Episode #127
Hosts: Paul Testa, Tim Daloisio
Guests: Brandon Stewart (@brandon5tewart)
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Just when you thought the band was coming back together with the returns of Carl Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury, there goes David Ortiz injuring himself on a trip round the bases after a home run by Adrian Gonzalez. Go figure…
And just when Carl Crawford was starting show signs of life in a Red Sox uniform, here come the out of left field trade rumors. Speaking of trade rumors, we’ve brought in Fire Brand editor Brandon Stewart to help us break down the rumors at hand and the Red Sox options come the end of the month.
All that and more on this episode of Fireside Chats.
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Categories: Fireside Chats Podcast
Big fan of Brandon!
I don't want to spoil the positive glow surrounding Carl Crawford these days, but this business about Tito not having CC's back looks silly to me. His beef is that Francona dropped him in the lineup after only two games last year? True enough, Crawford batted 7th in game 3, but that was against a lefty, Matt Harrison. Historically, Crawford has a pronounced righty-lefty split: for his career he has a .812 OPS against righties and .685 against lefties. Last year this split was even more pronounced, .757 against righties and .566 against lefties. So Crawford could not have been surprised that he might not bat in the same spot in the order regardless of the opposing pitcher. Besides … my memory is that Tito dropped him in the lineup to take some of the pressure off. For what it's worth, Crawford went 2-4 in that game 3.
Looking at the first 10 games of the 2011 season, Crawford batted 7th exactly once. He batted 3rd twice, 2nd three times and 1st 4 times in those first ten games, going a combined 5-39 in those nine games when he wasn't dropped in the lineup.
Crawford did not bat 7th again until game 15 of the season, at which point he was hitting .127/.172/.145. It's hard to argue that he lost all confidence because he was dropped once in the lineup before game 15, or that he'd earned the right to bat at the top of the order during the first 14 games.