outraged when I heard that they signed Lugo. 4-years 36 million, for someone that has never hit more than 15 HRs. Yes I know that SS isn't normally a power position but C'MON! I actually asked Jim Rowe (former Red Sox trainer) "What is Theo thinking?" He then proceeded to take out his Blackberry and search for Theo's number for me to call him and tell him what I think but as I reached for the phone he laughed at me and put it back in his holster. That was my closest moment at being a GM in baseball thus far.

Let's flash back to last year, shall we? In 2008 Lugo played 81 games at SS. He made 16 errors. 16! That planted us almost in the basement through the first half of the season for team defense. Then Lugo goes down with a quad injury (there is a god). We call up Jed Lowrie to take over the helm and does not make one error in the rest of the regular season. He started out like a house on fire with the bat but a wrist injury hampers his stick for the rest of the season.

In the midst in our best winning streak in 3+ years Lugo has "fully recovered" from his knee injury and is ready for active duty. The first night he's active he doesn't get into the game and they win after a Jason Bay heroic home run. Then because the "9-million Dollar man" thinks the position is his to lose, gets into the game and muffs and EASY 3-6-3 DP. Yes he had 2 hits but the error lead to 3 Cleveland runs…By my count that's Opposition 3 Julio Lugo 1 (RBI)…We lose.

How about this? Instead of bulking up to hit for more power the year after you're the statistical worst SS in baseball you work on your footwork around the bag, and your hands at second base. If you watch the replay from last night's game his throwing hand is nowhere near his glove. Any self respecting middle infielder knows that your hand has to be at least close to the glove to get the ball out as quick as possible to spin the twin.

This offseason we tried to unload his contract on the Tigers, and smart on their part Dombrowski (Tigers GM) didn't want any part of it. I have no faith in this man manning down one of the most difficult positions in baseball night after night and if "Defense Wins Championships" then we could be in for a long summer Sox fans.

Stay Tuned

Ryan