Questions

Assuming Bartolo Colon gets one more start while Clay Buchholz is on the disabled list and pitches reasonably well, does Buchholz stay in the minors?

If Colon isn't the answer in the five-hole, and the Sox are concerned that Buchholz isn't progressing as hoped, then is Justin Masterson the answer?

Can too much depth in the starting rotation be a problem? Consider - Currently the rotation is Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakedfield, Jon Lester, and Colon. Waiting in the wings or coming back from injury - Masterson, Buchholz, and Curt Schilling. The beauty for Schil is that the pressure will be off if he makes it back from the DL as he'll be moved into the five slot of the rotation.

The follow up question really is, then, who's the odd man out? Matsuzaka is pitching like an ace; Beckett is struggling, but that's unlikely to last; Wake is being Wake; and Lester is pitching better than any starter without a Japanese name - which leaves whoever is taking the last spot in the rotation - that leaves a pretty solid group of four starters from which to choose.

What's the likelihood that the Celtics will go to Detroit up two games to nil? I have my concerns. The Celtics outplayed what looked like a rusty Pistons squad in game one and didn't exactly take the game running away.

What are the chances that the NFL and the NFLPA come away from their impending talks with a much needed rookie salary cap? Considering Union big-wig Kevin Mawae has publicly expressed the need for one, I think the chances are pretty good. Should be interesting, though, to see if the Union looks for a concession from the owners for something that they have already noted as one of their own needs.

The Yankees are approximately where they were a year ago this time. Can they overcome the rough start two years in a row? I have my doubts. As I've noted before, Chien-Ming Wang is pitching like the number two starter he is, but would-be ace Andy Pettitte is pitching like a 2/3, Mussina is another year older and will have a couple of winning streaks peppered with starts like his last where he couldn't get out of the first. The one bright spot in the rotation has been Darrell Rasner - who's likely to fall back to Earth and begin pitching like he has in his past trips to the majors.

That doesn't even account for a line-up whose skills are eroding with age.

The Yankees aren't the only team performing well below expectations - can Detroit and Seattle overcome their sluggish starts as well?

Are the Rays for real?

Crushing

It was a good weekend to be a Boston fan. Some quick thoughts on the weekend...

He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue...

The Celtics played a series against Atlanta that saw both teams hold serve at home. The C's just lacked the intensity on the road that they had at home. They gave a sub-.500 team hope.

Then they crushed them.

The closest the game ever got was when the Hawks went up 3-0 in the first quarter. It was over by the half.

With more than a quarter to go, the Celtics went up 70-34.

Early in the third the Hawks Marvin Williams put Rajon Rondo on the floor with a flagrant foul and was kicked out of the game. Kevin Garnett went old-school. Larry Bird would have been proud. Garnett put a vicious screen on the Hawks' Zaza Pachulia, putting Pachulia on his ass.

The bottom line, the game was never in doubt and maybe, just maybe the Celtics have figured out what they need to do going forward to put another banner in the Garden's rafters.

One last note - big time players come up big in big games. Atlanta's Mike Bibby, a one time all-star, was a virtual no-show in the games in Boston. His line in game one - 5 points, 1 assist; game two - 12 points, 1 assist; game five - 6 points, 1 assist; game seven - 2 points, 2 assists. Atlanta lost those games by an average of 25.25 points.

Now, I will admit to not being the biggest basketball fan, but I seem to recall that point-guards like Bibby are the guys that set the offense and rack up the assists. He averaged 1.25 per game in the Garden to go with his 6.25 points per game average in Boston.

To put that in perspective, Bibby, on his home court, averaged 5.67 assists per game and 15.67 points per game. Way to be clutch.

Rays rocked by Sox...

In the weekend's three game series Tampa scored ten runs - an average of 3.3 runs per game. Not great, not terrible. Certainly good enough, if their pitching is solid, to come up with two wins in three games.

Didn't happen.

After a brutal stretch in which the Sox had trouble scoring runs, they absolutely exploded against the Rays. Through the three games Boston put up 26 total runs - just under nine per game.

