Steroids, blogging, and baseball

For those of you who haven't heard, there's been a buzz around baseball media circles over the past week after Jerod Morris of Midwestsportsfans.com wrote the following article regarding the hot start of Raul Ibanez in Philadelphia.

"In fact, the 37-year old Ibanez has been so good that it has led to the inevitable speculation that his improvement may be attributable to factors other than his new lineup, playing in a better ballpark for hitters, or additional maturation as a hitter. In this day and age of suspicion at any significant jump in numbers, even over small sample sizes, it is what it is - and such speculation is to be expected."

And when such speculation was posed to Morris via his fantasy baseball league's message board, he set out to disprove with whatever statistical evidence he could muster that Raul Ibanez' hot start was artificial by nature.

6/4: Sneaky midweek game day

Sorry for the late game thread ;)

5/31: Shake up at the top

New lineup, new result?

5/29: North of the border

We sent the Jays into the tailspin, lets keep em there.

5/28: Beckett = Stopper

Josh Beckett pitches in his 100th start as a member of the Red Sox and his first appearance in the Metrodome. Unless these two meet in the playoffs, this will be the last time these teams meet in the dome.

5/26: Papi dropped, will he respond?

Let's see how David Ortiz and the rest of the offense responds to the lineup changes tonight.

David Ortiz dropped to 6th in the lineup

The lineups are out for tonight's game against the Minnesota Twins and David Ortiz has been dropped to 6th in the batting order. Mike Lowell will be getting the night off. Here's the lineup as tweeted by Amalie Benjamin.

1. Ellsbury
2. Pedroia
3. Drew
4. Youkilis
5. Bay
6. Ortiz
7. Varitek
8. Bailey
9. Lugo

Calling for Clay

Upon hearing of the feats of Clay Buchholz last night in Louisville for the Pawtucket Red Sox, I tweeted my gut reaction as follows: "Clay Buchholz just made his statement. It is time for the Red Sox to proverbially "sh!t or get off the pot".

For Red Sox fans under a rock, Clay Buchholz followed up his dominant Spring Training by cruising through AAA hitters, culminating in last night's near perfect game. Buchholz retired the first 24 hitters before a leadoff single in the 9th inning derailed his effort. To date, Buchholz is 3-0 in the minors this season with a 1.30 ERA and 49 strike outs vs. only 12 walks in 48.1 innings pitched.

5/25: Happy Memorial Day

J.D. Drew and David Ortiz get the holiday off against LHP Francisco Liriano as the 1st place Boston Red Sox look to make their reign at the top a long one.

Tito to drop Ortiz in the lineup?

Stumbled on this interesting tweet from Joe Haggerty (a regular guest of Fireside Chats) after tonight's game.



I think it's time. Since coming back from his "break", Ortiz has hit a measly .158 with nine, count them K, K, K, K, K, K, K, K, K, in twenty one plate appearances. That's a remarkable 43%. Of course, he does have his only home run of the season (whippeee). Granted he's faced a ton of left handed pitching since his hiatus. But it is time to make a change for the good of all parties involved.