4/6

-Frustrating loss today in Texas. Wake pitched really well but we were uncharacteristically impatient at the plate. That shouldn't happen too often this season though. Ortiz is ice cold, which wont last. Coco looks like trash with those tentative swings. Luckily we have Pena as a backup plan for Blowco Crisp or DL Drew. Texas waived Wilkinson home and tested Manny on a single in the 2nd inning. If that was Tek back there, the slide would have got stuffed by his shin pad. Teks the best at that move.

-Damon's leg cramps turned out to be a strain, atleast in the right leg. He should make a trip to the 15 day DL. They'll make a final decision by tomorrow. they could use the roster spot though so its likely. If he gets put on the DL, it would be the first time in his career, pretty amazing.

-Beltran is a stud. I watch a lot of Mets games on mlb.tv because its an exciting lineup to watch, and Beltran just makes baseball look easy. Hes got five tools no doubt. I love that switch hitting swing too. Just imagine that if anyone claimed Manny off waivers back in 2003, we would have probably signed Beltran or Vlad.

-It's early, but McCann might turn out to be the best hitting catcher in the game, not Mauer.

-Watch the Devil Rays. They'll blow your mind with their speed. Upton and Elijah Dukes might be sticking around for awhile. Dukes atleast as a 4th OF.

-Jeff Francouer has a Red Sox credit card. Kid is a die hard fan. Gammons was telling a story about him on Team USA. A-Rod was chewing out some clubhouse kid who brought him the wrong sandwich. I guess Frenchy, a rookie at the time, got in Rodriguez face and told him to lay off. They had some words and then needed to be separated by Chipper and some other muscle. I like that kid.

-The KC announcer on mlb.tv called our shortstop Coolio Lugo on wed. He messed up saying it but I think thats Lugos new nickname. Coolio Lugo.

Daisuke's first start

7ip 6h 1er 10k 1bb. Nice line for Daisuke today against the royals. It was good to see him in a real game situation. Hes so composed and chill out there that its almost scary. He cannot be rattled. He was throwing a lot of breaking balls and then painting corners with the heater. Overall it was very impressive. KC was completely off balance. You need to watch it for yourself to understand how he has a presence out their that really reminds you of Pedro. Call it poise, confidence, whatever, he has "it". This guy is our best pitcher. I am very confident Daisuke is going to be our ace for the next 6 seasons. He isn't throwing 99 like Pedro used to so some balls left up are gonna get hit out, but hes a pitcher not a thrower. Every pitch has a purpose. His repertoire is ridiculous. He has so many variations on every pitch that poor Remy gets lost. Fastball, shuuto, slider, change, fork, curve, splitter, you name it. You need to watch this kid.

Few quicks to open it

Sox split the first two games in KC and DiceK goes today. People in Japan are getting up at 3am to see that.

Some things over the first few days of a long season...

-JD Drew is like a super Trot Nixon. That swing is sweet. If he stays healthy hes clearly the best hitter outside Ortiz/Manny. He also made an awesome play to track a ball down last night. Hopefully he can handle being heckled by Cowgill in the RF stands when hes in a slump. This guy is good.

-Pedroia is swinging it well over the first couple. Hes a grinder. I wouldnt be surprised if he hits .290.

-King Felix spun a gem on opening day. He might have a Cy Young year. That kids stuff is out of this world. 13K's and not one fly ball. 100 mph with sink is too dirty. Other filthy stuff by Peavy, Cole Hamels, Rich Harden in their first starts.

-Grady Sizemore is already putting balls over the fence. He led the league in extra base hits last year and might have an MVP season in him. Scary thing about Sizemore is that he still doesn't hit lefties well. Watch out when he does.

-Tek bat is slow right now but I'm almost as worried about the arm. Tek only threw out 22% of runners last year. Watch what happens when we try to contain Tampa Bay. That lineup runs and runs, its wild. Crawford, Baldelli, Delmon, Upton, Dukes all have the green light.