Jon Lester had possibly the best outing of the Sox' starters, going six innings while giving up one earned run on four hits. It was his second straight quality start. A day earlier, Josh Beckett went eight innings, but gave up four runs, and in the first game rookie starter Clay Buchholz was good in giving up only one run, but was lifted with one out in the sixth inning.

All told, however, Sox starters gave up six of Tampa's ten runs, with four coming from Beckett. Lester and Buchholz combined for a 1.46 ERA in their two starts. It can be dismissed that it was done against the Rays until the following is considered - the second place (yeah, you read that right) Rays are 6th in the AL in RBI's, home runs, and 9th in batting average. Overall, 14th in RBI's, 13th in home runs, and 15th in average. They are, indeed, a solid, middle of the road sort of team with pitching (through this weekend) comparable to the Sox (4.12 staff ERA to the Sox 4.13)

Different directions...

This is the Jets-Patriots relationship in microcosm...

Since Victor Hobson (signed this off-season by the Patriots) was drafted by the Jets in 2003, the linebacker has been solid, racking up fewer than 50 tackles only once (45 in 2004). He has averaged 68.6 tackles per season, racked up 11 sacks, and 3 interceptions. He has appeared all 16 games all but once in his five seasons.

The Jets let him go to free agency without a fight. Then they went out and signed Calvin Pace away from the Arizona Cardinals. Pace, drafted in the same year as Hobson, has appeared in all sixteen games in in three of his five seasons, racked up an average of 37.2 tackles per season, 14 total sacks and 1 interception. If you discount the 98 tackles he had in his contract year, Pace averaged 22 tackles per season, had a total of 7.5 sacks and no interceptions.

I can't help but think that it's going to be another long season for Jets fans with signings like that.

Land of the Rising Sun

It is a great public relations gimmick.

Send at least one of the league's premier teams from the previous season overseas, or to another country on the same continent to help cultivate the game in a country that's already baseball crazy.

It will be the fifth time since 1999 that Major League Baseball will start its season on foreign soil. In 1999 it was the the 1998 pennant winning Padres taking on the Rockies in Monterrey, Mexico. In 2000 the 1999 NL wild-card Mets, winners of 97 games, played the bottom of the NL Central barrel Cubs in Tokyo. Four years later, the capital of Nippon hosted the AL Champion Yankees against the bottom feeding Devil Rays. In 2001 it was the bottom scrubbing Rangers playing a Blue Jays team that missed the AL East title by a mere four and a half games.

This season it's the World Champion Red Sox opening against an Athletics squad that finished only a game out of last place in the AL West and 20 wins behind the Red Sox. Not exactly a marquee match-up.

But this is less about the match-up than about the impact of opening in a different country.

What does it really mean? Is it difficult for the team's involved to recover from the requisite travel? Or is the impact dependent on the team make-up, the manager, and any number of other factors? The numbers are less than telling.

The Yankees in 2004 got off to a horrible start, struggling in April and May, but recovered to win 101 games.

On the other hand are the 1999 Padres, just a season earlier with 98 wins and an appearance in the World Series, dropped to fourth place and 74 wins when starting the season in Mexico. Their opponents, the Rockies dropped from 77 to 72 wins.

In 2000 the Cubs slipped by two games from 67 to 65 wins, while the Mets still qualified for the wild card with 94 wins, down from their 1999 total of 97 after taking their first at-bats of the season in Tokyo. That same year the Rangers and Blue Jays won 71 and 83 games respectively. The following season, kicking off the season in (I know, technically American soil) Puerto Rico, those Rangers and Jays finished 2001 with 73 and 80 games respectively. An increase for the Rangers, but a drop-off for the Jays.

In 2004 the Yankees matched their previous season's win total, while the Rays increased their win total from 63 to 70 after starting it all in Tokyo.

Eight teams, a variety of results. Nothing telling. One team broke even. Two teams increased their win total by an average of 4.5 games, and five teams slipped a combined total of 37 games. Realistically, the Padres skew that number with a 24 game drop-off. Sixty-two-and-a-half percent of the teams experienced a drop in performance reflected in their win-loss record. The average drop, not including the Padres, is 3.25 games per team.

