Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

If you had told me that the Red Sox would score 15 runs yesterday - I would have bet they won at least one game of the doubleheader with the Yankees... I'm not worried yet though. Its not that I'm an optimist - its just that after years and years of the Red Sox being in the race till Labor Day and then dashing our hopes its time for the opposite to happen. This year I expect the Red Sox to lower our expectations only to come from nowhere to exceed expectations and make the playoffs.... The Red Sox really need another starting pitcher and I just don't mean for the remainder of this season. Looking at the potential free agent pitchers the best choices seem to be - Mike Mussina (yeah I can see George S letting that happen), Barry Zito (he does not seem to do well at Fenway and I'd be worried about overpaying him), John Smoltz (I'd love to see this happen), Tom Glavine (be really nice to have him finish up in Boston), Tony Armas Jr. (the youngest of the bunch but the least proven) and Jason Schmidt (along with Smoltz - my top choice when spending other people's money)... The easiest way to explain why the Red Sox are 3.5 games behind the Yankees is to point out that the Yankees team ERA is 4.36 (11th in MLB - 4th in AL) while the Red Sox have a 4.77 team ERA mark (24th in MLB - no team with a worse team ERA is close to having a record near to .500)... Two years ago the phrase on people's lips was "In Theo We Trust". You don't hear that much anymore. Red Sox fans are a fickle bunch...