April 29th @ Texas

[stocker323]

http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/123801.jpg #49 Tim Wakefield (2-0 1.75) vs

 

http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/120221.jpg #61 Chan Ho Park (2-1 4.24)

 

Game is at 8:05 tonight.

[stocker323]

Lineups

 

Red Sox

 

Damon CF

Nixon RF

Ramirez LF

Ortiz DH

Millar 1B

Renteria SS

Mueller 3B

Mirabelli C

Vazquez 2B

 

Rangers

 

Dellucci DH

Young SS

Teixiera 1B

Blalock 3B

Soriano 2B

Nix CF

Mench LF

Matthews RF

Barajas C

[Soxfan1]

~sigh~ Soxfanintex, stocker and I have been the only ones on all night.

[stocker323]

1-0 Texas, in the Top of the 4th. A misplayed ball by Manny/Damon scored the run for the Rags (Didn't see the play).

[yeszir]

~sigh~ Soxfanintex, stocker and I have been the only ones on all night.

Friday and Saturday nights are usually quieter.

[ACL BoSox]

too quiet...

[yankeessuck013]

well this sucks 4-2 rangers.....

[ACL BoSox]

umm 5-2, losing to Chan Ho Park is embarrassing.

[mosox]

3 lousy hits...this was pitiful.

[YanksHater213]

Yankees got 3 hit by Roy Halladay

[ACL BoSox]

Should we be happy now that we're 3rd, just over the yankees?

[yeszir]

Uh-Oh, a couple days ago I said the sox wouldn't be under .500 for the season. I sure as hell hope I was right.

[Beaneater]

I was at this game. Yes, it was a serious stinker.

 

To say that we got three hits is being quite generous. After Johnny's leadoff hit, the two remaining 'hits' both bounced off the Rangers' right fielder's glove and could just as easily have been scored errors as hits. Well, I guess Millar's triple would have been a pretty spectacular grab, so on the whole it was closer to a hit than an error, but you get the point: we got one hit all night that actually evaded all the fielders' gloves. Pathetic.

 

There was a great Sox fan-base there, though -- at least as much Sox paraphernalia as Rangers stuff. When things were looking good for us (4th-5th inning), there was a nice cheer of "Here we go, Red Sox, here we go!" which is quite heartening when you're playing an away game.

 

Wakefield looked great through 5, but obviously ran into trouble in the 6th. Park was outstanding, though.

 

Our $10 million shortstop didn't impress. He looked clueless at the plate (of course, so did everyone else), and at one point he made a Little League style matador attempt to get a ground ball. It was like he was thinking, "Ooooh, that was hit hard. I don't want to get in front of that. I'll just stick my glove out and hope I get lucky." [Disclaimer: I haven't had many screaming one-hop grounders hit at me in a while, so maybe it's harder than it looks ] That batter came around to score, of course.

 

Is something wrong with Bellhorn, or was he just resting? I'm as tired as everyone else of Bellhorn's monster K totals, but at least he swings the bat. Vasquez struck out looking his last two times up. We may as well have had Punky Brewster up there batting.

 

All in all, a lousy game. The batting was worse than pathetic, the fielding was not great, and the relief pitching was lousy. The only bright spot is that Wakefield was absolutely mowing them down for the first half of the game. He pitched better than his line would indicate.

 

It's probably waaaaay too early to say this, but is anyone else starting to get the feeling that the Sox and the Yankees are dinosaurs? The Rangers, for example, have an outstanding _young_ infield, while we just throw money at the biggest available name in the off-season (cough, Renteria, cough, cough) regardless of whether he's actually worth anything. [End of pessimistic rant.]

[yeszir]

There was a great Sox fan-base there, though -- at least as much Sox paraphernalia as Rangers stuff. When things were looking good for us (4th-5th inning), there was a nice cheer of "Here we go, Red Sox, here we go!" which is quite heartening when you're playing an away game.

It's always awesome to see this at away parks. Tampa Bay is predominantly sox fans when we go down to play them (lots of FL Red Sox transplants I guess), and I always smile when Red Sox cheers break out.

 

It's probably waaaaay too early to say this, but is anyone else starting to get the feeling that the Sox and the Yankees are dinosaurs? The Rangers, for example, have an outstanding _young_ infield, while we just throw money at the biggest available name in the off-season (cough, Renteria, cough, cough) regardless of whether he's actually worth anything.

Are you accusing us of being the yankees? Anyway, the sox have been a team of mercenaries recently. Aside from Nomar, none of our true "talent" was raised in our system. The sad part is that it seems to work. Look at the Yankees and the Sox. They're the two most hyped teams in baseball, and they are also the two with the least amount of homegrown talent.

[SuperManny]

well i agree that the Sox dont have a ton of homegrown talent (you forgot to mention Trot), thats not how it works with free agency. Renteria was the best SS on the market so the Sox went out and got him. He plays great D and is a pretty good hitter - he will come around.

 

As for the homegrown talent issue - homegrown is a useless term. If you trade say Slocumb to the Mariners for two prospects who have never played in the pros do VTek and Lowe count as homegrown? And if not then Schilling, Bagwell, Brady Anderson, and Pavano count as homegrown for us that were traded to other teams. And then theres the players that came up with the Sox and left - Clemens, Mo Vaughn, Valentin, Nomar. You can't critisize the Sox for signing FA's when a lot of good players left the Sox for the same reason.

 

Then theres the issue of signing players that no one else wants - Ortiz and Mueller were paid next to nothing to play for the Sox because no one else wanted them. Should the Sox be looked down upon for signing the likes of Ortiz to a $1.5 million contract?

 

Obviously more "homegrown" talent would be good to keep payroll down but the term is useless in constructing a baseball team. Prospects are traded all the time and free agents move around every year. And the Yankees only homegrown players all make $10+ million a year now (Jeter, Mo, Posada, Bernie)

[Beaneater]

You're right, SuperManny, that the idea of "homegrown-ness" is a very fuzzy (if not totally undefinable) one in baseball. And I guess my gripe is not about the lack of homegrown talent; it's the "let's sign the current superstar" mentality that defines the Yankees and (maybe I'm hallucinating here) is starting to rub off on us.

 

For instance, (though I have absolutely no stats at my fingertips to back this up) Renteria was not the best SS on the free agent market. That would be Orlando Cabrera. But Renteria is the bigger name and so he gets the nod (or at least that's how it looks to me).

 

But as I said, I don't even have any facts to back that up. The only thing I have is a vague sense of unease when I look at teams like the Rangers who have a lot of guys that aren't MLB's biggest names but who are already studs and will be seriously bad news in a couple of years (Texeira, Young, Blalock, etc.).

 

OK, last thing. You mentioned the Slocumb for DLowe/Tek trade as an example of the deficiency of the term "homegrown". Good point. In that vein, here's a question that I honestly don't know the answer to: do we ever trade for prospects these days? Do we ever pick up guys who aren't Major League material yet but show a lot of promise? I don't keep up at all with the farm teams, so I don't know. But it seems important to look beyond just today's need.