You Don't Know Dick

It's been a while, but I thought it was time to return my roots. That's right everybody, it's time for You Don't Know Dick.

What has he done this time? Well, Griffin starts off by saying the Sox are better because they didn't do anything. Alright, I'll buy that....full seasons from Lester & Buchholz...well not technically full seasons more like 150 or so innings by them and another 50-70 by some scrub cause you don't wanna overwork them too much. And I mean Lowell won't have as good a year as 06, but they're not that much worse off - and hey, they got rid of Gagne & Hinske. Addition by subtraction.

So what does Griffin think makes this team even better?

It may, in fact, be a blessing in disguise for the Sox that the rapidly declining skills of right-hander Curt Schilling have been sidelined for an indefinite period. It allows youngsters like Buchholz and cancer survivor Lester to step into the mix and evolve into big-time contributors by October.

Hold the phones there bud. Schilling had a 122 ERA+ last year. I realize he's old and all, but Buchholz & Lester aren't going to be able to pitch a full season cause of their innings restrictions. So now on top of the fact that they've got 2 inexperienced kids with no guarantee they'll do a good job, it's a blessing in disguise that Schilling is injured? A guy who can eat 100-200 innings while pitching above league average, who's capable of mentoring these kids through examples - and it's a "blessing in disguise" that he's injured? The Sox need a guy like Schilling who can pitch as often as possible to reduce the workload on Buchholz & Lester...

Well, maybe he's right. It's possible that Curt Schilling could be replaced by Bartolo Colon. And what an upgrade that'd be...

Now, I got nothing against Francona, but I thought this was mildly amusing:

As for the seemingly winter-long tussle over the services of the Twins' Cy Young Award winner, Johan Santana, won by the Mets, Francona looked at the negotiating battle as being part of the process.

"Because we're the Red Sox, we get involved in these things, which is pretty cool," Francona explained. "We're a player. At the same time, we love our young guys. I'm happy (not getting Santana). I think we were in a pretty good position."

You're happy not getting Johan Santana? I mean, don't get me wrong, I know he's defending his players and all. But he's happy he didn't get one of the top pitchers in the game? Yeah, I'm sure Francona would have rather trotted out Tim Wakefield instead of Johan Santana. I mean both of them have these weird pitches that go really slow and mess with the batter. Except for the fact that Santana isn't 100 years old and is one of the best pitchers in the game. But those are just minor details. Obviously, if you were managing the Red Sox you would be quite happy not being able to trot out Santana every 5th day.

Now, I noticed it's in (), so it's possible that Griffin substituted the fact that Francona is happy about not getting Santana. In which case, he, and not Francona, has lost his mind...

And then I saw this optimistic gem:

A 13-win deficit is a lot for the Jays to catch up against a Boston team that blends veterans and youngsters so effectively. Perhaps it's better the Jays set their sights on the Yankees and the wild card. That should be their target. It comes down to health.

Alright guys. We can't make first place. Boston is just too awesome (which is exactly why they're happy not to have Santana) to beat. Let's just give up any hope now, before we know if BJ is healthy, if Rolen can hit like it's 2004, or if Wells is remotely healthy. Griffin said Boston's too good, so let's just cut our losses and pray to the baseball God's that we come in second, and that when we make the wild card that the Angels or whoever wins the Central beats Boston for us. Cause if we can't beat them in the hypothetical season, we've damn well lost the hypothetical ALCS.

And just so you know, we lost it in 4. Highlights of the series will include a perfect game by Buchholz, a series ending pop up to 2B by Vernon, Lester dominating Overbay with 2 on to end game 3 (we only got on cause "scrappy" Eckstein & Johnson got hit by pitches), and Josh Beckett outdueling Roy Halladay in 10 innings.

Since I now know that we can't make first place, I'm going to curl into the fetal position wondering why I've wasted my life on a second place team....

Twitchy.