Kuzul

At 36 years of age, David Ortiz is having the type of season that rivals his 2005, 2006 and 2007 seasons, at ages 29, 30 and 31 respectively.In each of those seasons, Ortiz finished second, third and fourth in the American League MVP voting consecutively.This season, he is absolutely raking for the Boston Red Sox. I must eat crow, I wanted him out of town during the winter and I was wrong.Not only is Ortiz leading the Red Sox in most offensive categories, he is at the top of the MLB leaderboards in most categories as well.I know it is hard to imagine anyone but the Texas Rangers Josh Hamilton winning the award right now, but think about it, Ortiz isn't all that far behind Hamilton in many categories.Ortiz is third in batting average at .353 behind only Derek Jeter and Hamilton. That being said, his career-high average came in ...

The Boston Red Sox have managed to string together five wins in a row.Over the course of the last several games, the team has only allowed eight runs, while scoring 34 of their own, showing that the offense is clearly clicking at the right time as well.While I think it would be a bit premature to say that the team is set to tear up the rest of baseball, there are still some positives that can be drawn from the performance of the pitching staff.The obvious positive is what we saw from Jon Lester. His complete game, one-run performance was impressive.The next obvious positive was seeing Josh Beckett come out and throw seven scoreless innings against the Seattle Mariners, striking out nine.The blemish on the record comes at the hands of Clay Buchholz. While he did not pitch poorly, and the Red Sox were able to win, he did give ...

The Los Angeles Dodgers new ownership group has two golden opportunities to make a mark on the new era of Dodger baseball.And...well, they're gonna wait to make that statement until the season is over.Free agent to be, Andre Ethier, has made it known that he would have no issue discussing a contract extension during the course of the season.According to Fox Sports Ken Rosenthal, Stan Kasten wants to hold off and be sure that Ethier can put together a fully healthy, productive season before moving forward with any negotiations.According to Bill Shaikin via Twitter, Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti has stated that nothing will be negotiated with Clayton Kershaw on the extension front either until the winter rolls around.Both of these notes provide an interesting prospective on the team's mindset.I do like that they are waiting and being cautious with Ethier, even though I do ultimately think he'll be back. ...

The debate is raging all over Boston: When Kevin Youkilis returns to the Red Sox lineup in the next couple of weeks, what will the team do?Will they move Will Middlebrooks and his .381 batting average, .409 on-base percentage and .953 slugging percentage back down to Triple-A Pawtucket?With that, Middlebrooks should probably take his three home runs (one of which being a grand slam) and nine RBI with him, right?The fact of the matter is that Middlebrooks has proven himself to be a solid player in his short time in Boston. Whether you are in the Youth or Youk camp, you surely can see the forest for the trees: Youkilis will not finish the 2012 season as a member of the Boston Red Sox.True, the Sox may very well be forced to send Middlebrooks back down for a spell to increase the Youk's. Right now, his stock is pretty low, ...

Of all the stories that have surrounded the 2012 Boston Red Sox, the Adrian Gonzalez saga has seemingly flown under the radar for the most part.Saga, you say?Well, that might be a bit dramatic. The problem is, Gonzalez has yet to truly perform in Boston in 2012. You can even make a solid argument that his numbers in 2011 were faulty due to the fact that he never produced in the clutch.Think about that for a second.When is the last time you saw Gonzalez come up with a big hit in the clutch for the Boston Red Sox? If you can't think of one it is for good reason, there are none.The Red Sox emptied their wallet to lock up Gonzo long term and thus far, he seems to be just OK for the Sox. While big-money contracts have flown around surrounding first basemen, it feels like an appropriate time ...

Everyone, myself included, appears to have been consumed with the idea of adding a player or changing things up for this Red Sox team.However, I realized something last night watching the game against the White Sox. Fans have to look around and realize that this team is quietly winning games and have managed a five-game winning streak.Granted, these are games they are supposed to be winning. The Minnesota Twins are certainly no Texas Rangers. The White Sox are not the Detroit Tigers.Last night Daniel Bard went seven strong innings giving up seven hits and three runs. Not bad for your fifth starter.Thursday night saw Felix Doubront go six innings and giving up five hits and three runs.The fact that the bottom of your rotation only gave up six runs in 13 innings over two games is pretty good in my opinion. The offense did its job as well, scoring 20 runs ...

Nineteen-year-old Bryce Harper will make his Major League debut today against the Dodgers' right-handed hurler, Chad Billingsley.Billingsley enters the game with a 2-1 record, 3.04 ERA and 0.930 WHIP.While there has been a lot of hype surrounding Bryce Harper and what he will mean to the Washington Nationals and the game of baseball in general, the fact of the matter is this: he is only batting .250 in AAA for the Syracuse Chiefs.Is that any indicator of the type of player he will become? Of course not.However, it should give a signal as to how he will fare in his first few major league at-bats.Granted, in AAA this season facing right-handed pitchers, Harper posts a solid batting line of .275/.362/.431/.793 in 51 at-bats. I'm not prepared to classify that as crushing the opposition, but it is respectable.Billingsley, on the other hand, performs adequately against left-handed batters. In his career, left-hand bats put ...

On the heels of an utterly humiliating loss at home to the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox find themselves in the middle of a trade with the Chicago Cubs.So, while Theo Epstein may not have been involved in the 100 year anniversary of Fenway Park, his name is linked to the team on this historic weekend.The Boston Red Sox have sent Michael Bowden and a player to be named later to the Chicago Cubs for center fielder Marlon Byrd and cash (via ESPN).Numerous questions come to mind; however, the two most pressing are:"Is this a desperation move?""Will Jacoby Ellsbury be out longer than expected?"Addressing the first one, it seems hard to say no considering how absolutely terribly the team has played this weekend.The loss at home on Friday followed by an insanely unpredictable finish to Saturday's game leads one to think that general manager Ben Cherington and Co. ...

There are two things in this world that I can't stand: those intolerant of other people—and John Lackey.I never cared for the man when he was in Anaheim and I cared even less for him when the Boston Red Sox decided to sign him in 2010.I'm sick to death of his attitude and arrogant remarks, the latest only being another in a slew of stupidity.In case you missed it, here we are in March of 2012, a full six months after the whole "beer and chicken" fiasco was exposed and five months longer than it should have taken Lackey to address the situation.In a move that can only be classified as ill-advised, he went on the record by stating the following: "Guys having a beer after their start has been going on for the last 100 years,'' Lackey said (Boston.com). "This is retarded. It's not like we were sitting up there ...

One of my favorite wrestling matches of all-time came on January 24, 1999.  It was the WWE’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view and the match was between The Rock and Mankind. It was an “I quit” match to rival pretty much any other that came before it or after.  The crux of the storyline centered around The Rock, at the time being Vince McMahon’s “boy” for lack of a better term.  Vince wanted Mankind to be taken out.  It was a bit of a power struggle.  The Rock was at the time probably the greatest heel of the WWE “Attitude” era.  I won’t bore you with the details of the match, but for some reason that match came to mind when I read Christopher Gaspar’s piece in the Boston Globe this morning regarding the divide being wedged between Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine and general manager Ben Cherington.  Picture this:  Ben Cherington ...