Assuming this is actually indicative of this season's performance, there's a 62.5 percent chance that the Sox will drop to 93 wins from last season's 96-win showing. Last year that would have put the team a game behind the Yankees in the final standings, and given the Red Sox the wild card.

What any statistician will tell you is that eight teams, eight results in over a century's worth of seasons is not a sampling that is indicative of anything.

Tick-Tock

Tick-Tock one...

One last note about Roger Clemens, hopefully for a while.

According to an AP report that hit the wire on Monday night, a letter is being drafted by the lawyers that serve Henry Waxman's oversight committee referring the Rocket and his questionable testimony to the Justice Department. The AP reported that the story was originally reported on the New York Times Web site and cites three unidentified stories.

It also notes that Brian McNamee's lawyers are going to petition the courts for a dismissal of the defamation charges levied against him by Clemens' lawyers.

Unless George W. intervenes within the next eleven months, it appears Clemens has screwed the pooch.

The nanny testified that she was at the party at Jose Canseco's but Clemens was not (why would Clemens' family attend if he didn't, and evidence suggests she was coached), and now it appears there's photographic evidence of his attendance of said party. This doesn't even consider that the golf course receipt that provides his alibi is, by reports, adjacent to Canseco's property. And that's just the tip of the ice berg. There's still his completely unbelievable excuses for having someone who's not a medical professional inject him in his rear for things like Vitamin B, which can be injected anywhere, and lidocaine, which will have no effect on anything but the area injected (don't believe me? Then look it up).

Now the Rocket has to get used to something that doesn't exist in baseball. He's on the clock, and it is now only a matter of time before the clock hits zero.

Tick-Tock two...

I am a football/baseball guy.

We are in that stretch of time between seasons that I look for things to cover; football and baseball transactions, the Ironman, sports history...just the occasional basketball or hockey game. So I spend my sports-allotted coverage time counting down to the start of the baseball season, the draft, and mini-camps.

Tick-Tock three...

It was only a matter of time before this idea was tried.

If this were reported on April 1, I would swear this was an April Fools' joke. The Florida Marlins are holding auditions for their new cheerleading squad. The squad will be dubbed the Manatees.

The squad, which is expected to be comprised of dancing fat men, will perform at Friday and Saturday games during the season.

The combined weight of the squad is expected to meet or exceed the combined weight of the fans attending the Marlins games - and in occasional cases, the combined weights of the fans attending both Marlins and Devil Rays games.

Scraping the bottom

Sometimes in professional sports, scraping bottom isn't about finishing last. Sometimes its about the fact that the franchise is run into the ground for so long that employees feel like they go to work in a cave somewhere far below the level of the rest of the respective league - bad drafting, bad coaching, bad free agent signings, bad executive decisions (budget, contracts, etc.).

Some teams are so bad in a given season that they become a benchmark against which other teams are measured - the 1962 New York Mets won only 40 games; in the team's first season the Buccaneers lost all 14 regular season games, becoming the first NFL team to do so in the Super Bowl era; the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers won nine while losing 73.

Sometimes, as I said, it's less about the single season then it is about sustained periods of putrescence. Some teams just historically have issues - the Cubs, Browns, and Clippers have been the sad sacks of their respective leagues for years.

But who are the teams scraping bottom now?

Let's start with the worst of the worst -

The New York Knicks - The Isiah Years. Not including the partial season of 2003 - 2004 that Isiah Thomas has presided over this team as team president/GM and/or coach, and not including this season's sterling start, Isiah Thomas has managed to pad his resume with the following facts -

• The team has an aggregate record of 89 -157. Currently the team is on pace for roughly a 25 win season.
• Thomas himself has been embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal, found guilty by a jury of his peers.
• He has put together a team of individuals with the highest payroll in the league, but has never been able to get the team to .500.
• He has publicly feuded with his team's biggest star, Stephon Marbury, who claims he has the goods on Thomas and also admitted to sleeping with a team intern.
• Owner James Dolan has publicly supported Thomas, going as far as to say that he believed that Thomas was doing a good job and had the team headed in the right direction.

