Every morning I wake up, read my e-mail ("Should I pick up Mark Ellis?"; "What is wrong with Tejada?"; "Dude, u r an idiut"), then check if Mark Texeira has been sent down to AAA, where at least he won't have to beat out Ruben Sierra. Someone please explain to me why Sierra is playing over Texeira? Or Mench? Or Gizzi? Or Scott Lucas, who asks the same questions in his ESPN column?
Jeremy Giambi update: .125 BA, .576 OPS, 19 whiffs in 56 at-bats. To be fair to Little G., his playing time has been erratic, partly due to the success of Kevin Millar, but also partly due to the 18 hitters the Sox have at 1B/DH. The Red Sox should move some of their extra hitting for a relief pitcher who can actually get people out. (The Blue Jays need not apply.) Or the Red Sox could have saved themselves the time and fringe prospect Ryan Hancock and not taken on Giambi in the first place. His obvious skills, a nice batting eye and occasional power, don't make up for the singular problem that he has no other skills (and is a pain in the butt to boot).
An e-mailer who valued my "expert opinion" asked me what I thought of Ugueth Urbina, and whether the Rangers would move him if/when they dropped out of the AL West race. For some reason (read: because he was a Proven Closer), the Rangers signed him even though they had a very capable -- and cheap -- closer in Francisco Cordero and even though they had virtually no chance of contending this year. But they're the Rangers; they don't do a lot of things that make sense. (See Park, Chan Ho.) So would they trade Urbina to a contender? Certainly. And what contender could really use a closer? In the interest of privacy, we'll call them the B. Red Sox. No, wait. That's too obvious. How about the Boston R. Sox? That would be something, eh?
Rob Neyer's article about the decline of the stolen base and the rise of the home run made me think about a player who did both with less panache than Rickey Henderson: Eric Davis. Davis is my second-favorite player behind Dave Winfield, and was everything Darin Erstad is supposed to be -- but 100 times better: he hit for power, he stole bases successfully (84 percent success rate), he would take a walk, he was as graceful as Andruw Jones in CF (with an arm to match) and, most importantly, he played hard all the time. I tried imitating his batting stance once -- erect, slightly open, hands at the waist, bat wiggling slowly -- and let me tell you: that man had bat speed. Davis is one of the few players I've seen who deserves to be called a "gamer." He can play on my team in any era.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030506020451999