Wolfie's driving the DiceK bandwagon, jump on

Watched some of the Daisuke spring training start today. He didn't have his command and still threw 6 innings of no hit baseball. Lets be serious, this guy is a cant miss. I love that little zen warrior. The guy throws 8 pitches for strikes in any count. His change might be his best pitch and it has a rare screwball movement to it (ppl call it the gyro). He gets swings and misses on his fastball when its in the strike zone, not just guys chasing. His right arm MRI came back shockingly flawless despite throwing 250 pitches in a 17 inning HS game and 588 pro innings before he was 21. Hes poetry in motion on the mound. Noone conducted the orchestra like vintage Pedro, but this guy reminds me of him in terms of presence. He doesn't get rattled, absolute stone cold assassin. He doesn't use ice on his arm, seriously, ever. He is going to throw multiple complete games this season. They say he will have even more movement and velocity on his pitches due to the american baseball which is slightly larger and has bigger seems. His first start comes on April 5th (right before Lauzons spike TV premiere) and he will face Ichiro as his first hitter in a MLB game. The same Ichiro who he struck out three times in the same game when he was 21 years old pitching for Seibu. I'm officially driving the Daisuke bandwagon, get on while you can.

-Hansen came in and let up 5 runs and looked terrible. This sucks. The guy has lidge stuff but just can't throw strikes when its important. Been waiting on him to get right for a long time now. Send him to Paw.

-Tough news for the Yankees. Wang will miss most, if not all, of April with a hamstring pull. He has been their anchor and now your looking at Pavano starting opening day. Kei Igawa throws 85 and was a #3 in Japan, the NL hit Pettite for a .280 avg last year and hes already suffering back spasms, and Mussina is coming off a solid year but is 39. Uh, people are worried about our rotation now with JP closing? NYY are gonna need Phil Hughes to be ready for the show soon.

Take the over, Delmon, Cano-verated

- In all objectivity, the line on the Red Sox win total is a gift. Its set at 91 wins which means you need to pound the over if you like winning money. Sox are gonna cruise to 96. They went out and broke the bank Yankees style and improved everywhere. You gotta remember last years team was on their way to win somewhere in the high 90's until they tanked at the end with Ortiz/Manny injuries. That team did not have a deep lineup. We depended on the 3/4 hitters for a significantly higher percentage of our output and it was evident when they went down. 86 wins last season with that tank job, Beckett sucking, and Jason Johnson starting? That was a 95 win team when healthy and this offseason we add DiceK, a good hitter for the 5 hole, and a shortstop who can hit. Then your looking at a healthy Crisp and a likely rebound year for Beckett, who people forget is only the same age as Papelbon. So the logic is we win 86 games with injuries, get better and healthy in the offseason, and only need to improve 5 games? 91 isn't even fair, take the over.

- I love outfielders with absolute hoses. Ichiro holds it down as the overall best when you add in his accuracy. Vladdy wins in the pure power arm category. Alex Rios is a young guy with one of the better cannons out there. Immediately thrown into the mix now though is Delmon Young. That kid is a Ken Griffey Jr type prospect and his arm is just as good as the rest of his game. He gunned some guy down at 3rd last year that blew my mind but I couldn't find the clip. I did find another pretty impressive one though. Go here and click 'Young saves a run' on September 16th.

- I want to talk about Robinson Cano and we'll start with his fluky.342 average. Looks can be deceiving and Cano's 2006 was a prime example. Luck in baseball can sometimes be reflected by a stat called batting average for balls in play. BABIP is used for both hitters and pitchers but lets look at it for hitters right now. It's basically just what percentage of the balls that you hit fall in for base hits. A random spike over one year with BABIP is usually due to luck as more of your balls happened to find the holes in the defense than normal, and your batting average will increase with it. In 2006 some people experienced a spike in BABIP that was not in line with their career numbers including Jeter, Freddy Sanchez, Tejada, Wells, and Cano. Notice that means those guys all hit for averages that were way over their career batting averages. Not always, but usually that means a regression is coming. Cano isn't going to hit .342 again, hes going to hit around .300 flat. And while your thinking that still makes him a good hitter, you need to look a little deeper again.

That Yankee lineup is scary good. They wear pitchers out by seeing a ton of pitches and getting on base for the power bats to drive them in. Only one hitter in that lineup is impatient, Robinson Cano. He might hit .300, but he will sucks at getting on base. Just how impatient is Cano? Well Cano saw 3.05 pitches per plate appearance last season which ranks him dead last out of all the hitters in major league baseball. Cano would need to hit .330 just to get on base at the league average. The high batting average looks nice and all, but in reality Cano actually hurts that lineup.

Add in the fact that Cano is an absolute butcher in the field (17 errors), and the overall picture doesn't look that great. See I don't think he sucks, hes a nice little player, but the fluke .342 season has everyone gushing while proclaiming him one of the best hitters in that lineup and a perennial batting title contender. The guy will hit for a decent average and will take the same number of walks as errors he'll make. The kid is far from being a stud.