I'm living in sports hell right now, and no it's not San Diego. It's right here in Hecla. Apparently, and after three angry phone calls, I've learned that Service Electric is doing some "work on the lines" meaning that I don't have 26 of my channels. Now, some can be found by adding a prefix of 7, but not all of them, and most importantly not ESPN. What do they expect me to do? Talk to my parents? They're out of their minds. Nevermind the fact that I could just watch ESPN on one of the non-digital cable box TV's, but that's just crazy talk right there. How do they expect me to regress to the stone ages of not having that little guide bar allowing me to know pointless information about the program I'm currently watching. Or how I'm able to see what's on other channels while still watching the channel I'm on, or in other words, a channel surfer's wet dream come true.
But to recap on the sports stories of late...
Curt Schilling nearly pitched a no-hitter! Admittedly, I fell asleep for most of it. Hey, it was a tough day at work so lay off. I woke up just in time to see him shake off Tek with two outs in the ninth, and consequently give up a hit to Shannon Stewart. (Shannon has quite a gangster official MLB picture, by the way. Shannon: this is not the NBA.) See Pedro Martinez, August 29, 2000. It was a clean hit by Stewart so there's nothing to complain about there. I promptly returned to my nap. This does prove my point of the Red Sox having two legitimate aces. Beckett's record speaks for itself, and Schilling's ability to be the stopper proves his ace-status.
Dice Man matched up very well against The Big Unit. Once again, walks killed him. So did Mike Timlin's error, but even without it we still lost the game. Dice walks two leadoff batters which both ended up scoring the only two runs he gave up. Johnson looked very good and nothing like the old fart he really is. I hope this isn't a trend that extends to another aged, fat, fatigued groin pitcher. Besides his errant throw, Timlin looked sharp in coming off the DL. It would be great if he could regain some of his old form. It would add to what is already one of the deepest and best bullpens in all of baseball. That fact makes me very excited to approach the trade deadline. With all the bullpen help needed out there, it really is a seller's market. I'd rather not see any moves made until July (except for Pineiro who I will personally help pack his bags), just because I don't want to mess with our team too early and we'll be able to get a lot more for a lot less as the deadline approaches.
So what's a move that's on my mind? Well, Tori Hunter is looking pretty good right now. If the Twins continue to fall behind the Indians and Detroit, as well as wild card contenders like the Yankees or Oakland, getting rid of the contract-year Hunter should look pretty attractive. I wouldn't mind seeing us sending a major leaguer (Coco/Wily Mo), a high end pitcher (Hansen/Tavarez/Delcarman), and a mid-level prospect or two (Hansack/Gabbard/Pauley/Murphy) for Hunter. The way I see it, he brings just as good defense as Coco as well as an awesome bat. We could bat him second behind Julio "hopefully hitting by July" Lugo allowing us to drop Youkilis down and making our lineup totally solid one through nine. Maybe we could talk Hunter into a one year extension, but I doubt this. The best course of action would be to go after one of the lesser known outfield free agents and platoon them with Wily Mo (and yes, this means I am expecting Coco the one to be traded, even though I love the guy) until Ellsbury is ready. Hopefully that will be by mid-season 2008, but either way I expect to see Jacob Ellsbury playing center field in 2009. That gives him a year to get used to the bigs before he steps into the leadoff role. That's also assuming Julio Lugo is still around, but I wouldn't make any bets on that. Nothing against Julio, but the Boston infield, and especially middle infielders, has been quite the revolving door of late, although I do expect to number 15 between second and first for many years to come.
Anyway, with one of the deepest pitching staffs in the league, and an always present need for good pitching, I wouldn't be surprised nor upset to see us loose some depth at the deadline in order to improve in an area that we may be lacking at. A blockbuster deadline along with some lesser known deals (see July 31, 2004) would be real nice, Theo. (Yeah, you know he reads this.) I was in Boston last season on the deadline. At the time, it was probably the worst deadline experience we've ever had. The Yankees made the moves they needed to while we looked like Wily Mo Pena after he's swung at the third straight curveball in the dirt. We seriously Greg Zauned the 2006 deadline, but in the long run, I think it was the best move. The trade that would have happened but didn't involved Andruw Jones (see slumping and swinging at everything...see also Wily Mo Pena), Jon Lester, and Craig Hansen. Lester is too important to us to give up, and Hansen will be great trade bait again this year. That's the Theo we all know and love: looking out for the long term interests of the team while still considering short-term results.
On a personal note, that was one of the greatest days of my life. It totally deserves it's own blog and one day out of boredom I'm sure I'll fill you all in. For now, I'll leave you guessing in suspense.
On another personal note, if you don't want your life to be consumed by video games do not, I repeat DO NOT purchase MLB '07 The Show. There's a time in every man's life when he realizes that he won't play professional baseball, and this game will surely prolong that realization. The world as we know it will never be the same.
So tonight, I'll have to survive by living in the stone ages of watching non-digital ESPN. I bet Service Electric is a bunch of Yankee fans, too.
-Flig
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