The Red Sox are honoring Nomar Garciaparra's Mexican heritage by throwing him a margarita and Corona-filled party on Cinco de Mayo at Fenway Park.
That's really nice of the Sox to do that.
What? It's probably a being done on 5/5 as a way to honor #5? Well, that's boring.
Well, since we're being boring, here's the straightforward info courtesy of CSN
The Red Sox announced Friday they will honor Nomar Garciaparra prior to the game against the Angels on Wednesday, May 5.
Garciaparra joined the Sox in September, 1996, and was with the team until he was traded on July 31, 2004. He signed a one-day contract with the team in March and announced his retirement as a member of the Red Sox.
The former shortstop's family will be included in the ceremony.
I like my reasoning for the date better.
While Red Sox Nation was celebrating Lars Anderson's promotion to AAA, Kevin Frandsen wandered the deserted streets of Pawtucket, cap in hand, unsure of what the future held.
A Red Sox for only a few weeks, Frandsen finally thought he had found a permanent temporary home in Rhode Island. A second baseman from the made-up-sounding town of Los Gatos, California, Frandsen joined the Sox midway through Spring Training in a trade with the Giants. Literally for a bag of money.
Knocking in 4 runs in his 62 at-bats this season, the future looked bright for the man named "Participant in the Arizona Fall League" not once, but on three separate occasions.
Frandsen has already overcome both injury and personal tragedy on his path to the big leagues, but nothing could prepare him for Lars Anderson.
The smallest state in the US, most baseball analysts question whether Rhode Island is big enough to contain Lars Anderson's talent alone. Sox brass quickly realized that if Frandsen was left on the Pawtucket roster, a power struggle would be unavoidable. Frandsen was the odd man out.
Place on waivers by the Sox, the Angels quickly placed a claim on Frandsen.
Sometimes, when one door closes, another opens.
Kevin Frandsen woke up a Red Sox and went to bed an Angel.
In all seriousness, I clearly know nothing of Kevin Frandsen beyond some nuggets I skimmed off of his Wikipedia page, but by all accounts he was, at the very least, a great clubhouse presence.
From Projo.com
Infielder Kevin Frandsen, who was designated for assignment Wednesday to make room for Alan Embree on the 40-man roster, was claimed by the Los Angeles Angels and is believed to be enroute to their Triple-A affiliate.
A Frandsen jersey was hung in the dugout as a tribute to the popular teammate before today's game. PawSox manager Torey Lovullo said it was well deserved.
"He was a victim of the numbers crunch. He did a nice job for us. It's just the nature of the business, and he's moving on," Lovullo said.
"He made an impression on a lot of the guys over the three weeks he was here. That's a credit to him. He was a good teammate, he hustled, he was a spark. He's a good baseball player," Lovullo said.
Via everyone on Twitter (OK, specifically, @AmalieBenjamin and @NickCafardo, looks like Amalie was first), 1B Lars Anderson has been promoted from the AA Portland Sea Dogs to AAA Pawtucket Red Sox.
In 71 plate appearances this year, Lars had 5 homers and 16 RBI, while hitting .355/.408/.677. He rose fast within the Sox system, receiving a lot of praise coming into 2009, but struggled mightily in his first full season at Portland, going .233/.328/.345.
The Sox must be confident that his improvement this year, despite a small sample size, is a sign of what he will be. It's more in line with his single A and high-A numbers, as well as his partial season with the Sea Dogs in 2008.
It's also a piece of news that should catch the eye of Mike Lowell and, more obviously David Ortiz. Theo has a history of making bold roster moves (ahem, Nomar, Manny), and he's never been afraid to call up a guy whose time has come (see Youk, Pedroia). He hasn't said anything about this, and more than likely Lars will hang out in Rhode Island until September call-ups. But this is certainly something to keep an eye on.
Bud's at it again, tinkering with one of the things that has plagued him during his tenure as commissioner: the All-Star Game.
A special committee for on-field matters approved an increase by one player per side, including adding a DH spot regardless of which league is represented by the home city. There will continue to be 13 pitchers per team, so there should be plenty of protection from another tie.
"Any time you can add people to the All-Star team it's good," said Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, who left off San Francisco Giants slugger Pablo Sandoval last year. "He was having a tremendous year and he wasn't chosen. It gives players like that who deserve it a chance."
[...]
"The changes are designed to make the All-Star game as competitive a contest as it could possibly be," said Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president of labor relations.
Under a change that runs contrary to normal baseball rules, each manager may designate a position player who will be eligible for re-entry to the game if the final position player - at any position - is injured.
I don't know if I agree with Charlie Manuel on this one. Do we really need more players in this thing? Have you seen some of the rosters in recent years? Brandon Inge, Ted Lilly, Zach Duke, Mark Buehrle...I mean, they're not all horrible guys, but clearly it's not like a lot of players are being robbed of something they deserve.
Good to see the DH getting some love -- it is a real position, after all, whether you think it's as hard as another. It's still insane that it only exists in one league, maybe this will get us a step toward uniformity.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go reserve the domain darnellmcdonaldforallstar2010.com.
