First Edition of Red Sox Notes

With opening night now a week away for the Boston Red Sox, baseball fever is now in full swing.

Now if you’ve been a follower of Bostons Bettah for a while, you’ll know I like to get some kind of opinion after every game. With baseball, this method might be a little harder. So unless something major happens, every Monday we will begin the week with the Red Sox notes, a weekly look at what happened and what’s to come. So without further to do…

• The Red Sox are unveiling an interesting starting rotation to start the season, one that allows everyone in the rotation to pitch opening week. It will be Beckett, Lester, Lackey, Wakefield, then Beckett again and then Bucholz before picking up with Lester, Lackey, Wakefield, Bucholz. If it sounds confusing and unneeded, that’s probably because it is. If everyone’s going to get two starts by week 2, why screw around with the order for the sake of screwing around with the order? Not to mention when Dice-K comes back it will just make things more complicated, which brings up point two.
• Francona is now on record of saying that the Sox aren’t opposed to a six man rotation. It’s an interesting idea. On one hand, if you have 6 starters that can give you 6 to 7 innings everytime, that takes a lot of pressure off of the bullpen which means you need less guys in the bullpen. However, what happens if a starter gets a short outing and the bullpen needs to be called in? We now have an issue with the bullpen because having less guys in the bullpen means they have to go longer innings and thus get tired faster which has a ripple effect on the whole team. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. 
• The injuries of Mike Lowell and Dustin Pedroia have been making news all spring. Pedroia has a mild sprain in his wrist, but played the other day against Baltimore and said he feels fine. The more interesting injury is Lowell. It’s no secret the Sox have tried to move him this spring, but the injuries have caused trades to come through. The biggest issue with a trade involving Lowell is that the Sox don’t want to pay him but teams that seem the best fit for him (Texas, Florida) don’t want to pay him either. If a trade is going to happen, not only is Lowell going to have to get healthy, but the Sox are also probably going to have to take on some of his contract. They can certainly afford it, I don’t know why they are so stingy with their money. If Lowell is just going to take up a roster spot, they should probably try to move him, but I guess that’s why I’m not Theo Epstien.

Yankees, and Royals to open up the season. Baseball is back, and I can’t wait to see how the season plays out.

~Benti