March 15, 2006

Red Sawx

This should be an interesting team. As usual, depending on how things shake up either the Sox or Yankees will win the AL east. However, I do not think that the loser between these two will win the wild card, due to the rising quality of the AL east and the quality of the White Sox and Indians.

They can hit the ball like no other - with Manny Ramirez and Ortiz in the lineup they will score a ton of runs, and Nixon and Varitek are no slouches either. The rest of their lineup is filled with the same question marks, with different names. Gonzalez is not known for his bat, and Lowell slumped spectacularly last season. Loretta is a quality guy, and Youkilis is as yet unproven as a Major Leaguer. And, despite his awesome name, I'm not sure how Coco Crisp will do in his first season in the Black Hole that is Boston after filling Damon's shoes.

Likewise, their pitching is full of question marks. Schilling still isn't the Schilling of 2 years ago, Wells has nothing left in the tank, you never know which Tim Wakefield you will see, Clement is the very definition of the enigmatic pitcher, and I still don't expect Beckett will ever be able to pitch a full season. At least their bullpen has improved from last year.

I predict ~90 wins for this team

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