Sox Offenders

By Red & Denton

Last issue, we looked at the Sox’ 2006 starting rotation, which just got a lot more ballsy with Wells’ decision to remain with the team [assuming he can remain healthy and/or sober enough to make a difference, but me thinks he will].

This issue, we set our sites on the infield, which where four-fifths of the battery have been replaced. Which, in some cases, is not a bad thing.

FIRST BASE: Kevin Millar didn’t exactly bring a lot to the party. Every time a ball was hit anywhere in the vicinity of first base, all of Red Sox Nation held its collective breath, not sure if it would end up in his glove or careening down the right field line. Now that El Bencho is off to Baltimore, we’ve got J.T. Snow and Kevin Youkilis. Neither one of these guys excites me. Snow is old and tired and probably has his best days behind him. Youkilis is, well, Youkilis: A rally killer of the highest order whose presence in an already weakened line-up represents another free pass to the opposing pitcher. My feeling is that some other move will be made before the season starts. One of those patented Theo moves, where he pulls something clean out of his ass, possibly flipping Arroyo or another pitcher for someone of substance.

SECOND BASE: When the fuck is the last time we had the same guy at second for more than two seasons? Marty Barrett? Jody Reed? The past few years have seen a revolving door of second basemen, including Mike Lansing, Chris Stynes, Craig Grabeck, Todd Walker, Mark Bellhorn and the king of last year’s ALDS, Tony Graffanino. This season, we’ve got Mark Loretta, a career .301 hitter who will likely prove a serviceable answer – no better or worse than Bellhorn or The Graffer -- until Dustin Pedroia can inherit the position next year.

SHORTSTOP: The only thing we really need to know is that Edgar Renteria will not be playing shortstop for the Sox in 2006. And while part of me breathes much easier knowing this, there’s another part of me that wonders what could have been had Edgah settled into something of a groove in his second season with us. If he could have regained the form he had in 2004, he would have been an invaluable part of our line-up. Thing is, we really couldn’t wait around for the guy to get his nuts screwed on right, and if ever there was a player who looked positively kicked-in-the-jimmy lost on the Fenway grounds, it was Edgah. So we move on to Alex Gonzalez who will give us very little with the bat, being a career .245 hitter, but will hopefully keep us honest on defense, snaring some of those drives that Edgah couldn’t contain. And, as a bonus, we get to enjoy unrestricted use of the nickname “A Gon” for the next seven months.

THIRD BASE: Mike Lowell represents the true crapshoot on the 2006 team. If he can regain some of the form he had in 2003 and 2004, we may get 30 home runs and a .285 average out of the guy. That’s not entirely lousy and it would seem almost Ruth-esque when compared to what we’re all thinking Lowell’s gonna do this season. Let’s face it, ain’t a swingin’ dick in the New England area that doesn’t view Lowell as the guy we had to take to get Josh Beckett. So if the guy can just put forth the effort and try to purge himself of the nasty case of suck that bogged down his 2005 season, we just might have something. Right? Am I right? Huh? Oh, who the fuck am I kidding. I expect a disaster of epic proportions here. To the point that someone may jump out of the stands and try to shiv him.

CATCHER: The one lone hold-out from last season – the infield’s only link to the spectacular 2004 season – is Captain Jason Varitek. Tek brings a sense of stability to the whole team, which can’t be underestimated in this season of new faces. He’s also coming off a year in which his average dropped about 15 points, and he just couldn’t seem to buy a hit when we needed it most. Yeah, we’ll forget about all of this the first time he stuffs a cleat up A-Rod’s south 40, but we’re gonna need more production from Tek’s bat if we’re harboring any fantasies of baseball in October.

Overall, this is an infield that’s built to prevent runs, not necessarily score them. With the possible exception of Tek, there isn’t a single batter in this lot that you’d go out of your way to pitch around, but we still seem to be in better shape that, say, if we’d were fielding Mueller, Millar, Graffanino and Edgah around the horn. You never know what can happen, which is part of the beauty of this game. And with Hazel Mae’s spectacular breasts backing them up on the NESN home front, the 2006 infield might just come up big. Represent.