Catching up, yet again

As you might be able to tell, I have been busy lately. I have about a half dozen story proposals or so floating out there with various magazines, have been working on home improvements, looking into going back to a staff position somewhere now that my youngest daughter is closing in on two - all of that has taken away from my time here at TAF. There have been a lot of things to comment on that have come and gone in the five days since my last blog post. Here goes...

Overall, I have no vested interest in the NHL finals and little more than that in the NBA finals this year. At least if Carolina had made it to the Stanley Cup round of the post season on the ice, then I would at least have a former New England team to root for, but we have the Penguins and the Red Wings. Eh.

Over on the hardwood...well, let's just say that the entirety of my interest there would be in seeing the Lakers lose. I don't think it's going to happen now that Los Angeles is up 2-0, but I would love to see them lose.

The Lakers are one of those teams that I love to see lose, they're up there with the Yankees, Cowboys, and Raiders. Being a Patriots fan, some might be puzzled that I haven't picked division rivals like the Jets and Dolphins, or even the rival Colts, but there's something different with them.

If the Raiders went 0-16, I would enjoy that, and while I kind of rooted for the Dolphins to match that mark two seasons ago (but only when they were in the 0-13 territory), I much prefer it when the Jets and Dolphins are decent for a couple of reasons - one: better games. Two: I much prefer seeing those teams come close and get knocked out at the hands of the Patriots then to watch them struggled and be eliminated from contention before Halloween.

Speaking of football, I didn't like Peyton Manning's public criticism of the new coaching regime. I don't know if it was more a reflection of the new staff still finding its feet, or a reflection of how spoiled Manning has been due to virtually no coaching defections during his career. In theory, there should be little to no change in how the Colts play the game since the entire coaching staff was there under Tony Dungy, but there's no telling if Pete Metzellars is going to be as good at coaching up line men as Howard Mudd - yes, he did well in the middle of the year taking over for Mudd when Mudd was dealing with health issues, but how does he do starting with a free-agent rookie from scratch like Mudd did with Jeff Saturday? He may be fine, but we just don't really know.

On top of that, the team has new coordinators for pretty much the entire team - offense, defense, and special teams. The play calling will be different. Maybe better, maybe worse.

My guess is that the team shows some growing pains, but they miss the playoffs as a ten or eleven win team, finishing behind the Titans again in their own division.

The Colts enter the season not unlike the Patriots. While the key question for the Colts is "how the is the coaching staff going to perform," the Pats are rolling the dice on the rebuilt knee of their all-pro quarterback. If Brady can play without the knee getting into his head, he should be the same guy they've always had back there. With a very likely revamped and improved Jets defense in week two, the Ravens defense in week four and the Titans and Bucs all in the first seven weeks of the season, fans of the Patriots will find out quickly if Tom Brady is thinking about the knee, or about completing passes.

While the Pats defense was shaky last season, I'm less concerned there based on the moves the team has made, leaving the biggest question on the offensive side of the ball.

Over on the diamond I can't say that homer that David Ortiz had gave me any sort of hope that he's breaking out of that power slump. Big Papi just barely cleared the wall right at the Pesky Pole. In any other ball park that hit is a long single or maybe a double, but certainly not a home run.

Jon Lester's near no-no, however, might be cause for hope. I'm still reserving judgement on the Sox lefty for at least another two starts (he's failed to put together more than two good starts in a row, in spite of leading the team in innings pitched), before I say that he's turned the corner, but things have been encouraging lately.

Through his first eight starts Lester was 4-2 with a 6.51 ERA. He bottomed out in starts five and six, pitching a total of ten innings while giving up 13 earned runs over the two games. It was his worst two game stretch of the year, beating out his first two starts in which he pitched eleven total innings while giving up eleven earned runs.

In the four starts since, Lester has pitched 27.1 innings, gone 3-1 with three quality starts, all the while logging a 2.64 ERA. His next best four game stretch ran from his start on April 19 and ran to May 4. During that stretch he went 2-0, and gave up 10 earned runs over 26 innings for a 3.46 ERA. Like the recent stretch, Lester had three of four quality starts. So, yeah, I'm going with a wait and see approach on the Sox lefty.