Sure, there are other teams that have finished below the Knicks in the standings (last year's Celtics for one), but none have had the combination of futility on the court, in front office, and in the court rooms as the Knicks have had.

The Knicks were, at one point, one the NBA's most storied franchises. Now they're the punchline.

A close second? The Matt Millen Detroit Lions - Like the Dolan owned Knicks, the ownership of the Lions is in serious denial about their general manager, Matt Millen. Millen has drafted poorly, made poor hirings of coaches, and has played the free-agent market like a neophyte stock broker on Wall Street. Like the Knicks, there have been teams that finished behind them, but no other team has been as consistently bad.

To wit, under Millen,

• Detroit had an assistant coach arrested for indecent exposure. Said coach faced no significant consequences from the team.
• The team has set a record for futility with six straight seasons of double digit losses, and are sitting at 6-6 this season after a four game losing streak (no general manager in NFL history has presided over any team with as many 10+ losses per season). With games remaining against Dallas, San Diego, Kansas City, and Green Bay, a seventh straight season isn't out of the question.
• Has gone through at least three head coaches.
• Repeatedly drafted wide receivers with a top ten pick when the team had glaring needs at other places like offensive and defensive line.

Number three is, of course, the Miami Dolphins - Since 1998, this might be a team with some of the worst personnel decisions in the NFL. Consider that starters tend to hit their stride in their third or fourth year - particularly the later round picks.

And the result of their drafting futility?

• In the six drafts from 1998 to 2003, Miami had 59 choices. It exercised 46 of those picks and used 13 other choices in trades to acquire veteran players. Only Ricky Williams, acquired in a draft day deal as one of those 13 other choices, is on the current Dolphins roster (with thanks to Peter King for these numbers).
• They weathered the Nick Saban experiment.
• And while the jury is out, picking a glorified and injured kick returner with their first rounder just goes against conventional wisdom from a personnel standpoint.

Amazing for a team that once was a perennial power in the AFC East.

Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and the Baltimore Orioles - Sure, I'm grouping these three together because these three teams prove that it doesn't matter how big or small a team's budget is when ownership has no idea what it's doing. Continuing a recent history of futility, the Pirates and Devil Rays have become nothing more than glorified triple A teams cultivating talent for the rest of the league. The Orioles and George Steinbrenner wannabe, Peter Angelos has shown that a team can go out and spend money and still suck.

Were it not for the fact that the Marlins have established a pattern of binging and purging in order to win championships, they would make this list as well.

Finding new ways to lose...

Somehow, amidst all their other problems, the Yankees have found ways to squander quality starts. It seems when their hitting was working in April, their pitching fell apart, then in May, when they got the occasional quality start (I hesitate to say their pitching has turned around because most of their quality starts have come from one pitcher), the hitting falls apart.

Last night Aaron Hill of the Blue Jays stole home to tie the game at 2-2 before the Jays went on to win 3-2. Now, I understand that Pettitte is lefty, but you have to at least check the runner at third.

As the Yankees free-fall to 14.5 back along with the Devil Rays, the Jays and the Orioles have strung together a few wins to creep closer to the .500 mark. Currently those two teams are three games and two games under .500 in the win column each...the Yanks? Eight.

As recently as Sunday the Yanks were at least tied with the Sox offensively...something that could give some hope that if the pitching turned it around, that maybe there could be a legitimate run at the wild card. Since Sunday the Yankees team batting average has dropped from .276 to .270. The Sox have gone up a point to .277.

The Yankees were supposed to have the new Murderer's Row lineup...it's on what many prognosticators based their predictions of Yankee success. They haven't been bad scoring runs (258, good for fifth in the majors), but they still languish behind Detroit (289), Cleveland (276), and Boston (276) in the American League. Their 54 home runs trail Boston (55) and Toronto (62) in the AL East.

