Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia combined for seven hits and three RBI’s to push the Sox past the Angels in a back and forth game, 7-6.
Ellsbury homered twice, his first multi-homerun game of his career, but the most important aspect of his night was playing some small ball.
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Nice to see Ellsbury with 2 homers, both on offspeed pitches, he’s shown an ability to pull mistakes so far. If his power keeps developing with his fluid swing he could potentially be a 15 homer guy. I think he’s pretty much locked up the center field job since crisp has been injured.
Bob – Agreed. Although, I love have Coco just sitting there. One reason and one reason only. You always play better in athletics no matter what the sport is when you have competition behind you.
Even though Coco is hurt I bet Ellsbury thinks and/or feels he is on his heels.
And Julio feels the presence of Lowrie doing an Ellsbury.
We now have 4 x .300+ hitters competing for 2 jobs. Competition may be a reason for their successes, but the whole team is infected by the same confidence, and drive to excel.
What is it that, during the most outrageous schedule in several years, lifts Crisp, Ellsbury, Lugo, Lowrie, Pedroia, Youk, Drew, Tek, Manny, Casey to the top of their games . . . lifting the team during the early struggles of lynchpins Papi, Lowell, Becket, Cora.
Despite constant talk about regressions, cycles, norms, projections, and despite a dozen injuries and illnesses, these tough guys are proving themselves to be the real deal, a truly great team, well into 1st place, even without Papi, Mikey, Becket, Schill, Santana, Street, Laird.
Ellsbury has that Sizemore/young pre-si cover Nomar kind of build where you have to figure his power is going to develop. I agree with you Bob, I have always felt he would be a 15-20 homerun guy within 2 years and if he keeps getting on base at this rate he will justify most of the hype.
I just love how he gets on base and always extends it to virtually a double. No one has thrown him out yet and they know this guy is running when he gets on. He extends your offense in so many ways when he gets on even if he does not steal. Single by the next batter becomes first and third and/or sometimes home for Jacoby.
It is scary how fast he is.