Apparently upset that they couldn’t land Kevin James, what with his movie career and all, the Sox have been chatting up former Yankee Nick Johnson, owner of what might be baseball’s single worst moustache — a nasty hybrid of ’70s porn star specials and The Killers’ Brandon Flowers.
I’ve never been much of a Johnson fan, but as a placeholder, why not? Everyone in the free world knows the Sox want Adrian Gonzalez: your Uncle Betty, your milkman and your favorite hooker. That tree in your back yard? I’m pretty sure it knows, too. Thing is, unless he’s afraid that Adrian might trip over a skateboard and break his face in spring training, there’s no need for Jed Hoyer to rush into sending the Padres’ best player packing–especially in his first year on the job. A more likely scenario involves playing out the first half of 2010, seeing how things go, and Theo and Jed possibly getting down to business at that time. Christ, for all we know, those two might have already set a time and place for the deal, and Theo’s just biding his time. If that’s the case, bring on the moustache and his career .402 OBP. Although I wouldn’t mind seeing what Casey Kotchman could do at first. And please feel free to remind me of this if Kotchman gets the job and goes 0-for-30 out of the gate.
Still, I’ve spent a lot of the past 24 hours wondering where the hits are coming from.
Meanwhile, the NY press has been offering its thoughts on the Lackey deal, including this from the Daily News:
Lackey is barely on the wrong side of things with his rate of 9.11 hits allowed per nine innings, but he’s there, and he’s going to a hitter-friendly new home in Boston where he is 2-5 with a 5.75 ERA in nine career starts. Granted, those starts have come against the powerful lineups the Red Sox, who hit eight home runs among their 69 hits against Lackey over 51.2 innings at Fenway, but those are some ugly numbers.
Lackey is a proven ace, and I believe that he’s good enough to figure out ways to adjust, but there are reasons for Red Sox fans to be concerned about this deal, from Lackey’s failure to make 30 starts either of the last two years to his past struggles at Fenway Park to the history of pitchers with similar hit rates and lots of innings pitched in the early stages of their careers.
Lackey and Mike Cameron get their Fenway pressers today, at 1:30pm and 11:30am respectively. Both air live on NESN.
Lastly, it’s bad enough my own mother won’t read my posts; turns out Denton doesn’t, either. As a commenter pointed out, Denton’s last post bemoaned the fact that the signing of Tug Hulett has gone unnoticed in Red Sox Nation. He apparently missed my post on the signing. From last month.
Not my finest moment, mind you. But it was there.