While Lester has certainly had his issues this season, and almost all of the pitchers have faltered badly at one time or another, they have all been better than Daisuke Matsuzaka, who has struggled in just about every outing.

For all of Lester's issues, the Left is averaging 6.1 innings per start. Tim Wakefield and Josh Beckett are also averaging 6.1 innings per start. Even the oft maligned Brad Penny is pushing 5.2 innings per start, an average that would be higher were it not for two rough starts in his first three of the season in which he pitched for a grand total of 5.2 in those two starts. The Dice-man? Just a shade under 4.2 innings pitched per game. Yes, that includes a one inning/five-earned run fiasco of a start, that without he is averaging 5.1 innings per start and still has the highest ERA of the starters at 5.88.

While Matsuzaka's stats, sans the one terrible start, is only slightly higher than Brad Penny's 5.85 (overall), and slightly lower than Penny's IP per game, it might do better to look at the number of quality starts each of the Sox starters has turned in...

Matsuzaka - 0 for 6_00.0%
Masterson - 2 for 6*_33.3%
Lester - 6 for 12_ 50%
Penny - 6 for 11_54.5%
Wakefield - 7 for 11_63.6%
Beckett - 8 for 11_72.7%

*One note on Masterson's six starts - his first two starts he failed to go a full six innings, both times leaving after only 5.1 innings, but also leaving the game after giving up only one earned run. During Masterson's run of six starts in place of Matsuzaka, Masterson was 2-2 with a 4.59 ERA while averaging just under six innings per start. How long do they go with Matsuzaka in an effort to let him get his feet before they make a switch to Masterson, Buchholz, Bowden or someone else? How much time does their monetary investment in the Dice-man buy him?

God...a lot to cover, and little time to do it in...

First, I want to touch on the boneheaded.

James Harrison of the Steelers is an idiot. If you don't want to go to visit the president, fine. Don't tell me it's because if the Cardinals had won that they would have been invited and then go calling the president a fair weather fan because of it. I mean, is he really that ignorant?

Speaking of ignorant - I think that LeBron James ranting about being a competitor rings really hollow as an excuse to not shake hands and to not talk to the press immediately following getting bounced from the playoffs is hollow, immature, and bush league. I could put together a list of people that are extraordinarily competitive that haven't done that - Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Curt Schilling, Pete Rose...the list goes on.

None of those people shied away from the press when they lost, and they understood, as faces of their franchises, that they were expected to act like a leader whether they won, or they were metaphorically kicked in the balls. They knew there was nothing wrong with acknowledging the competition's achievements at their own expense. They may not always say the right things (see Manning's rant about his offensive line a couple of years ago - even if it's accurate, you don't throw teammates under the bus).

On a personal note, I was offended. I'm a very competitive guy. Over the years, since a kid through now I played baseball (little league and college), football (HS, semi-pro), street hockey (8 years), ran track (7 seasons HS and college), soccer (youth, HS, college), martial arts (25 years), and Australian football (10 seasons). In that time I was involved with some absolutely dominant teams (in all six HS seasons of track the team I ran on either outright won or tied for the league championship in every season), and some absolute dogs (in two seasons of division 3 college baseball I played for a team that went 2-18. We lost to teams such as the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy...yes, we lost to future pharmacists).

I'm not saying that people should be happy about losing. In no way, shape or form am I saying that. But there's nothing wrong with congratulating someone on beating your brains in. Nothing wrong at all in acknowledging that you and your team were outplayed.

Other quick thoughts...

Right now, based on recent starts, the Sox rotation, in regards to the importance of what the starters are doing for them looks like this -

Josh Beckett
Brad Penny
Tim Wakefield
Jon Lester
Daisuke Matsuzaka

For the last month Beckett has been the ace that they had two seasons ago. Hopefully that lasts.

