Thursday, July 13, 2006

Mid Summer Classic

The AL pulled off another win, that makes 9 in 10 years, the other game in this last decade was the tie debacle that brought about the change of the All-Star game deciding home field advantage in the World Series. To tell you the truth I was kind of rooting for the NL this year, it'd be nice for the Sox to win a the deciding game 4 at home this year, but alas they'll have to win it on the road again this year.......Of course if the Sox don't sweep the series, or worse don't make it, this post will have to be deleted and then certain memories of it erased.....

As for the game it's self, it was a well played game I thought. The National League played it's brand of baseball, small ball, with a steal leading to scoring the go ahead run early in the game. This was a good case of great pitching shutting down great hitters though. The only real rally was in the top of the ninth with 2 outs when the AL scored the winning run on a triple by the eventual MVP, Michael Young.

Now on to the oldest argument in baseball, or at least it seems that way now, if a player with draws from the game due to injury, or any other reason, should that player still put in an appearance at the game and festivities for the fans' sake? I'm inclined to say no. If a player has removed himself due to an injury, the purpose of with drawing from the game is to get rest. They can't do that if they're out obnobbing and doing autograph and press sessions. Of this opinion gives the benefit of the doubt to the player that there is an actual injury.

Looking ahead to the second half, the Sox need Varitek and Crisp to start performing at the plate, and Schilling and Beckett to keep the ball in the ball park. It seems the bullpen has been shored up with the young arms. The real missing piece though is a number 5 guy. Lester has stepped in as a number 4 and done very well in that role. But I have doubts as to whether Wells or Clement will ever make another start for the Sox. I see that Johnson made a good start in the minors, but his only start with the big club doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies about his return. What happened to the guy they picked up from the Kansas City scrap heap? He pitch pretty well for the one start and then was instantly demoted to Pawtucket and never heard from again. I can't even remember his name......Oh it was Snyder, I had to look it up in the roster on the Red Sox web site: Red Sox. It says he's made 2 starts for a total of 7 innings this season, one for the Royals and one for the Sox. Anyone have any information on what's happened with him? He's listed on the PawSox roster, but I don't see any stats page listed.

2 comments:

Zebster said...

They had intended from the beginning to send Snyder to the minors...don't recall why.
The other schmuck has had 2 bad outings, not one.
If Clement would come back and just eat up innings, it'd be a big help frankly.

LittleCuz said...

Right now that I think about it. So we agree that Johnson sucks, why not give Snyder another shot until Clement is mentally ready to pitch in the bigs again. I do think his problems are mental not physical.