does trot nixon suck? sheffield sure does

i was making my daily rounds on some of the sox blogs when i came across comments by a couple of people who are not very happy with trot nixon's performance. amy of red sox bat girl blog said "...I would sell him so fast his head would spin" and "...he sucks donkey balls." as i wrote in my reply, i only watch 1-2 games a week but hadn't noticed any serious flaw in his game, either offensively or defensively. i decided to find some evidence of his poor playing by checking out his stats a few places (mostly on cnnsi's stat page) and found the following:
his offensive numbers look good .298 BA is 18th in the AL and 3rd among RF,
he ranks 12th in the AL for OBP and 14th for OPS.
as far as defense goes, it looks like he's ranked 3rd behind vlad guerrero and ichiro.

it wasn't until i went to his month by month totals that i noticed any significant decline. some of his april/may/june numbers are as follows:
BA : .281/.329/.276 (not terrible)
OBP: .429/.402/.304
BB : 17/9/3 (in part explains the drop in OBP)

so it appears that may was a very good month for trot and june some drop off.

to me, on paper anyway, things seem to be pretty well in order. especially if he increases his BA slightly and definitely walks more.

what i am curious about are the opinions of others out there that think trot sucks. those comments were the first i had read maligning nixon and i read sox blogs all day long. he has had injuries and doesn't start against lefties but i don't think that's the reason amy (and others) think he sucks.

my opinion is that he is a solid (at very least, plenty adequate right fielder) with a clubhouse presence that it every bit as important as guys like damon and captain tek. those of you that watch more consistently should be able to tell me what the stats do not.

on the topic of right fielders, i am sure happy we don't have a guy like gary sheffield. i detest the yankees as a team as much as the next sox fan but really don't have much animosity against any individual player with two exceptions. 1. i think tanyon sturtze is a little punk, local boy or not, he should have had his ass kicked by gabe kapler last year. and 2. i can't stand sheffield. he's a little bitch. from crying when pedro hit him with a pitch, to that lame incident near pesky pole, to whining about his contract negotiations and now his bitching about being the subject of trade rumors involving the mets. he's such a loser, a miserable loser.
joyofsox has tons more on his selfish behavior over the years.

wakefield gettin' it done

daytime tv shows are absolutely terrible, considering the typical audience, i am sure this is on purpose...but i think these clowns announcing the sox game for espn today actually managed to dumb it down even more. this is probably the worst broadcasting team i've ever heard. does anyone know what a trademark deal is? because that's term one guy used to describe the rumored sheffield-for-cameron deal

wakefield pitched a nice game and the sox bats had some life too. back-to-back home runs by mirabelli and k-rocka's bf bellhorn put the sox at a 3 run advantage in the 6th. turns out that would be all and also enough to avoid the sweep.

starting the 8th inning, to my surprise, was mantei and not wakefield who was still doing just fine. mantei started out by throwing 6 balls nowhere near the plate. he recovered to get through the inning with no damage. still seems a curious move to me.

timlin closed the game but nearly pulled a foulke when, with two outs, cleveland got a couple hits and runners on the corners before the final out. this style of "closing" a game is not much fun and definitely getting old.

next up is toronto who is playing .500 ball and must be swept. no excuses. halladay or not.

foulke that!

"No excuses. Just a bad day at work"- Keith Foulke.
bad day indeed. he's been pitching pretty well recently so it wouldn't have been impossible to forgive him not coming away with the save. you know, maybe had he allowed just a tie game setting up an opportunity for another walk-off hero...but, no. a triple shy of having cleveland hit for the cycle (not to mention two walks) and that demoralizing grand slam... the sox batters in the bottom of the 9th looked like they just wanted to get the hell out of there and fast.

tonight's loss makes game 3 a must win, preferably by an embarassing margin. i'd like to see the sox take out the frustration of losing a game that should have been in the bag by hitting the bejesus out of indian's starter elarton (TR 0-4 in his day games). seriously, someone's gotta pay.

sox rule, yanks drool (whilst playing crummy baseball)

los angeles isn't the best place to watch the sox consistently (obvious) so i haven't been able to catch a single game against the phillies and watch the sox charge into first. i've had to settle for box scores and a few blogs out there that are updated daily. from everything i'm reading, it seems the sox are really rolling right now with both the offense 'whooping ass' (big papi) and the pitching staff doing a phenomenal job at the same time. this momentum is nice as we square up against teams who play well against us in the coming weeks (toronto, texas, the o's...).
i'd still like to know what the plans are for extra bullpen arms. it just occured to me though that with schilling returning one of our starters will be heading to the bullpen so that in itself should help, right?


i saw a clip of manny's 19th career grand slam and it reminded me of a conversation i had with k-rocka the other day. we were guessing at what a dugout chat with manny might be like...

