a700hitter

He replaces Papelbon. That's a wash at best, and Bailey has not looked that good so far.

...or the story being fed to them by the Sox is changing.

I would have preferred to have Scutaro at SS with Iglesias as his backup. I would have let him learn at the major league level getting about 50-60 games under his belt with Scutaro filliing in for Pedroia and Youk, so Iglesias would solely play SS. Unfortunately, we salary dumped a .290 hitter for a bum to free up payroll for an acquisition that never happened. If Valentine prevails and Iglesias is the starting SS, Punto should get released. Guys like him are a dime a dozen.

THe published reports seem to agree with you--- that they will be pulling the plug on Bard as a starter.

A few of our members probably saw him pitch. It would be interesting to hear from them. I remember that he was a Red Sox announcer in 1967.

You are right. The injuries will keep Bowden and Albers around for a while. The fact is that we just have no pitching depth to cover for those injuries. I said it earlier that the success of the pitching this season will ride on Bard's ability to handle the rotation spot. If he blows up, we just don't have adequate depth to cover 2 rotation spots.

Bobby V's comments about Bard after the game and hi question to Bard prior to the game show me that he is very concerned about the prospect of Bard being a starter.

I heard that Padilla is injured. Doubront did not look like a consistent strike thrower. No one is stepping up to lay claim to the final two spots. I know that SFF is very optimistic and others say that it is just spring training, but there are 2 open spots in the rotation. We have 3 incumbents (Beckett, Lester and Buchholz) who have spots locked up and they just need to get in their work. Results are not important for them. There are no incumbents in the 4th and 5th slots. Those spots have to be won in spring camp. No one is stepping up to claim them and it is March 20th. For them, results count, and they had better pitch like it is a regular season game.

I was interested to see how Miller would do out of the stretch. He threw 2 pitches -- 1 that almost went to the backstop- and left with an injury. There was nothing of interest to me thereafter so I left. As I said earlier, I don't think much of Sweeney. He doesn't seem to bring very much to the table. I'd prefer DMac to get the nod if it comes down to the 2 of them. Here are my impressions of the new JetBlue Ballpark. There's more parking and more varied food concessions. There's more room to walk around outside of the stands, so it is less congested and less crowded. I like the Fenway feel inside the ballpark. It comes pretty close to the real thing. Like Fenway, there are no ondeck circles, so they really paid attention to the details on the field. Now for the bad points. Unfortunately, the Fenway feel doesn't stop at the field. The seats are small just like Fenway. My brother (who has lost 20 lbs since last season) and I felt considerably more cramped than we did at City of Palms Park. Today, we asked some other people who have been season ticket holders for many years and they agreed about the cramped small seats. City of Palms had a broad walkway between the box seats and the grandstand. There was a high retaining wall at the bottom of the grandstand seats, and it provided nice standing room views of the game all around the park. If you went to the bathroom or the concessions, you could watch the game standing against that wall without going up the aisle in the middle of the inning and blocking views or making people stand to let you into your seat. Last night, I came back from the bathroom and I returned with 2 outs in the inning. Rather than disturb people, I figured that I would stand until the 3rd out. Unfortunately, the retaining wall in front of the grandstand seats is very low and people standing or walking in the aisle will block the view of the front row of the grandstand. I know now to never buy the first row in the grandstand. This is a very unfortunate design mistake IMO. Finally, the handicapped parking area is a joke. It is too far from the park entrance and the dirt field makes it very difficult for people in wheel chairs. I miss the tall palms at City of Palms Park, but there are a good number of palm trees at the new venue that I hope to see rise to the same heights. All in all, it is a great deal of fun.

I think you might be right about both of these guys. I think Albers will get cut if he doesn't turn things around in the next couple of outings.

I have felt all along that he will be the #4 guy, and I have been hopeful that he could perform better than average. However, on the heels of the last outing, I got concerned in the 2nd inning that he was in the midst of a meltdown. He gathered himself after the walk in the 3rd inning and threw consistent strikes.

Did Carlson get injured?

How many has he walked this spring?

Sweeney is a slug.

As a reliever, he was a strike throwing machine in spring training each year. He just had a clean inning with a lot of strikes.

I'm at the game, and I am starting to get concerned that we might be ruining Bard with this conversion. In the first inning he was hurt by a pop fly that Sweeney should have had. I'm sitting right after the infield skin in short RF. That ball was up there for a long time. Sweeney is a slug. I really don't want to see him playing RF full time.

The fact that Doubront has no options really ties their hands. They can't send him back or some team is likely to claim him. His command at the beginning of games is so poor that he can't be trusted to be a reliable bullpen piece. IMO, he has the inside track on the rotation spot, but he has to improve his command. I would have been less discouraged yesterday if he had trouble with his command in the early innings but was able to gather himself and work out of the jams. That is not what happened. He avoided big damage with a lucky strike'em out throw'em out double play as the result of batter's interference. In his entire outing he didn't look sharp -- not even for 1 inning. Melancon was very very disappointing. I am not basing this on the result of this appearance. I am basing this purely on his stuff. It is nothing special... period. His stuff is not intimidating, not does he have an intimidating presence on the mound. The step down in caliber from Bard is enormous. Get ready for lots of heart attacks in the late innings. Lots of them.

I really don't see this happening. I think he will not be useful until September.