Some Things Will Never Change.

So I go into work Wednesday afternoon and things are dandy. I get out of there sixteen hours later, sleep the sleep of the dead, and awake to find that Julio Lugo was sent to St. Louis, they had acquired a first baseman from Pittsburgh in Adam LaRoche, and that they'd let Mark Kotsay go. The seeming shortsighted-ness of the last move is killing me--your backup outfielder is Rocco Baldelli. Should someone go down, which *knock on wood* doesn't seem that unlikely, and Rocco can't go, you've got yourself a problem--but I'm willing to concede that the front office knows better than I do.

So Adam LaRoche, huh? Slightly different coloring but he looks a lot like JD Drew, similar demeanor as well. He doesn't like to wear suits. (Big mistake. Only once in my life have I ever met a man who didn't look good in a suit and that was mostly because he slouched.) And he wants to play in the playoffs. So good luck to him.

There Was Joy in Boston...

Julio Lugo was out.

Julio's time in Boston wasn't always pretty. He had his issues. But I always felt bad for the amount of crap that was thrown his way. And he really has handled benching (at least publicly) with remarkable aplomb. Here's hoping that Nick Green and Jed Lowrie can live up to the expectations.

Pains.

(More gory version here--Don't say I didn't warn you.)

Poor Julio. He was having a really nice spring. He was hitting, showing a little power, not bobbling the ball and he was having success with throwing. And now he's got the setback of a torn meniscus.

The knee is the meeting of the femur and the tibia, with the patella acting as bodyguard. If you look at the distal end of the femur, it has a cleft appearance with two large bumps and a valley in between. The proximal surface of the tibia, on the other hand, is relatively flat. The menisci are two semi-circles of cartilage that are attached to the tibia and act as a barrier between the two bones. They sort of mimic the shape of the femur as each meniscus cups around one of the femur's bumps.

The knee is a hinge joint and while it does have a tiny bit of give, it's meant to open and close--and that's it. There isn't a lot of room for error in a knee. If you twist it, it's likely to cause damage to the meniscus in the form of a tear. Problems arise when the bits of cartilage slip into the space and block the knee from functioning.

His recovery from arthroscopy would depend on the severity of the tear and in which direction the cartilage was torn but the best case scenario would be around a month.

All Smiles.

Apparently, it's pick on Rocco Baldelli Day. What can you do?

Photos from today's workout:

Why is Jason Varitek smiling as he rounds third and heads for home? He's thinking about the ridiculousness of him being able to beat the throw to the plate if this were to happen in a game.

Mike Lowell is just happy to be Mike Lowell. Wouldn't you walk around with a similar expression on your face, if you had the great fortune to be Mike Lowell?

A twofer (because it's a thing of beauty.)

But when isn't David Ortiz smiling?

A baby-faced Dustin Pedroia can't keep it in.

Even the truly scary Julio Lugo can crack a smile.

It's a valiant effort, really. It's almost nearly close to being a smile. Good job Rocco!

Happy Birthday Julio!

Julio Lugo turns thirty-three today. Lugo has his problems but he does have being a good teammate going for him-he seemed to always be one of the first to congratulate someone else on the team. So, happy birthday and let's hope 2009 turns out to be a better year.

A Continuing Series.

It was meant to be included at the bottom of the last post but for some reason it wasn't clickable, so it wasn't really readable. Therefore, it gets it's own home.

It's not related to Jason Bay but I know there are some folks out there who might share Calvin's feelings about the shortstop. I've said it before, and I don't have an explanation for it, but I don't really have a problem with him. That being said, I didn't want to forget about the comic. So, apropos of nothing, there it is.

Big Things.

So, real life interrupts my baseball habit for a couple of days and all sorts of stuff goes down.

