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Last night I flipped on the Sox game around 9:30PM to catch
the last few frames of the game and to my dismay the score was 7-2 bad guys. The Sox would come back in the bottom of the
eighth to make it interesting, but ultimately fell to to the Chicago White Sox behind the bat of Kevin Youkilis 7-5.
As rejuvenated as I was by the eighth inning rally of the
Red Sox to pull within two, I quickly became quite perplexed upon seeing Franklin Morales warming up to come in and hopefully keep the deficit to two runs in the top of the 9th inning. Morales, who was without
question the most effective Red Sox starter over the past month and one half, has only had one hiccup as a starter not surprisingly against the first place New York Yankees. As recently as Friday he shut down division foes Tampa Bay. I tried to rationalize the move in my head:
maybe Bobby Valentine was continuing to run out a six-man rotation and simply needed
to get our old pal Frank some work. Then
after the game I did some investigating and discovered via the Providence Journal
that Morales had been moved back to the bullpen in favor of Clay Buchholz.
In a rotation disgraced by the (dis)likes of Daisuke
Matsuzaka and Daniel Bard it seemed to me as though management had turned the corner
and realized they needed to be playing those were performing—shelving Dice-K and
ditching the Bard experiment (albeit ten starts too late) were two steps in the
right direction. Head-scratching trades
and transactions have come to epitomize this 2012 Red Sox team becoming more
prevalent than bronze plaques along the concourse at Fenway Park. Whether it was trading away
the top two starting shortstop candidates entering 2012 for two middle relievers, dangling Josh
Reddick and prospects for an oft-injured closer and powerless back-up outfielder, or giving away Kevin Youkilis (and paying most of his salary) for a lackluster pitching
prospect and a utility player designated for assignment just two days ago, it has become increasingly difficult to root for this entitled, grossly overpaid team. No longer can I sit back and try to
comprehend what is going on down at Yawkey Way.
The Red Sox have won only six times in games started by Jon Lester, Josh ‘not on my off day’ Beckett already took his annual trip to the disabled list for 2012, Clay Buchholz has never in his major league career pitched over 175
innings, and Aaron Cook is due to implode with just two K’s in 29.2 innings
pitched; even as a sinker ball pitcher his success is simply unsustainable missing so few bats. Not to mention arguably the most durable and consistent member of the staff (for all of 2012), Felix Doubront, has already surpassed his innings total from
2011 at just 24 years of age.
The services of Franklin Morales will once again be called
upon in the 2012 starting rotation, why bother interrupting his recent run of success? The top three performers in the Red Sox rotation for 2012 have been by far those with the three smallest salaries in Doubront, Cook, and Morales. Somewhere along the line those
working on Ben Cherington’s baseball operations team have decided they must play those with the highest
salaries instead of slotting in those who give the team the best chance to
win. Not everyone goes to ‘America’s
Most Beloved Ballpark’ to see a living museum; some of us are interested in watching
the best product take the field night in and night out, right now that simply
is not the case.