The Red Sox have reached that level of national notoriety that comes with sudden popularity and success -- a Cowboys/Yankees/Lakers-like backlash of national public opinion.
According to a study by the Wall Street Journal, the Red Sox are the 2nd most hated team in Major League Baseball.
"That's not surprising," you say. "I would expect it to be the Yankees, then us, then whatever team Brett Myers plays for."
But you would be wrong.
No. 1: The Cleveland Indians?!
From Nick Cafardo:
The formula determines whether consumers have positive, negative or neutral reactions to brands in their online messages. Neilsen's "Sentiment Rankings" range from 5 to minus-5. No team finished with a negative number. But six teams finished with a number lower than 2.
When you see the rest of the rankings, you start to wonder who was polled in this. The Reds came in 3rd and the Astros came in 4th. The Astros? Does half of this country even know what city the Astros play in? The two most popular teams were the Oakland A's and San Francisco Giants. Sounds like it must have been a sampling of random people, and not restricted to baseball fans -- it's just that people like the Bay Area.
And on the flip side, it's every day people who are offended by Chief Wahoo. (I mean, it has to be, right?)
But still, Red Sox: Use this as bulletin board material. The world hates you. Now go out there and impress those of us who love you.
Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here... highlighting the big storyline. Because there's nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.
“He was able to criss-cross both sides of the plate,’’ Varitek said of Lester. “He was able to throw some changeups behind in the count, some curveballs, some cutters, locate his fastball. It was huge. It was huge for us. Obviously we didn’t swing the bats great, but we scored just enough, and it started with Jonny’s pitching.’’
It was Lester’s first quality start of the season in his fifth outing, as he added those seven scoreless innings to the 5 2/3 scoreless frames he threw against Baltimore Friday. As poorly as he had pitched early in the season, it still was somehow strange that Lester was the only one of the Sox five starters not to have recorded a quality start. That’s no longer the case.
“Repeating,’’ Francona said of what Lester has done in his last two starts. “After he makes a pitch, whether he misses or doesn’t, he comes back with the pitch he wants to make. It looks like there was some conviction to it. That’s the guy we know.’’
Globe | Lester is in top form
Without question, the story in Wednesday night's series-closing shutout of the Blue Jays was Jon Lester. As good as Clay Buchholz was Tuesday, Lester was even better -- 7 innings of one-hit ball, two walks, a pickoff at first, and what appeared to be perfect control on his pitches.
The Sox need this from Lester, as he emerged last year as the club's ace. With Beckett stumbling out of the gate, Buchholz barely old enough to drive, and Lackey getting his feet wet at Fenway, Lester can be the steadying force to help the Sox get back on track.
It's a good thing he was on, because the offense didn't really show up at the Rogers Centre last night (they must have taken their cue from the Toronto fans, who didn't exactly flood the ballpark). Darnell McDonald, Marco Scutaro, and Adrian Beltre all had two hits, but the Sox were only able to turn their 9 total baserunners into two runs. They also only registered one walk as a team, showing uncharacteristic impatience at the plate.
Maybe they just wanted to get back to the dugout to watch Jon pitch.
On Page 2, John Tomase does his best to make you forget about the sweep
Continue reading "Your Morning Dump...Where we can break out the brooms" »
Tom Layman's transcript of Terry Francona's Dale & Holley interview is up on WEEI. Not surprisingly, they spend a good deal of time on Papi being pulled for Mike Lowell in a bases-loaded, two-out, tie-game spot last night. Tito does a good job explaining the thought behind the decision, and some of the misunderstanding as to how much "embarrassment" really took place.
We are trying to do everything in our power to kind of scratch and claw and find a way to win a game. I didn’t think that Mikey was going to face the lefty. I thought they’d make a change. At that point, [Scott] Downs has been so tough on us and if they want to let him face Mikey, I think he was 5-for-9 against him. He’s got some good number. Every night, the way we are situated right now, there is going to be room to be second-guessed. You can either hit for somebody. You can’t hit for somebody or we don’t. I think what we need to do is win the game. When we win the game it will normally seem like the right move. When we lose the game it will seem like the wrong move.
With that in mind, it makes a lot of sense -- force the lefty out of the game, bring a cold reliever into a really high-pressure spot (if pitching in front of 17 people in the stands can be high-pressure), and hope for the best. A lot of the talk among fans and in the media has been on the embarrassing nature of the move, as Ortiz was walking up to the plate before being told. Tito explains:
I think you guys make more of [Ortiz saying he was embarrassed] than we do. That’s not what I’m thinking about during the game. I don’t think David heard me when I was yelling at him right away. The idea is never to embarrass anybody, of course. But we are trying to run the game, and you don’t know the situation before the at-bat comes up. You wait, but that’s certainly not something we would ever try to do is embarrass anybody.
Tito covers all kinds of other good stuff in the interview, including Buchholz's performance last night, Beckett's struggles, UZR, Ellsbury and Cameron's status -- go check out the link. Here are a few snippets:
Scott Lauber, via Over the Monster, reports
RedSox call up LHP Alan Embree, sent LHP Fabio Castro to Triple-A
So... now we've got someone new to blow leads for us. Welcome back, Alan!
