With Lowell he has made some adjustments holding the bat in which he has turned on the offense recently. I would probably give some of that credit to Papa Jack.
When you can net a potential ace in Josh Beckett giving up a guy like Hanley is worth it. Hanley has a ton of tools but at some point you have to turn the tools into stats and he really never did that in the minors.
Mo never DH'd fulltime like Ortiz does and thats why Mo wore down. Ortiz is exactly the opposite. He is fresh the entire year because he does not play the field.
It's called a game hitting streak. If a player plays in a game even if he gets walked he still gets counted for playing in a game thus the streak is over.
He might be in his 30's but he does not play a demanding position. All he does is hit. And hit very very good. The difference between why Damon is not here and why the Red Sox want to keep Ortiz here is the positions they play. Damon takes a beating in centerfield and likely would have been useless towards the end of the deal while Ortiz justs goes to the plate and hits.....not very demanding. Plus he is the real face of the Red Sox.
Jed Lowrie has written a player journal for MILB.com
http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060330&content_id=51296&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp
Red Sox closer Keith Foulke was scheduled to pitch on Thursday, but was scratched. The reason?
"Foulke had an intestinal problem, he didn't feel good," said Francona. "He'll pitch Saturday."