Penny, for all the talk about trading him before the deadline, has been the team's most consistent starter, outside of Beckett since the end of April. Until they have a sure-thing number-two starter, Penny has made himself near indispensable in the Sox rotation.

Overall, Wakefield has been the Sox best starter, but for the last month he's been a little erratic. Yes, he carried the rotation in April, but with two tough starts in the last month, Wake has fallen to the middle of the rotation. Still, assuming he stays healthy, he's on pace to win fifteen or more games this season.

Lester has been a crap shoot all season long. One start he'll be absolutely dominating and look like he's turned the corner, the next he'll get lit up for seven runs in four innings. If he can put together more than two good starts back to back, well, let's just say that would be a nice change and a good place to start.

I just can't put Matsuzaka any higher than fifth in this list, in spite of Lester's struggles. For all of Lester's problems, he's still averaging six innings per start. Matsuzaka has managed to pitch into the sixth inning in only one of his starts and has averaged 4.1 innings per start. Only once in his five starts has he given up fewer than three earned runs. Yes, his last start was encouraging, but he's still at the bottom of the pile right now.

Finally (regarding the Red Sox), I'm not buying into the Renaissance of Jason Varitek. Yes, he's putting up decent numbers (he's on pace for about 30 home runs and 66 RBI), but at the end of May last year 'Tek was batting .272 through 46 games. At the time he was on pace for 20 home runs and 60 RBI. The remainder of the season he batted .191 and finished with 13 homeruns and 43 RBI. For the final two-thirds of the season he hit all of six home runs and had 23 runs driven in. When the weather got hot, 'Tek's bat cooled off.

That wasn't a complete fluke. In 2007 'Tek hit .245 for the balance of the season after hitting .277 for the first two months of that season. Overall the Sox catcher finished on pace for homeruns (he was on pace for 15 and finished with 17) but off the pace for RBI (he was on pace for 78, but finished with 68). Sure, that last one wasn't a huge difference, but it is an illustration of Varitek's drop off in production during warmer weather in each of the last couple of seasons.

My guess is that his bat cools off over the next couple of months and he finishes around .220 with under 50 RBI and between 15 and 20 HR. I just hope I'm wrong.

The last thing I wanted to touch on...

All the reports out of Foxboro are that Tom Brady is moving well in OTA's.

My guess is that Brady will see some significant time in at least one, if not two of the preseason games for two reasons. The coaching staff is going to want him to shake off the rust of a season off, and more importantly, to see how he reacts to bodies around him. Watch him step up in the pocket, avoid the rush, see if the knee is in his head, so to speak.

If he comes through with flying colors, it could be a very interesting season for the Pats.

Offensively this team broke a ton of records two seasons ago. Both Randy Moss and Wes Welker were in their first year in the system. That included playing the team's final seven games all in cold/bad weather locations after mid-November.

Is the offense going to be as good? Probably not - 2007 was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of season, but an argument can be made to expect big things.

Moss and Welker are in their third season in the system. Brady has a season of rest. His third and fourth options with Joey Galloway and Greg Lewis (not to mention Sam Aiken) are better than what he had then. He should have a healthy stable of running backs going into the season - also better than they were then with the addition of Fred Taylor and the return of a healthy Laurence Maroney, along with Sammy Morris and Kevin Faulk.

If the O-line stays healthy, they could still put up big numbers.

On top of all that, I firmly believe that the defense has upgraded with Leigh Bodden and Shawn Springs on the corners, and mind you this is merely a guess, but I would put odds on the Patriots signing the recently released Greg Ellis to bolster the linebacking corps which I think is going to get a boost from a healthy Shawn Crable anyway. The defense's big problem is that a number of the players in the second level are new to the system. If they come together, this defense has the potential to be one of the best of the Belichick era.

Of course all of this is contingent upon being healthy. A hard thing in the NFL.

And a final Patriot note -

Happy trails Rodney Harrison. I'm looking forward to your career as an analyst.