Boston Red Sox - 2006

[Thrasha]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

1. I like that Lowell has an OPS over .850 at the moment, however I expect him to decline very soon. My reasoning behind this is that I see him mainly hitting ground balls and liners and really not a lot of flyballs. Right now, these balls seem to be finding holes in the defense (har, har), but over the course of the season this will all even out, and many of these balls in play will be hit right at fielders.
His inability to drive the ball with authority will ultimately result in a reduction in his SLG. Still, what he has accomplished thus far is certainly encouraging in the fact that it is unlikely he will continue his pace from last year.

Completely agree. That's why I really don't believe he's as good as the numbers he's put up. His power seems to be non-existant at the moment.

[Misfit]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

Lowell isn't great, if he hits 20 homeruns this year I'll be impressed. However, he isn't as bad as the guy who was playing for Florida last year and at worst he's Kevin Millar with a better glove at third base. He'll equal Mueller's production at worst.

[Stu]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

1. I like that Lowell has an OPS over .850 at the moment, however I expect him to decline very soon. My reasoning behind this is that I see him mainly hitting ground balls and liners and really not a lot of flyballs. Right now, these balls seem to be finding holes in the defense (har, har), but over the course of the season this will all even out, and many of these balls in play will be hit right at fielders.
His inability to drive the ball with authority will ultimately result in a reduction in his SLG. Still, what he has accomplished thus far is certainly encouraging in the fact that it is unlikely he will continue his pace from last year.
So, the good news is that Lowell appears to be useful for this team.

2. Dustan Mohr - Man, get this bum off the team. He is absolutely terrible at the plate. I could understand his strikeouts if he walked AT ALL, but my god, he has 2 walks on the season. He must have struck out at least 10 times this year just looking at a strike right down the middle of the plate pass him by. This guy just flat out sucks. I can't wait for Kapler to get back and get this guy off the team.

3. Loretta - There's no way that he's a .218/.267/.279 hitter. Just can't be. He'll snap out of it soon I imagine. In fact, I even picked him up for my fantasy team after an impatient GM dropped him.

1. I agree that his slugging will drop. He isn't going to hit enough HR's for a high slugging and the doubles have been a little bit of a fluke. I think he probably slugs in the .500 range at Fenway, but not on the road. However, it seems like he's adjusting to the fact that he can't drive the ball. He's had some very good at bats the last couple days where he's shown a willingness to go the opposite way and fight off pitches. I thought he would strike out a lot more than he has, but he's shown excellent discipline. (9 walks, 10 K's) My only knock on him right now is he sometimes bails out pitchers by hitting ground balls when he has 2 strikes on him and runners on base. As a whole though, I'm very happy. The upgrade of Youkilis/Lowell over Millar/Mueller has been pretty big so far. I expect Lowell to drop down towards Mueller's numbers a little bit, but I still think he outproduces what Mueller gave us last year.

2. He's a hacker, and not even a good one. No reason for him to still be on the team when Crisp comes back. Wily Mo has shown that he can provide some offense and Willie Harris can act as the defensive OF and provide a lot more versatility than Mohr. We should've traded him in spring training when we had the chance.

3. I agree and I think Loretta will pick it up. Even with his struggles, he's had a couple clutch hits, the walkoff HR and the single that put us ahead against the Yankees. He swung the bat pretty well last night and as Jerry said, it seems like he's hit a lot of balls hard right at people.

[Thrasha]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

WTF is Lowell on? 5 doubles in two games. Jeez.

[Thrasha]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

David Ortiz had a tiebreaking, three-run double to snap an 0-for-11 stretch and lead the Red Sox to a 6-3 win over the Orioles.
With the double, Ortiz accomplished the toughest feat in baseball; he drove in Alex Gonzalez for the shortstop's second run scored of the year. May. 5 - 10:30 pm et

Gotta love Rotoworld.

[Beantown]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

That's classic.

And Big and Lil Paps are getting it done.

[Stu]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

WTF is Lowell on? 5 doubles in two games. Jeez.

3 doubles in the game right after I called his doubles a fluke. What is with this guy... I thought we were getting a dead pull hitter who would strike out a lot? He's using the whole field and making contact on everything. He was 318/371/511 in April this year compared to 198/233/346 last year.

[Misfit]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

The man loves Fenway. I anticipate significant home/road splits for him all year.

That was a solid win last night. I know Lopez came into the game with an ERA near 7, but I always expect him to shut the Sox down and it was good seeing them get to him. Bedard goes tonight and he's been pretty good so far this year, we'll see if Wake is up to the challenge.

[Thrasha]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

Anyone keeing up with how Hanley is doing down in Florida? Looking at his stats thus far he's surprised me alot, didn't think he was this ready.

Avg .307 Obp .379 a couple HRs and 31 RBI all on a pretty weak team. He needs to work on cutting down on the K's though, 28 of them compared to 14 BB. Still a very good start.

[Misfit]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

He's still raw, but he definitly has some upside. I'm not too surprised with his start, at all, to be honest.


Good win for the ballclub tonight. Nice to see Wake get some run support and Tavarez and Seanez looked good in garbage-time.

[TheGenius]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

Anyone check out bostondirtdogs.com on a regular basis?

He was so vehemently towards giving Johnny Damon a standing o and put up all kind of negative press about the reaction to Damon, but has a countdown to when everyone boo's Pedro? Am I wrong here or did they both leave under pretty much the same circumstances? They both bolted for more money, so why should one get a standing O and the other booed out of the building? I don't get it.

[Thrasha]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

Anyone check out bostondirtdogs.com on a regular basis?

He was so vehemently towards giving Johnny Damon a standing o and put up all kind of negative press about the reaction to Damon, but has a countdown to when everyone boo's Pedro? Am I wrong here or did they both leave under pretty much the same circumstances? They both bolted for more money, so why should one get a standing O and the other booed out of the building? I don't get it.

I think whoever wrote that headline/countdown was being facetious.

[TheGenius]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

I think whoever wrote that headline/countdown was being
facetious.

You think so? Even with 7 negative stories linked in the headline?

[Thrasha]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

You think so? Even with 7 negative stories linked in the headline?

Didn't know they were all different stories. I only clicked on one of them. If he is serious than that's pretty hypocritical. If I remember correctly Pedro and Johnny's situations were borderline identical like you said.

If he's boo'd in Fenway I'll throw up. It'd really be disgusting if that's what happened.

In other news:

Matt Clement will have his next start pushed back to Friday, allowing the Red Sox to throw Josh Beckett, Curt Schilling and Tim Wakefield against the Yankees.
Clement will be facing the Rangers in Fenway, so it won't be much easier of an assigment. The Red Sox were able to rearrange their rotation because they have Monday off. May. 6 - 11:39 pm et

Kind of cool to be throwing our three best pitchers in that series.

[deeman11747]

Re: Boston Red Sox - 2006

Didn't know they were all different stories. I only clicked on one of them. If he is serious than that's pretty hypocritical. If I remember correctly Pedro and Johnny's situations were borderline identical like you said.

If he's boo'd in Fenway I'll throw up. It'd really be disgusting if that's what happened.

In other news:




Kind of cool to be throwing our three best pitchers in that series.

I'm really excited to see the Yanks challenged against Schilling with him being so good thus far.

And I am not at all excited for Wakefield. He seems to begin a lot of slumps for our guys over the years.