Friday, August 05, 2005

On the Road Again

Foreshadowing. Like in the movie Karate Kid when Daniel sees Miyagi practicing the 'crane technique'. When Johnny Damon tripled and got stranded at third (early 2000'/Greg Maddux strike zone redux) and then got homerdomed on Lew Ford's triple, then you had the feeling the sky was falling - at least for today.

The Twins owe the Sox a little payback for last weekend's Twins-slapping, and eight game winning streaks are made to be broken. Even if you had a 60 percent chance of winning daily, the odds of an eight-game streak would be 0.6 to the eighth power or 1.68%.

And as well as the Sox have played lately, how about the Oakland A's? Maybe Billy Beane deserves his reputation. And speaking of Beane, my son Conor, the Orioles fan, reminded me that Larry Bigbie is the embodiement of the 'looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane' theme, a big stud who can't hit. Maybe that's what the Sox supercomputer finally spit out.
Roberto Petagine got shut out in his first game, so he's back to being a AAAA player, right?

Meanwhile, the other day Abe Alvarez and Anibal Sanchez both tossed shutouts, and Sanchez' E.R.A. is at 0.98. Admittedly, double A and a small sample size, but let's not be hasty here. Maybe the Rays could mix up Sanchez and Anastacio Martinez.

El Guapo is hitting 89 on the radar gun in Florida, and about 89 times 3 on the scale probably.

Can anybody think of a reason why Jon Lester hasn't gone up to Pawtucket with Jon Papelbon? Papelbon worked an inning tonight with a walk and two strikeouts. Lester leads the Eastern League in ERA (2.47) and is second in strikeouts (131 in 116.2 innings).

Right now the Sox have some very solid pitching prospects on the doorstep in Papelbon and Lester, a promising hard-thrower in Sanchez, the crafty junkballer in Alvarez, and Craig Hansen working up to a likely AA assignment.

And how we Sox fans obsess over our recently departed! There's Nomar (.145) back in the Cubs lineup, Pedro campaigning for Manny to defect to the Mets, and Derek (or is it drilling derrick) Lowe, whose theme song could be "Why Don't We Do It on the Road".

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