Sox vs. Yankees

What else can you say, this is the BEST rivalry in sports today no questions asked. And here we are late April and the first series of this rivalry for 2007 is upon us . The Red Sox and Yankees. The SOX, the Bronx Bombers. This is what baseball is all about. This is what Red Sox and Yankee fans live for. Fenway will be alive this weekend, filled to the brim no doubt.

Lets break the match up down and see what we can expect this weekend.

Pitching:
The edge has to go to the Sox here. Schilling, Beckett, Dice – K (taking away his two tough loses) and Wakefield have been lights out this year. Papelbon and Hideki Okajima have been dominate out of the bullpen this year. The Red Sox are second on the majors with a team ERA of 2.58. The Yankees pitching has been marginal at best. Both Carl Pavano and Mike Mussina are on the DL. Andy Pettitte and Kei Igawa have been shaky in two starts and they are throwing two rookies during the series this weekend. The Yankees are tenth in the league with a 3.67 ERA.

These are the matchup for the series:

Curt Schilling (2-1 2.84 ERA) vs. Andy Pettitte (1-0 1.50 ERA)
Josh Beckett (3-0 1.50 ERA) vs. Jeff Karstens (0-0 0.00 ERA)
Dice – K (1-2 2.70 ERA) Chase Wright (1-0 5.40 ERA)

Offense:
The edge has to go to the Yankees here. The Sox have struggled at times to hit and score runs. We have three starters, Varitek, Coco, and Pedroia all hitting under .200 and one, Manny of all people, is hitting .200 and has one – one – home run. The rest of our lineup is looking good, just not great. Papi has come around of late and, J.D. Drew is hitting very well and is well rested after the weather time off and sitting a game in Toronto. Lugo has done well in the lead off spot and Youk is coming around in the two hole. The Yankees line up is stacked, I have to admit. Up and down that lineup everyone can hit. The heart of the order is scary with Damon, Jeter, Abreu, A-hole, and Giambi are all capable of big things on any given day. I do have to concede that A-hole is having a fantastic April and I am interested to see if that continues in this series.

Pitching wins games and the Sox pitching is just better than the Yankees right now. We are coming off of a strong series against Toronto where we hit pretty well and hopefully Manny will build on the day he had yesterday and start hitting more. Papi, Manny and Drew will have to carry us offensively with spot help from Lugo, Youk and Lowell. I say we take two out of three in this series.

This not just about baseball, this is about two teams whose fans generally do not like each other and whose players don’t like each other as well. The Damon defection to NY, A-Rod pulling out of coming to Boston, the biggest collapse in sports history and yes Sox vs. Yankees are all subplots that will continue to play out over this series. This is what baseball is all about folks. Enjoy it.

Sox are rained out

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.