Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Joe Morgan, Pearl Of Wisdom

First of all, Joe Morgan now has a weekly chat on ESPN.com?

Can you imagine Joe sitting behind a computer screen, a jar full of baseball cliches and a lovable David Ortiz reference awaiting somewhere nearby? What a concept.

Inexplicably, I scanned yesterday's Morgan Chat and immediately caught hold of this gem:
MJ (Edmonton): Joe is this the year the Blue Jays can catch the Yankees or the Red Sox and make the playoffs?

SportsNation Joe Morgan: They will not catch the Sox, but they could battle the Yankees. But I think the Red Sox are still the best team in the AL, and it will be hard for the Blue Jays to beat them. The Yankees still have questions, especially with that young pitching so they could battle New York.
So, according to Mr. Big Red Machine, the Yankees have young pitching question marks. No doubt the beginning of the season has not been kind to Hughes or Kennedy, but did Joe ever take a look at the Red Sox starting rotation? If he had, he'd notice two unproven young starters named Buchholz and Lester.

Eh. The Sox are off to a hot start so there's no reason to address the fact that Lester has piled up more walks than strikeouts, more hits than innings-pitched and has an ERA over 5.00. Right, no question mark there. Buchholz, who is two years older than Phil Hughes, has a 4.79 ERA and one more win than Ian Kennedy.

Make no mistake, I believe all four of these budding pitchers will eventually become solid, reliable starters in the majors. However, the idea that Boston's twosome is now a lock over New York's youngsters is simply inaccurate in that it is without any particular basis. This being a Joe Morgan chat, there is little reason to expect accuracy, basis or much in the way of facts.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Sox do have Colon and Schilling as backups. The Yankees have Igawa and Rasner?

Bronx Liaison said...

Curt Schilling is still on the 60-day DL and may not have enough left in his shoulder to pitch at all this year or ever again.

Bartolo Colon is already injured and is now about as reliable as Mike Hampton and Carl Pavano.

That is a very weak contingency plan. I would rather have Alan Horne, Jeff Marquez, Dan McCutchen and Darrell Rasner than those two. Though I must admit Horne is currently out with a bicep strain, in all probability he will be a big league contributor sometime this season.

And check out Rasner's statistics this season at AAA: a 0.72 ERA over 25 I/P with 21 strikeouts to 5 walks and only 13 hits allowed..which is a 0.80 WHIP.. He is no ace, but I always believed Rasner was better than people thought..

Anonymous said...

sox suck
schillings done
colons a human hamburger