Red Sox versus Theo: The non-story
The Sox are playing Theo Epstein’s Cubs this weekend, but the story shouldn’t center on that.
Ready for the most over-blown series of the summer?
The lead story for everyone this weekend for the Boston Red Sox against the Chicago Cubs is that it’s the first time that Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein will be against the team that he delivered two championships too. Usually, these stories are interesting and make for a good talking point.
That is, when players or coaches are involved and it’s a sport that might have game-plans or something.
See, the problem with the Theo Epstein angle of this weekend’s series is that Theo isn’t playing against the Red Sox nor is he managing against the Red Sox. In fact, he’s not doing a single meaningful this weekend except maybe talk to someone on the phone about random player in Single-A or signing some dude to a minor league contract.
If it’s doing anything it’s just fueling the efforts of the Boston media to interview Theo about the end of his tenure here in Boston. Even that isn’t yielding that much interesting stuff. Theo says that there was pressure to make certain moves during an off-season from higher up? You don’t say Theo! I could never imagine Larry Lucchino or John Henry doing such a thing to try and put more bodies in the seats or making a big splash in the off-season. What enlightening information!
(Wait a second…)
Instead, let’s pay attention to stuff that matters this weekend. The Boston Red Sox are no longer facing unstoppable jugernauts on the mound and maybe their offense can actually put up some run support for the starters. Daisuke Matsuzaka makes his second start of the season and he was “okay” in his first start last weekend. Can he be better and be a useful arm in this rotation for the rest of the season? I think that more than anything is a big thing to look forward to this weekend as a Red Sox.
How about the fact that this baseball team sits at 31-32 and, yet, in the jumbled American League East, they are not out of it by a long shot. The Sox have a chance to play a fellow last-place club, but one that is struggling in the NL Central. The Red Sox should pick up some much needed wins this weekend because they are, frankly, a better team than the Cubs.
And I think that happens. Sox go into Wrigley and take two of three games and get back to .500.
