Yankees on Deck, Big Papi is Back
The Yankees come to Boston for a 3 game series starting tonight. The Red Sox are tied for first with the Rays with the Yankees a few games back. Despite the hype, the series won’t make or break either club’s season, but it certainly makes for good drama.
We’re a little over half way done with the season and the Red Sox, despite a woeful road record, have played pretty well. Why isn’t their record even better? Two obvious reasons:
- The middle of the lineup is solid. The 7, 8, and 9 spots, usually including some order of Varitek, Crisp, and Lugo, has been a black hole, and Ellsbury has been anemic in the lead-off spot. When 4 of your 9 hitters aren’t contributing your offense is going to be inconsistent. Ortiz coming back healthy will be a huge lift. If Lowrie improves on Lugo’s numbers and Varitek returns to being even an average Major League hitter the offense could go from good to great.
- Starting pitching has been solid, Papelbon, despite unreasonable expectations by fans, has been solid. The middle relief, not so much. I’m still a fan of Okajima. He’s not the shutdown guy people saw last year, and in truth, he wasn’t shutdown at the end of last season either, but he can still be effective when used properly. But he can’t do it alone. Hansen nor Delcarmen have been reliable. Hopefully Masterson, impressive in his first relief appearance, can give the pen a boost.
Neither the offense nor the pitching has been good enough to cover for the shortcomings of the other. And that’s the difference between the Red Sox being a good team and a great one. Despite their winning streak, I still don’t believe this is a very good Yankee team. Hopefully the Red Sox can use this weekend to get on a role.
