Seriously, and what are the chances of that? I was wandering through the aisles, looking for a cheap port wine, when my man Ken texted me and told me about the Sox getting Victor Martinez from Cleveland. I nodded quietly in approval, then got back to wandering, until someone informed me that K-Mart doesn’t sell alcoholic beverages and really hasn’t since that time back in ’72 when Rico Petrocelli got soused at a Watertown K-Mart and held an entire Indian family hostage in the home and garden section.
It was good to see the Sox do something to shake things up, and in V-Mart, we get a pretty versatile guy who can spell Tek’s creaky legs and dead-ass bat, play first to let Youk sit in for Lowell, and DH on those nights when Ortiz just ain’t himself. Only two players on the Sox have more home runs than Martinez in 2009, so it won’t exactly hurt our offense, either.
Best of all, the dust of trade deadline day passed and we held on to Buchholz and Bard, although we sadly bid adieu to Justin Masterson, who pulls an anti-Hillenbrand on his way out the door:
“It’s bittersweet – you have a lot of firsts here, and a lot of great things in a young career, but being traded for a great guy in Victor Martinez and a great player, it’s the business side of the game, it has to happen,” Masterson said. “It was a bit of a surprise. A few tears were shed.”
Even more moving, to me anyway, were the comments from Adam LaRoche, who jumped from last-place Pittsburgh to contending Boston just a week ago, and now gets shipped to Atlanta, where the dynasty days are clearly over:
“This is a first for me – disappointing, absolutely. I was pretty comfortable here,” LaRoche said. “This team is an unbelievable team, not just on the field but the kind of guys and the class in this organization. I was looking forward to being part of that for a couple of months. It didn’t work.”
In return for LaRoche, we get Casey Kochman, the newest member of Theo’s All-Powerful Army of First Basemen.
So here we go, folks. Into the home stretch of the last two months of the season. Happy with the deals? Like what you see? Know any hot chicks into baseball, cheap beer, cigarettes and comic books? That’s why God invented the comments section.