'how's everything going manny, feelin' good?'
'jeah, i'n feel pretty goo these days, everything es alrigh, jou know?'
'that's good, you still creating your own destination?'
'oh jeah, everything will yus happen the way es suppose to, no problem'
'yeah, i hear ya', so that early season slump behind you?'
'well, for me, i don't belief en slump, i yus play how i play, feels good'
'right, right...say, listen, we're gonna need you to hit a homerun in your next at bat, ok tiger?'
'oh...alright (with accompanying slightly indifferent shoulder shrug)'


i have been able to catch games 1 and 3 of the subway series and can report that the yankees just look pathetic. their defense is absolutely terrible. i almost feel bad for them. womack as a cf looks absolutely lost, giambi has no business on the field at all and even the talented cano at 2nd looks a little uncomfortable as he misplayed what seemed to be a routine play. they were able to avoid the sweep by the mets but it wasn't pretty i can tell you that much. mets pretty much gave the game away in the 9th with terrible pitching by r. hernandez and looper. next up for the yanks are the o's and i'm hoping they just trade games while the sox continue to roll. i'd like to see a whole lot more games between us and any 2nd place team. there is no mercy in this dojo!

wanted: quality bullpen arms

can someone please tell me, in detail, what we're going to do about our bullpen woes? i mean, we shouldn't have to score 10 runs just to win a game. i don't mind scoring 10 runs to demoralize a team now and then or to remind those who may have forgotten just what kind of offensive juggernaut this sox team is, or even to pad some stats, but not to eke out a win.

now when i see halama, mantei, embree, and foulke i get that same funny feeling in my belly that i used to get when bellhorn would come up to bat with men on (btw, i've come to a certain peace with bellhorn's ks). that kinda sick feeling that something bad is more than likely going to happen, you all know what i'm talking about, you feel it too.

there are more teams in contention at the moment than usual, right? so what does that mean for our chances of getting quality help? and how steep will the price be with regards to our top prospects? or do we just wait it out with the guys we have? embree has proven himself to be a very effective setup man especially when working back to back with timlin. right now, i'm not finding a lot about trade buzz (maybe i'm looking in the wrong places) so please feel free to let me know how this is going to be solved.

also...everyone in the entire universe knows that 98.65% of all media reps are pro-yankee but things are really getting out of hand lately. last week, for example, mlb.com had the nerve to headline "don't look now but here come the yankees". yahoo sports had a similar heading. this despite the fact that they had gained one game in the standings. i know i should consider the source but there are plenty more media outlets that are trying so hard to pretend the yankees are something to be feared this year. i guess on paper they are but on the field it's another matter entirely. now the devil rays are continuing to have their way with the yanks. i am aware of the final score of yesterday's game but they did manage to chase randy johnson out after 3 innings with 7 earned runs before allowing 112 runs in the 8th. the point being this, no one seems to be afraid of the pinstripes anymore and no one should be. it's strange that a group of all-stars are having they're asses handed to them by pretty much everyone.

let's go pirates!!!

here's hoping the pirates take it to the yankees.

not so friendly confines... sox lose again

this is really starting to get pathetic. there's all this news about just how much the yankees have sucked this year and yet they are currently only two games behind us!

the last time we strung anything together was early may when we swept detroit and oakland while taking 2 out of 3 from seattle in between. since then we've gone 11-16 and are 2-10 in game ones away from fenway.
the good news is that our schedule seems to soften up a bit with series against the following teams:

cincinnati (.400)
pittsburgh (.492)
cleveland (.492)
philly (.548 but 20-11 at home)

the time to get on a winning streak is now. my prediction for the orioles fading away was based on their pitching not holding up down the stretch and the ownership's history of not making any moves to better the team. now i am starting to hear news on some of the sports shows about how baltimore may me forced to make trades in order to maintain/increase market share with new competition from the (nl east leading) nationals. if they end up getting lucky with the current pitching staff and trade for reinforcements, we are in a world of hurt.

the yankees seem to have all but lost their intimidation factor but are still built to go on a winning streak again at any time. meanwhile toronto hasn't gone away yet either and halladay is back to pitching his ass off.

while theo works on masterminding key trades, tito and papa jack need to do some serious work with manny. i don't know if it's mechanics related (i'm hearing something about his leading leg) or just a good pep talk but for now he is not earning the 20 something million bucks he's making. he was 0-4 heading into the 9th today. he also has only one multi-hit game in the past 11 and 5 rbi in the same period. our league leading team obp means a manny hot streak could inflict some major damage to the oppostion and put the division standings where they should have been all along.

