Story lines

There are some interesting story lines developing around sports right now. Some short term, some long term. I wanted to look at some...

Short term...

The Orlando Magic are one blown alley-oop away from being up 2-1 in the finals. Can they actually come back from down 2-0, or are they just making the NBA finals interesting?

Can the Penguins actually go into Detroit and pull off the upset?

Longer term stories to watch...

At some point this season the Yankees are going to win a game against the Red Sox. It could be tonight, it might not be until the next series. But will the Yankees inability to beat the Sox early in the season come back to haunt them late in the season? And on the flip side, how much could this early dominance by Boston play into the team winning the division?

Is David Ortiz actually showing signs of breaking out of his slump? He's riding a seven game hitting streak, and has had hits in 9 of his last 12. Even though it's the only time this season that he's had a hitting streak last more than three games, he hasn't exactly been tearing the cover off the ball. He's had only one multi-hit game in that stretch, and is 10 for 48 (.208) - even if you just look at his seven game hitting streak, he's a respectable 8 for 29 (.276), not exactly tearing the cover off the ball, but better. Right now it's a more compelling story than the Red Sox trials and tribulations at short stop. Will he or won't he?

As bad as Ortiz has been at the plate, Chien-Ming Wang has been worse on the mound for the Yankees. How far can they expect to go with a completely ineffective (defective?) Wang. They're already keeping their fingers crossed that AJ Burnett and Joba Chamberlain can stay healthy, what is their future (this season) going to look like if they have to rely on an imminently hittable Phil Hughes? And how long can Andy Pettitte go, with batters hitting over .280 against him?

I can't help but think over on the gridiron that the Patrick Pass signing was more or less to add depth at the position for training camp. Does he have a shot at the team? Sure, but I would be surprised if he were on the roster on opening day. Honestly, I would be surprised if he made it to the final cuts. It should be interesting to watch.

Of course, there's always the question of Tom Brady's knee, and how he will respond in game situations. A lot of people are talking about early season issues due to shaking the rust off, and while possible, I think Brady will get the time and reps to do that during the preseason games. What people aren't talking about is how the Patriots' schedule might impact their high-octane offense.

After the bye week in 2007, on the team's way to the only 16-0 regular season, the Patriots played seven consecutive cold weather games, four of which were in Gillette, the rest of which were at the Meadowlands, at Buffalo, and at Baltimore. In the coming season, after the bye the Patriots will play nine games. Four games are at home - Miami on November 8, the Jets on November 22, Carolina on December 13, and Jacksonville on December 27. Of those, only the Jets game starts later than 1:00, and the Miami game is early enough in the season that the weather may or may not be a factor.

Of the other five games, one is in Buffalo, three are either in domes or stadiums with retractible roofs (Indy, New Orleans, and Houston), and the other is in Miami. With about half of their remaining games being played either indoors or in warm places, the Patriots offense has a chance to really light things up...assuming Brady is perfectly healthy.

Outside of New England, these are the things to watch -

The play calling of the new staff in Indianapolis. This is going to go a long way towards determining where the Colts end up this season. Will it be a seamless transition from last year? Do all the coaches have a good instinct for the right defense at the right time? Will they find they have the right people at the right positions?

Is Rex Ryan the right man for the job in New York, and are they really going to make any noise with their current quarterback situation?

Can Chad Pennington stay healthy for the entire season? Pennington has struggled his entire career to put together back to back healthy seasons. When healthy he's a top ten QB in the league - no, he doesn't rack up big statistics, but he's smart and doesn't turn the ball over a whole lot, and wins, even with sub-par talent. If Pennington can't stay healthy, the Dolphins have no chance. Healthy, they can still get to the playoffs.

How is the Buffalo soap opera going to play out? Sure, they managed to get an extra weapon in Terrell Owens, but he's paired with, easily, the worst quarterback of his career (after dealing with Jeff Garcia, Donovan McNabb, Drew Bledsoe, and Tony Romo), and they open the season without their star running back for three games. If the team starts off 0-3 or 1-2, what's the likelihood that Owens will hold his tongue? The Bills are on the verge of becoming the AFC East's Bengals, or Raiders.

Speaking of the Bengals, after admitting to the press that he mailed it in back in 2008, are there any teammates that are going to trust Chad Ochocinco?

How's Jay Cutler going to fare without any legitimate, top-flight receivers?

How are teams like Denver, Cleveland and Kansas going to fare under their new regimes?

Will Lance Armstrong be ready for the Tour de France coming off his injury?

Off-hand, those are just some of the ones I can think of. Should be a fun year.

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?

Back in the Fens

Of the 15 years I lived in Boston, three were in the shadow of Fenway Park. I could hear the crowds from my apartment.

I lived there during the team's dark days of the early 1990's. The Billy Hatcher years.

I was a solid four blocks from the stadium and could still hear the crowds in spite of the fact the Sox were fielding sub-standard teams.

Today the World Champion Red Sox started their opening homestand against the Tigers with a 3-4 record - good enough for last place and 2.5 games behind the AL East leading Blue Jays. The Tigers themselves, expected to take the Central by most pundits, have started the season off with a big, fat Oh-fer. After six games the Tigers entered the Fenway opening with a big Donut in the win column.

By the end of the game the Sox had worked their way back to .500 while Detroit remained a big Oh-fer in the win column. Considering that only two teams in the history of baseball have even made the post-season after starting the season 0-6, and none have made a dent in the World Series, Detroit fans should be gearing up for a season of disappointment.

For Sox fans the first eight games has been a mixed bag.

The first four against the Athletics were filled with promise as the team went 3-1. When they got smoked in the next three by a Blue Jays team that was significantly better than the Athletics, the hope was that the team was just jet lagged from their trip to Japan. With the Dice-man on the mound the Sox bounced back to win 5-0.

While Matsuzaka's pitching performance was encouraging as he shut down what should be a potent Detroit line-up for six and two-thirds, there were other places that were either cause for concern, or that presented questions that won't be answered for sometime.

For the first eight games Big Papi has been David Outiz. Is something wrong with the hitter who for a two season stretch was the best clutch hitter in the game? Or has he just been affected more by the travel than the other players on the team? Right now the Sox clean-up hitter is batting an anemic .103. Currently Ortiz is batting 147 points lower than Coco Crisp.

The Sox leading hitter is JD Drew, currently batting .368.

Scott Boras would have Sox fans believe that this is Drew and what we saw last season was the aberration, that the guy who knocked in 100 for the Dodgers just before joining the Sox is the real Drew.

The real Drew is what we saw last season. He batted .270, only 15 points below his career average, but was right in the wheelhouse with run production, batting in 64 (career average of 57), and scoring 84 runs against his career average of 69. Expect a drop off.

The question now becomes, which team should we expect today? The one that shut down the Tigers, or the one shut down by the Jays?