1. Schill's done. As disappointing as the news is, I guess I just didn't expect him to make it back in the end. I'm more sorry for Curt than anything. He's seems like the type of person who wouldn't take well to being told that he couldn't do something. For him to have worked so hard since February (blindly trusting that people who knew more than him, knew what they were talking about) only to have nothing come of it, must be disheartening. I suspect that he would blame himself-if only he'd worked a little bit harder or been just a little bit better as a pitcher over the years, the therapy would have worked. Although, the idea that Schill thinks he can just shut up and disappear is pretty amusing.

2. Manni-Jonni. Normally, you miss a Friday night game to go to a wedding rehearsal and nothing too fascinating happens, especially on a rainy Friday night. Of course it happens that when I miss the game, the awesome-ness of Jonathan Papelbon and Manny Delcarmen lip-synching to Milli-Vanilli's Blame it on the Rain is unveiled. How fabulous is it that Papelbon was overshadowed by Manny Del? Clearly, Manny Del was a bigger fan of Milli-Vanilli than Papelbon was. Paps was just kind of dancing around but Manny Del? Manny Del incorporated some genuinely authentic Milli-Vanilli dance moves in there; they just needed a body slam and (I think) the runningman to make it perfect.

3. They wear spiffy green jerseys. Lugo hits a home run. David Aardsma strikes out the side. We'll just ignore all that went wrong in that game.

4. They end up dropping two games to the Cardinals on a poor performance by Daisuke Matsuzaka. Timlin had gone on the DL for knee tendonitis earlier in the day but his replacement, Chris Smith, proved to quite useful. And again, Aardsma struck out the side.

So Maybe I Jumped the Gun.

Last night I wrote that Lugo had anger issues (which is true) and that he must have done something to get thrown out of the game and implied that he probably deserved it. According to this account of the argument, it sounds like I got it wrong. Mike Lowell, who is all things good and true, described the scene this way:

"I heard [Lugo] say 'check,'" Lowell said. "I said 'check,' as well. And then I heard Lugo say, 'I don't know why you're looking at me.' And then Angel said, 'You don't want to argue that.' And he said, 'I don't know why you keep looking at me,' and he threw him out.

"Honestly, he didn't curse at him, he didn't say anything. I don't know if he misunderstood something he said. I didn't think he said anything that merited to be thrown out. Then when Tito confronted him and said, 'What did he do to get thrown out?' he didn't have a response."

So there you have it. Mea culpa.

Julio Lugo, no. 23

Birth Date: November 16, 1975 in Barahona, Dominican Republic

Height/Weight: 6'1", 175 lbs.

College: Connors State Junior College in Oklahoma

Contract: 4 years at $36 million (through 2010)

Lugo had a down season last year. His Batting Average was just .237. Historically, his Batting Average has been .275. He walked only 48 times last season (8%) and struck out 82 times (14%). So, his On Base Percentage was just .294, as opposed to .345 (which it used to be.) His Slugging Average was only .349, when it had been .403. The two combined equal a measly .643 for his On Base plus Slugging.

Defensively, Lugo struggled this year, as well. His fielding has always been just about average and this season, he came in a little below average. He made 214 Put Outs, had 360 Assists, and was charged with 19 Errors. All of which led to his Fielding Percentage being .968 (the league average was .970) and his Range Factor being 3.96 (the league average was 3.97.)

He's another quiet guy, about whom I know little. He is very good at jumping and seems to do that quite a bit. He gets along famously with David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. I think he's similar to one of them. I read a story (it must have been on A Red Sox Fan From Pinstripe Territory, I can't find it now) about Lugo coming out for a game in Varitek's jersey-so either he's got Manny's space cadet tendencies or Ortiz's love of practical jokes.

As for next season, I can't think of any reason for his poor performance last season. He played 147 games. He wasn't injured; at least, he wasn't on the disabled list. My guess is that it was slump that started to snowball on him and he couldn't break out of it-maybe he should ask Youkilis for help if is happens again. He always looked kind of scared when he came up to bat, with that nervous little pluck of his sleeve. If it was an extended slump, then it's both good and bad news. Chances are that he'll return to his previous numbers next season. But if he should start to slide and his confidence is that shaken again, then it will probably be a return to more of the same.