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| Bat Flips and Hand Gestures to God, That's What Cody Ross Does |
Honestly, I've been hesitant to write this in the past week. It seems like every time I strike and opinion one way or the other and hit publish the team decides to swing wildly back the other way. I write they suck, they start winning, I write they're cruising right along, they start going down in flames, I write how their pitching staff sucks, their starting pitchers rip off 5 straight wins and 6 of their last 7. It's like I'm the key to this whole crazy thing (don't believe me? click the tag below for Red Sox Fans Pulse check and check the published date against the sox schedule and results on espn, its been uncanny).
And part of me just wanted to keep my mouth shut this time, but I couldn't. I'm your leader. You guys depend on me. It's not like there's an over abundance of Red Sox related analysis and opinions out there on the internet, its basically me and a bunch of other hacks, so here we go...
The pitching is back, baby! Over a 5 game span Buch (a minor miracle), Doubront, Bard, Lester, and Beckett all picked up W's. And none of them have been cheap either, Lester and Beckett combining for 16 innings of one run ball at one point. All the while the bullpen has been its usual dependable self (honestly, two weeks into the season, who would have imagined that sentence making any sense at all?)
It's squelched the ridiculous Aaron Freaking Cook talks, and it's kept the Daisuke buzz at a manageable level (for the few out there asking about him...you remember how much he sucked, right? the 120 pitch 5 inning starts? The silly 6 walks, 3 hits lines he threw out there? Lets not let revisionist history prevail here).
Things are kind of rolling right along right now, its pretty nice actually. I'm just deathly afraid of rocking the boat and causing yet another turn around with one of my blogs, so a few things I'm concerned about:
The pitching staff, still. Yes they've been great as of late, but it's going to take a few more turns through the rotation before I buy into it. Seeing Lester step up like an Ace was fantastic. Watching Beckett bounce back and throw the defiant game that I was looking for (albeit a start to late to salvage his reputation) was excellent...but it's got to continue. It starts with those two guys, if you're getting consistent efforts from them, everyone else falls into line. You can eat a bad start here or there from the young guys at the back of the rotation, and if Buch continues to falter, you can take him out back and shoot him. It'll be ok.
The lineup worries me long term. Yes they're second or third in the league in runs...they've been fantastic so far. No knocks there. My only concern is how long the smoke and mirrors show can go on. Look at that lineup...Outside the catcher, which was going to be a platoon anyway, out of the remaining 8, there are three guys that you would have penciled in as starters at the end of last year. Pedroia, Gonzalez, and Papi. That's it. Yes, Aviles is a regular, but he won his job in the middle of spring training, if you want to count him, go ahead, but its on a technicality.
That means you have 4-5 guys playing significant time due to injuries, who otherwise wouldn't have seen much time, or in some cases, wouldn't have even been in the majors. That's concerning long term. How long can these guys keep producing above expectations? How long can they do a reasonable job replacing Youk, Crawford, and Ellsbury? Right now, things look great...but I'm still knocking on wood and crossing my fingers and toes that they can keep this up.
