Yesterday I said it was a good thing they got approval for hard liquor sales at Fenway. Well, after yesterday it’s going to take a six pack just to tune in. I’ve heard things got so bad they had a meeting after the game and it went something like this:
Sports radio has been all over this and I’ve gotten to the point I almost called in. But instead, I expound my theories on these pages.
I don’t think Francona is the issue. He’s even keeled. He doesn’t get too excited one way or the other. Players slump, he sticks with them (sometime to a fault). He doesn’t flip out and it’s worked for the team through the years. 2004 it was Francona’s calmness that let the team motivate itself to come back from down 3-0.
Do you think that Carl Crawford is a good fit? I’m thinking not this year. With JD Drew, the team has too many left handers. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see him not go to the Yankees. So next year when Drew is gone (I hope) I think Crawford will fill that void as a gap hitter with better speed who (we hope) isn’t as injury prone. I still think that Jayson Werth made better sense to the line up for this year as they were set up after getting Adrian Gonzalez.
I still don’t think that John Lackey was a great pickup. I think that last year the team panicked after not getting the right handed bat that they needed and just signed a high profile free agent. It’s a Yankee move. Maybe Buck Showalter was right. Maybe Theo isn’t such a good GM, more so that he’s benefited from having John Henry’s checkbook.
The bottom line on the whole thing is that I’m still not worried. Like I said yesterday, I don’t think that an 0-6 start (their first since 1945) is something to get really flipped out about. At the same time, I would be so happy if an Orioles team with a team salary about half of Boston’s and a third of New York’s would take down the whole AL East. We’ll have to wait and see.
