October 23, 2007

Kyrilmitch, I've been meaning to comment on your column. I've enjoyed past columns, but I think you really missed the mark with a couple of your points. They also spent a solid two months in August and September trying to undo four months of great baseball. Perhaps the Red Sox should remind themselves now that they don’t play these games on paper. That's baseball. 1. They won 96 games, the most in baseball. They started out very hot. The law of averages caught up with them. They were never going to win 120 games. 2. They had injuries. They lost Schilling, who was suppose to be their #2, for a big part of the season. They lost Manny for the last part of the season. The shut down Okajima for a couple of weeks. Youkilis missed some time after being hit on the hand. Beckett missed a couple of weeks with a blister. Wakefield missed starts with injuries. Ortiz was hurting the entire year. 3. They constantly rested players regardless of how the team was playing. The objective is not to win 120 games. It's to get to the playoffs in the best shape possible to win. They did that. No matter how small the lead shrunk in the division, Francona rested healthy players to keep them fresh and allowed injured players to take their time and not rush coming back. This wasn't a case of a team coasting because they're good on paper. You really think beckett, papelbon, youkilis, and lowell are going to lack intensity or effort? They started very hot, cooled off because of injuries and the laws of baseball, and ended a healthy team ready to enter the playoffs with the best record in baseball. That's impressive.

posted by justgary at 12:05 AM on November 08, 2007