There are a number of other offensive categories in which the Yankees are trailing other teams, but the important stats still are related to pitching. Only one team in the entire AL East lags behind the Yankees in ERA (4.61)...the Devil Rays (5.55). The others ERA's, coincidentally enough, reflect in the standings - 1. Red Sox (3.62), 2. Orioles (4.13), 3. Blue Jays (4.34).

Possibly most telling of all, and most overlooked - the Yankees are dead last in the majors with only three saves. Even Tampa Bay is in double digits with saves. The only other team with fewer than ten saves is the Texas Rangers who are currently fighting it out with the Royals for the worst record in baseball (teams the Yankees are only two games ahead of in the win column).

As strange as it is to say it after a decade, I would say that the Jays and O's are worth more worry as a Sox fan than the Yankees are for remainder of this season.

A few brief observations on the AL East...

The Sawx...
Julian Tavarez gave the Red Sox only his second quality start of the season and it came against a tough Detroit Tigers team - 7 innings pitched, one earned run. A few more of these and he might preserve his job as the fifth starter.

Hideki Okajima is on his way right now to making a serious run at the Rookie of the Year award. Yesterday he had a hold in the early game, and then saved the late game. He hasn't given up a run since his first appearance of the season.

With a ten game lead in the win column over the rest of the AL East, right now the Sox biggest enemy could be themselves. Currently the Sox have a .700 winning percentage and a 9.5 game lead over the second place Yankees. If complacency seeps into the heads of some of these guys, they set themselves on cruise control, that could be very dangerous to their large lead.

That said, the Sox have mounted their assault on the rest of the AL East with their staring outfield looking like this at the plate - Manny Ramirez (.248), Coco Crisp (.233), JD Drew (.250). What happens when Ramirez and Drew get hot?

Da Bahmahs...
The Yankees braintrust announces the signing of baseball's oldest pitcher during a game to give the team a shot in the arm. Over the last ten games they are 4-6. Wonder what would have happened without that shot in the arm.

Clemens hasn't joined the team, Joe Torre and GM Brian Cashman have assured the press that there will be no problems regarding Clemens' special treatment in the locker room, yet reliever Kyle Farnsworth has already complained publicly about the fact that Clemens won't really be part of the team, because he will just be coming in on his days to pitch.

This is a team that's not out of it yet, it is still early. But that's not the sort of thing that inspires a person to believe the team is going on a run at the Sox anytime soon.

On top of that, the Yankees have a tough enough stretch over the next ten days that they could feasibly be 14 games back by June 1 if they don't get their act together.

The Devil Rays are in the details...
This team is showing some talent and determination. What they aren't showing, a quarter of the way through the season, is the pitching needed to make a legitimate run at the post-season. To be fair, neither are the Yankees, Blue Jays, or Orioles.

If ownership has the cajones and pockets to keep this team together, in another year or two, with maybe one quality veteran in the rotation, they might be a contender for the wild-card. If one or two of the young arms in the rotation gets hot, they might have an outside shot this year, although I would be surprised.

Everybody's talkin' about the bird...
And the word is disappointment. Blue Jays GM JP Ricciardi assembled a line-up that was supposed to compete with the Sox and Yanks. A quarter of the way into the season it appears that his plan was about halfway successful - At 18-22, the team is just under .500, and a half-game behind the Yanks.

To be fair to Ricciardi, his team has dealt with injuries in the same way the Yankees have - which is to say that both teams had little depth behind the people who have been injured, and that lack of depth has taken its toll on both teams.

From the bottom looking up...
Former Braves pitching guru and current manager Sam Perlazzo currently has a staff with a 4.46 ERA. Closer Chris Ray who was practically unhittable last season already has three losses and is sporting a 4.34 ERA over his 18 plus innings.

While still in the thick of the pack in the AL East (only one game behind the second place Yankees), a cellar finish is not out of the question for a team that started the season with high hopes.

Another Bitterfans Post is Up...

Covering my predictions for the AL East. Outside of the fun of trying to predict the outcome of a season (often wrong), I tend to stay away from predictions. This article for Bitterfans I went into my reasons for picking where I did - and certain acknowledgements about how I could end up wrong.

Go take a look.