Red Sox Milestones

Miscellaneous Red Sox milestone thoughts and observations.

Manny Ramirez is in the last year of his contract but the Red Sox also hold the rights to two option years. It is amazing that as good as Manny has been for the Red Sox that even if he played 3 more years with the Red Sox averaging 35 HR and 125 RBI per year - Manny still would not be able to crack either the top 4 in HR or the top 5 in RBI in Red Sox history. Manny currently has 254 HR and an even 800 RBI in a Red Sox uniform. The top spots go to Ted Williams (521 HR and 1839 RBI), Carl Yastrzemski (452 and 1844), Jim Rice (382 and 1451), Dwight Evans (379 and 1346) and Bobby Doerr also has Manny beat in RBI with 1247... Jason Varitek has already passed Carlton Fisk for most RBI by a Red Sox catcher (611 to 568) but with 148 HR - Varitek still needs 14 more HR to catch Pudge on the Red Sox all-time list... If David Ortiz has just 100 RBI this season - that will put him in the top 10 all-time. Currently Ortiz has 642 RBI in Boston and Joe Cronin is in 10th on the list with 737. I can easily see Ortiz also passing Mo Vaughn who is in 9th place with just 10 more RBI than Cronin... Of course overall - Manny Ramirez has 490 HR which means he needs just 31 this season to tie Ted Williams (and Willie McCovey) career mark of 521 HR. In overall RBI - Manny currently has 1604 which means another 100 will move him into the top 20 all-time passing Reggie Jackson's 1702... Currently Jonathan Papelbon is in 6th place on the Red Sox all-time saves list but he needs just 32 to tie Dick "the Monster" Radatz in second place with 104 saves. Bob "Steamer" Stanley is the all-time leader with 132. I'm thinking that Papelbon needs a nickname... Tim Wakefield is 38 wins away from tying Cy Young and Roger Clemens for most wins in Red Sox history at 192. However, Wakefield is only 3 strikeouts away from tying Pedro Martinez's 1683 for second place on the all-time list.