time for the orioles to return home (and the sox to find a winning streak)

IMO the birds have until somewhere around the all-star break to enjoy being in 1st place. after that they'll be headed to the middle of the pack where they belong. this is essentially the same team as last year that finished 23 games back! they aren't fooling me one bit.
2005 team offensive numbers - .288/.344/.485
2004 team offensive numbers - .281/.345/.432
they trail only texas in total runs scored this year with 313 (sox have 309) but unless they get more pitching they're not going to be in it for the long run. the owner just doesn't make moves and i don't see him changing that any time soon.

the second place sox refuse to put together a string of wins this season. with the yankees floundering, we really should be holding a commanding lead in the division instead of looking up at the orioles.
- wakefield has not been effective in 5 starts and the bats aren't helping him out any by scoring an average of 3.2 runs in those 5 games.
- miller has had good outings (except that one against toronto) and has been pitching through about the 6th inning. i don't know much about his injury/surgery but he seems to be doing just fine averaging over 95 pitches. this was a great pickup by theo and i think he will end up winning a lot more games in the second half.
- wells has pitched a couple good games back to back and should be headed in the right direction as long as the team keeps hitting for him the way they have in his wins (and even in the two NDs). his early meltdowns in games make it difficult for me to be overly optimistic but i'll just keep my fingers crossed that his veteran experience will help him continue to turn around his w-l record.
- clement's pitching is not dominant but has been very effective. his only loss this year comes by a team who has seen his plenty of times from his days with the cubs. he's currently our ace and when schilling returns we will have a nice 1-2.
- arroyo's last game would have been a win were it not for the efforts of the sabotaging bullpen. he's a solid middle of the rotation pitcher and surprised many last year. this year the expectations are higher and i see arroyo meeting, if not exceeding those expectations.
- schilling will be returning to the mound relatively soon from what i read. i know we need his arm in the rotation, i only hope that when he returns he is back to 100%. this guy has a lot of heart and i could see him returning to help out his team possibly before he is really ready to do so which is probably what happened to start the season.
- the bullpen, i hope to be doing some research into situational stats for foulke and company. until then i will withhold comment.


the bats must come alive soon and consistently, preferably throughout the lineup.
- damon and varitek are both in the zone this year. damon is doing an excellent job leading off while varitek is doing a phenomonal job all around.
- youkilis and ortiz are also doing well. i don't think youk should be sent back down since he can play more than just 3rd base if necessary. ortiz has seen a couple of bad streaks but still has a tendency to hit at key moments (something i like to see manny do a bit more too)
- mueller can and will improve his numbers through the end of the season too. he always seems to fly under the radar - even the year he was batting champ. one hot streak and he will be back at his career averages.
- jay paytons numbers are down from his career probably due to not playing everyday. i like his replacement defense in the outfield though and if he can bring his offense up even just a little bit i'll be satisfied with his performance. vazquez, however, looks awful. i thought we would be getting a whole lot more.
- bellhorn still does nothing for me. i don't like him on the field at all. he does see a lot of pitches and draws a good amount of walks but i also see him ending a lot of innings. maybe i am just hypersensitive when it comes to his at bats. i wouldn't be crushed if the sox picked up another guy at 2nd either now or in the winter.
- millar has been hitting in the very recent past and if he can keep this up i won't start in on him either. for now i will just say that i am happy olerud is available as an alternate.
- manny's numbers seem fine except for his batting average. k-rocka told me that historically there's about a month in the season where manny seems to own every pitcher, i hope we see that soon. i haven't seen as many games as i would like to but still i haven't seen the happy-go-lucky manny from years past. c'mon manny, get loose, be happy and start hitting the bejesus out of the ball like we know you can!

lastly, the coaching staff has a few bonehead moves including premature substitutions and sending runners to home when they should have stayed put on 3rd. these missteps have probably cost us a few games already. hey, tito and co., stop making these silly mistakes, especially since the division will likely come down the last few games. maybe this year we can try winning the season deciding games now instead of waiting for the backs-to-the-wall-do-or-die-emotional-rollercoaster-blood-pressure-through-the-roof situations. don't get me wrong, i enjoy those exciting games as much as anyone and the years off my life from the stress are probably worth it but it might also be nice to have the division clinched with two weeks to spare. just something to think about.

all in all things aren't terrible, they're just so-so, definitely not at all where we should be if we're doing everything right. borrowing a few lines from moms and dads everywhere i'll say that i am not mad, just a little disappointed. this team has tons of potential and would like to see them really apply themselves starting now.