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Bombs A-Bay
August 19, 2008
The Red Sox powered their way to a victory in the series opener against the Baltimore Orioles. In arguably Jason Bay's best game since his debut with the team, the former Pirate blasted two home runs to lead the Red Sox offense to a 6-3 victory. A shaky outing by Manny Delcarmen made things interesting in the late innings, but Jonathan Papelbon held the lead and racked up save number 33 of the season. In Papelbon's last ten outings he has not let up one earned run in eleven and a third innings of work while striking out eleven batters. However, in his last ten appearances he has only four saves so it was good to see him collect another last night.
The struggles of Jason Varitek this season have been heavily noted and have been quite frustrating to watch. The captain's offensive struggles have been going on for quite some time now hitting just .208 since the All Star break, .209 in the month of August and .167 in his last ten games. Varitek may be hitting .189 on the road this season but last night his ninth home run of the season was a big run for the Red Sox in their win over the Orioles.
Varitek's offense needs to make a big turn around if this team is going to make a push in the playoffs. The Red Sox need him, they need his leadership, they need him behind the plate and most importantly, they need that bat to come alive. As I mentioned before, Varitek is hitting just .209 in the month of August a little bit past the midway point of the month. Varitek has not hit above .200 in a month since May while hitting .197 in July and .122 in June.
It's safe to say that there is no saving his average this season that now sits at a very minuscule .216, but someone needs to sit him down and tell him that he needs to focus on right now. Forget the numbers, forget everything up to this point. This team needs him as he is a very vital piece to their success if they wish to have any at all this October if the playoffs are in their future. If Jason Varitek can turn his season around and turn his offense up then this offense will be a tough out one through nine (assuming that Jed Lowrie continues to start over Julio Lugo even after he returns from the disabled list).
In the Red Sox most recent home loss, a 15-4 pounding at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays, a good percentage of the Fenway crowd booed Jason Varitek after he grounded into an inning-ending double play. I did not partake in the booing of our captain, nor will I ever, but sometimes the boos do work for players. They work as motivation for that player to finally snap out of their slump.
Kevin Millar said the the boos he got from the Fenway crowd when he used to slump here in Boston made him more focused and they made him snap out of it. I don't think booing our own players is the right thing to do, they're professionals, they can snap out of it on their own. They know how poorly they are playing, it's not like they aren't trying to get on a hot streak. I choose to let them work their way out of it on their own without a public display of my dissatisfaction in the form of a "boo". I believe that Jason Varitek will come around. He's too good not to. He knows he has a job to do and that man dedicates his life to that job. Trust me, he'll come around.
The red hot Daisuke Matsuzaka takes the mound tonight in game two of this three game series in search of his fifteenth win of the season. Daisuke is 6-2 in his last ten starts with an ERA of 2.97. He has struck out 48 batters in his last 57.2 innings of work and has held opponents to a .209 batting average against him in the entire season.
-Jared Carrabis
-Jared Carrabis
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