Setting Beltre Straight

Amalie Benjamin has a great piece on Boston.com today about the apparent lack of conflict in the admittedly awkward Adrian Beltre/Mike Lowell situation. Of course, Mikey is the fan favorite who had an underwhelming season last year due to decreased defensive production, while Beltre is the new guy who has a reputation for flashing the leather, though he struggled immensely at the plate in 2009.

According to Benjamin's piece, the Sox front office assured Beltre that Lowell would not be the starting third baseman, regardless of his eventual decision (which fully explains their botched trade attempt) but it will make things awkward if Beltre gets off to a slow start. The fans will not be particularly forgiving of a bad April from a player replacing Lowell, who is so revered that he even had the Captain lobbying for him back in 2007.


It's tough to replace a guy who is held in such high esteem by the fans, and Beltre gets it: as he said to Benjamin, he's been down this road before. However, I have a hunch that Beltre could turn out to be a fan favorite in time, especially if his swing is as suited to Fenway Park as some have speculated, and all he has to do is stop confusing us with the Yankees. In Seattle, he said, the goal was to try to contend for a playoff spot:

"Here, it’s different because you don’t hope. Playoffs is a failure. World Series is the main goal."

Alright, let's set some things straight. Every year, the Boston Red Sox try to win 95 games, a number Theo and his team of math wizzes have decided is generally good enough to get to the playoffs. Yes, the roster is set up by those same men to be as good as possible, and thus the team generally makes it there. However, fans who have started to see the playoffs as a birthright (or a failure) need to get the hell out of Red Sox Nation. Let's be serious: anything can happen in a seven game series, and the effect is magnified in the LDS, which of course is only five games long. Getting to the playoffs is what takes most of the work: winning the World Series has almost as much to do with luck as anything else.


Of course winning the World Series is the main goal. I do, however, like to think that most Red Sox fans aren't spoiled and ignorant enough to see any other playoff run as a failure. Get that straight, Beltre, and you could easily win yourself a place in fans' affections.

John Lackey: Playing to Win

When I was in high school, my field hockey coach had a saying for every occasion, which my teammates and I jokingly termed "Keeley-isms." They were just little quotes that could inspire or motivate, but they've stuck with me. There was one in particular that we would hear at halftime, and it kept us working at 110% throughout the second half: "Play to win. Don't play not to lose."

On the surface, it might seem like it comes to the same thing: if you've won, you haven't lost, and if you haven't lost, you've won. However, the mindset is completely different: if it's field hockey, being up by six goals at the halfway mark can make you complacent (typical field hockey scores are 1-0, 2-1, etc.), but the idea of playing to win keeps you pushing for that extra goal, it keeps you hustling back on defense, and it keeps you doing everything you can to beat the other team. In baseball, of course, there's no clock. The game isn't over until the last batter is out, and so playing to win is of the utmost importance. Baseball teams routinely come from behind to win, scoring as many as twelve runs (1911 Tigers and 1925 Athletics) to seize victory.

So why bring this up now? Well, as I was perusing today's baseball stories I stumbled across a profile about John Lackey written by the estimable Amalie Benjamin, with the following quote from Lackey's former manager, Mike Scioscia:

“John is not afraid to fail. He’s not going out there afraid to lose."

Benjamin goes on to capture the extreme confidence and high expectations that Lackey has for himself:

"[He] elicits a 'Never’ from his former manager when asked if Lackey ever has felt he was ready to be taken out of a game. [He's] the guy who is unyielding as a pitcher, unwilling to give an inch from the confidence that he can and should always win."

In short, Lackey is the guy playing to win. Every day. And because he is a pitcher in the American League, all he can do is take the ball, holding on to it as long as possible. Lackey is not playing for a no-decision; he's playing for that W, every time. Lackey joins Jon Lester and Josh Beckett in a rotation that always wants the ball, and never plays "not to win." I know some of you weren't the biggest Lackey fans while he was playing out in Anaheim, and you may have questioned Theo's decision to bring him to Boston, but he sounds like a great guy to have on your team. I know Amalie Benjamin wouldn't write a profile bashing the Sox's highest profile acquisition, but she's really sold me on Lackey. If he has half the character she describes in her piece (fierce competitor, great clubhouse personality, community guy), I'm thrilled to have him.

So is it time for baseball, yet?

On a semi-related note, don't these two look similar? Do the Angels actively TRY to acquire weird-looking players?