Projo SoxTalk with McAdam: A big hole in the heart of the order
Click the play button below to hear Sean's comments, recorded this morning. The topics: Hideki Okajima's meltdown in Baltimore, David Ortiz's wrist injury, how the Red Sox will shuffle their lineup and who needs to step up, and setting the stage for the coming visit by Tampa Bay.
Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments:
On losing Ortiz: "Even with his struggles in the first couple of weeks, he was leading the team in home runs and RBI; he has with Manny Ramirez formed I think inarguably the best three-four combination in the game the last four, five seasons; and he's possibly the best run producer in baseball. So even a month out of the lineup is going to be a signficiant loss for the Red Sox. I think short term, they can probably cover themselves and move some people around and have Ellsbury play left field on a more regular basis, and have have Manny DH. There's a number of things they can do, but none of those things is going to be able to replace David Ortiz."
Who needs to step up: "I think the Red Sox woud like to see J.D. Drew step up a little bit. If you keep Lowell at the fifth spot and take Youkilis out [moving him to third in place of Ortiz], that moves Drew up probably to sixth in the lineup, and he'll be asked to provide some protection for Lowell and Ramirez, and the Red Sox have to hope that he can respond and knock some runs in on his own."
On this week's series: "I think it's going to be a good test for the Rays, because this will be an opportunity where teams and the rest of baseball will be looking to see how they respond to this. I think they've snuck up on some people the first couple of months as the young upstart team, but now here they are, coming in, in the lead in the division, playing the team that's chasing them, a team that's won two World Series in the last four years and is far more experienced about big games, and I think it will be interesting to see how Tampa
Bay responds to this."
