Baseball Magazine
Last night Hiroki Kuroda continued his dominance over the American League by throwing an 8 inning 4 hitter over the Dead Sox and it raised a couple of issues. Normally NL pitchers have trouble adjusting to AL style baseball with these explosive offenses. He has 12 wins and has a 2.96 ERA. I think he has adjusted fine. Sure, you might say “well, it was the Red Sucks” but he did it to Texas earlier in the week.
Much focus has been put on the 2014 season, lowered Yankee budget and free agents Cano, Granderson and Swisher, with all sorts of combinations being floated. Kuroda could be a perfect transition to this austerity budget. He is 37 years old but would seem to have at least one more good year in him. He could be a bridge to Pineda, recovering from surgery, Pettitte who will re-retire by then, having guys like Phelps and maybe a Killer “B” or two, along with figuring out Hughes and Joba. Seems like a win-win situation to me.
PINCH HITS-As we say goodbye to the Dread Sox for 2012, (their savior Carl, will have season ending surgery tomorrow) next up is the White Sox. They just got swept by the Royals and are returning home. Yanks are dealing with the emotional release of destroying Red Sox Nation’s heart and probably will be somewhat drained. Could be a losing 3 game series, which is tough because Baltimore will not go away and Tampa Bay is hot too, both within about 5 games of New York. With a one game wild card elimination game this year, winning the division is important again so we shall see if they rise to the occasion.
-Kelly Shoppach has found an interesting way to use social media. He hated being with the Sox and Bobby V and made his wishes know. They trashed him on the way out, as they often do to their players leaving (Nomar, Roger, Youk all say hello here). Kelly’s response was interesting. He used his Twitter account to leak news of the big, super-super, top-secret player / ownership bitch session which led to the most recent (and may I say spectacular) Red Soxopolypse. Two lessons learned from this. Management needs to be more careful about trashing a player on the way out. Just shut up and stay above the fray. Also, players in all sports need some education about how to use and not use social media. Interacting with fans, OK. Posting naked pix of their wives or girlfriends or videos of them do stupid or illegal things, also not OK. I used to think it was dumb to have to teach people basic skills, but if we do it about not drinking and driving it would seem that people are generally not as smart as we thought they were.
See you in a few days. Sucks fans, see you in 2013.
