With less than a month to go before the Boston Red Sox open up their spring training schedule with two, split-squad exhibition games at Boston College and Northeastern (Feb. 28th), it's time, perhaps to take a quick gander at what's on the near horizon.
At the core of any team looking to compete effectively in the major leagues is the pitching staff and with Josh Beckett and Dice-K as the Sox' 1-2 punch in the rotation, things are already looking good. Beckett ended up second in last year's Cy Young voting and, of course, went 4-0 in the post-season with a 1.20 ERA. Dice-K (Daisuke Matsuzaka) didn't have the 'super season' that management expected when they paid all those millions; first, just for the right to talk to him and then, with his contract, but he did end up winning 15 games and getting those 201 strikeouts. Expect him to have gotten over his 'cultural' adjustments and improve on that record. Then there's Schilling, who's heading into the proverbial twilight of his career (he's said that he'll retire after this season, but can you say 'Clemens'?). He seems to have figured out how to make adjustments that continue to make him a threat to opposing batters. And knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, who won two more games than Dice-K last year, will be back. Rumors are that he'll play until he's about 65. There'll be a struggle for the fifth position in the rotation with lefty Jon Lester and right-hander Clay Buchholz leading the pack.
Remember Buchholz? I didn't, until I was reminded of his no-hitter against the Orioles last September. He went 3-1 last year with an ERA of 1.59, which is, as they say, not too shabby, although it remains to be seen whether he'll develop into the 'ace' that he has all the potential to be.
Lester was 4-0 with a 4.57 ERA last year (4.76 in 2006) and while that '4' looks pretty good, sitting in front of that '0', the ERA is a little disturbing, as well as the fact that he gave up 10 home runs in 12 games. I think, though, that that is one of those 'look beyond the stats' scenarios, where the player under the microscope is just a bit more effective than the numbers would lead you to believe.
Then, of course, there's Hideki Okajima, who was awarded Major League Baseball's "Set-Up Man of the Year" award, over the Yankee's Joba Chamberlain and Rafael Betancourt of the Indians. Originally hired to be little more than a 'pal' and cultural adjustment tool for Dice-K, he turned out to be a very important building block in the edifice of last year's championship.
Stay tuned for further analysis as we ask those vital questions: What to do with J.D. Drew? Is Coco 'crisp' enough? And will Jacoby Ellsbury?
