The Sox got rained out yesterday giving us a day off to get it together. Granted Felix Hernandez threw a fantastic game against us in Wednesday, but our hitting leaves a lot to be desired. Of the nine starters J.D. Drew is the only one with an average over .300 (.393), Manny is hitting .214 one hundred points below his career average, has 3 RBI’s and has not hit a home run. Big Papi is hitting .207 and has only 4 RBI’s. Seven RBI’s between them is not going to get it done. The rest of the lineup is just as bad right now. Lowell is hitting .233, Varitek .217, Pedroia .227 and last but not least CoCo is at a measley .143.
Speaking of CoCo I have to say that the way it looks now this was a bad decision on Theos part. CoCo has not filled the void left by Johnny Damon in centerfield or at the plate. Now before you flame me for mentioning Damon here lets look at the numbers averaged for the last three years:
Coco: .287 avg, 144 hits, 13 hr’s, 58 RBI’s, .335 OBP, 218 TB, 72 k’s, 19 stolen bases and played in 130 games
Damon: .301 avg, 185 hits, 18 hr’s, 83 RBI’s, .368 OBP, 283 TB, 75 k’s, 20 stolen bases and played in 149 games
Four items really stick out here, the hits, RBI’s, OBP and total bases. Over the last three years Damon has been the better player. Theo may have conceded that fact when he decided to let Johnny go but CoCo has been abysmal since being here. Since being a full time player CoCo had career lows in games played, runs, hits, avg, RBI’s and total bases last year. Some of that can be attributed to lack of playing time due to lack of production. What we have seen so far this year we have no indication a turn around is immanent. Theo made a decision to replace an aging player with a younger player, I understand that but but the aging player has outperformed the younger player. Add to that the fact that we gave up a highly regarded prospect at third base in Andy Marte that could have replaced Lowell at third at the end of the season.
I hope that Theo is keeping a close eye on things in Minneapolis as Torii Hunter becomes a free agent after the year and I really hope he did some scouting on Ichiro while he was in town as he is a free agent at the end of the year as well.
