Dustin Pedroia

Dear Readers (all five of you):

I've been active on my other blog at www.fannation.com, under the username JFro, but I continually forget to publish those posts here. That said, the next five posts should be considered my belated MLB preseason predictions -- a preview, of sorts. There's the top five infields, outfields, bullpens, and starting rotations, and of course The Big Kahuna:

Continue reading "Note about forthcoming posts"

           Boston’s Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia will certainly give Morneau a run for his money for the MVP.  Youkilis batted .312 with 43 doubles, 29 home runs and 115 RBI, and Pedroia led the AL in hits with 213, runs with 118 and doubles with 54, and batted .326 with 17 homers and 83 ribbies.  Especially considering Manny Ramirez’s departure and injuries to David Ortiz and Mike Lowell, Youkilis and Pedroia carried the Red Sox offensively, all the way to a Wild Card berth.  Youkilis and Pedroia had a better supporting cast than Morneau, even by virtue of having one another—so Morneau is more deserving of the MVP but the two Sox are numbers two and three in my book.

Continue reading "MVP Award Picks"

ariano Rivera in with one out to record a five-out save.  He struck out Jacoby Elsbury and got Dustin Pedroia on a come-backer to hold the 1-0 lead.  Mo was at his best in the ninth, striking out Mike Lowell and J.D. Drew to close out the game.

Continue reading "Santana Goes the Distance, Mets Stay Hot"

           Hey, Sox Fans, how’s it been goin’? Been a while. . .

            I’ll be honest with you, following the Red Sox on a daily basis can turn into a full-time job, and this doesn’t even include the other teams you tend to watch as they jockey with the Sox for position. Just got out of the habit of writing about them.

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Julio Lugo also has 5 steals and even the self-proclaimed lead footed Dustin Pedroia has contributed 4 steals. In total, 7 different Boston players have successfully swiped a base so far this season.

Continue reading "The Go Go . . . Red Sox?"

Last season Dustin Pedroia hit below .200 for the first month of the season before going on win the Rookie of the Year award. That is not to say that Lowrie will struggle as badly as Pedroia did, however, he is even less likely to have the kind of success that Ryan Braun sustained for the Brewers last season. Struggles like Jacoby Ellsbury experienced to begin this season are a more likely scenario. Just as pitchers adjusted to find weaknesses in Ellsbury’s game, they will certainly do so with Lowrie. The fact that Lowrie has already struck out 6 times in only 16 at bats makes the probability of prolonged struggles even more likely.

Continue reading "Despite Hot Start, Lowrie Still Not ..."

e, none bigger than his ninth inning home run last night in Cleveland to put the Red Sox ahead 6-4. Dustin Pedroia is also beginning to sting the ball around the field with more authority and sooner or later Mike Lowell will come off the disabled list and David Ortiz will snap out of his funk and the offense will be back to hitting on all cylinders.

Continue reading "Red Sox Should Feel Good About The Season So Far"

Manny Ramirez will not be far behind. Dustin Pedroia will hit .300. Mike Lowell will hit around 40 doubles. The Red Sox will end up scoring plenty of runs this season and every game will not be

Continue reading "Red Sox Hitters Just Need to Find Their Rhythm"

He gave way to Bryan Corey, when Dustin Pedroia couldn’t quite hang on to a ‘bloop’ hit that went into and out of his glove in shallow right field. Six Sox had two hits apiece (Pedroia, Youkilis, Ortiz, Varitek, Crisp & Cora), with J.D. Drew entering the lineup and adding a hit. Varitek hit his first home run of the season. Without the services of Okajima or Papelbon, Francona turned to Corey for an inning-plus and Manny Delcarmen sealed the deal.

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Caught my first Boston Red Sox spring training game today on MLB.TV and truth be told, it was a yawner. Ended up 8-4, Yanks; a score that was on the board by the bottom of the fourth inning, rendering the remainder of the broadcast something of an exercise for the announcers, Michael O'Kay and John O'Flaherty (it being St. Patrick's Day, they both added "O"s to the front of their last names.). Having lived in New York for the last 15 years or so, I heard and saw a lot of these two (Flaherty, less. Kay is usually teamed with Paul O'Neill or Al Leiter). Every time the Sox and Yankees got together, I'd be listening to them instead of Joe Castglione and Jerry Remy. Kay and Flaherty are Yankee partisans, of course, but they're also professionals and Michael Kay, in particular, is a first class announcer. He used to do 'color' with John Sterling on New York radio. Sterling is more of an obvious Yankee fan than Kay, with an annoying habit of making routine plays into headline news with phony rhymes. Matsui hits a home run and we hear "A Thrilla from Godzilla." Alex Rodriguez hits a home run and we get "An A-Bomb from A-Rod." And when the Yankees win, he has this annoying habit of saying "The -ah-ah-ah-ah-ah Yankees win."

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           Whew! We got that out of the way.

           Papelbon is signed. I’m not sure I would have survived an entire season without a glimpse of him in red socks, doing the Funky Chicken again. If I’m dating myself with the archaic dance, so be it. I’m convinced that if he were in pinstripes and did one of those dances, or any other form of eccentric behavior for which he’s known, on a Yankee mound, George Steinbrenner would go into cardiac arrest.

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His handling of Boston’s young prospects, most notably sticking with Dustin Pedroia, is also particularly commendable. Most important, Francona has always conducted himself with class and

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Young, homegrown talent played a significant part in the Red Sox title run last year led by Dustin Pedroia winning the Rookie of the Year and Jonathan Papelbon definitively closing out games. Clay Buchholz pitched a no hitter in his second major league start, Jacoby Ellsbury stepped in when he was needed and became a vital part of the offense, and Jon Lester got the win in the World Series clincher. All are expected to be key contributors to the team this season. However, this influx of talent from the minors has not left this cupboard bare as Boston’s farm system still ranks in Baseball America’s top 5. Here are some of the next big prospects to keep an eye on in camp this spring and follow their progress this summer.

Continue reading "Boston Farm System Still Flush With Prospects"

With all indications that the Boston Red Sox will hit the field in 2008 with the exact same lineup as they did last October, I thought I'd take a look at that 2007 team and see just what the package consisted of.

Continue reading "If the Boston Red Sox were a 'single' ..."