Talk About Struggles

August 5th, 2009 | by Ray Flowers |

I’m sitting here watching the Rays and the Red Sox go at it, so I thought, what the heck, I would sprinkle in a little Bo Sox news in today’s piece. For those of you who dislike the Red Sox since the seem to dominate everything baseball in the national media, that is when they aren’t talking about the Yankees, I’ll also touch on a handful of guys that have been or could be relied upon in league specific scenarios the rest of the season.

Anyone see that Clint Barmes is 2-for-40 of late? I’ve been one of the lucky ones who took a chance on him when there was likely no one else left to fill a middle infield role late on draft day, but this most recent run of ineffectiveness is what happens when you own a career BB/K mark of 0.27 (it’s 0.25 this year).

Truly shocking news of the day: Erik Bedard’s season my be over. He will have an MRI on his shoulder on Friday to attempt to discern what is causing him trouble when he tries to throw. Seattle Times beat writer Geoff Baker offered his view – “if I was a betting man, which I’m not, I’d say the odds are better than even that he’s thrown his final pitch of 2009. We’ll see.” Like I said, I’m just shocked (notice the panic on my face. OK, you can’t see my face, but if you could all you would see would be a look of reservation as I would expect nothing less from Bedard).

Chad Gaudin continues to define the “boom-or-bust” attitude that many of us are forced to rely on in the fantasy game. With 105 Ks in 105.1 innings everyone can see the potential, and if often seduces us like the power of the Dark Side pulled in Darth Vader. Over the past two outings we have seen the depths of what can happen with this hurler as he has allowed 13 runs in five innings on the hill, though don’t worry, his ERA has only gone up only 0.56 runs to 5.13 as four of those runs were unearned. Still, who does this guy think he is, Oliver Perez?

Esteban German was recalled by the Rangers on Wednesday, and that should excite those of you in AL-only leagues. It’s unclear how much playing time he will pick up, but with Ian Kinsler on the DL, German might get a chance to post a few at-bats, at least in the short-term. German, who owns a .277 career batting average in major league action (nearly 950 ABs), was hitting .322 with 62 runs, 58 RBI and 33 steals in 101 games at Triple-A. In fact, look at how great he has been in his last two stops in Triple-A (this year and 2005): .317-9-126-165-76 in 862 ABs. He might be one of those AAAA players, but his speed and ability to produce in the average category should net him a shot to contribute in AL-only leagues.

Daisuke Matsuzaka blasted the Red Sox in an interview with a Japanese writer in which he basically blamed the Red Sox for all his struggles, and world hunger I believe (OK, maybe not). Given the rash of negative press he received for basically blaming the Red Sox for his struggles (his basic contention was that the club didn’t allow him to train as he had in Japan which resulted in injury and ineffectiveness), he backpedaled on Wednesday saying amongst other things that “It was not my intention to make the meeting public or to criticize the Red Sox.” So what are we to make of this statement? “If I’m forced to continue to train in this environment, I may no longer be able to pitch like I did in Japan,” Matsuzaka said. “”The only reason why I managed to win games during the first and second years (in the U.S.) was because I used the savings of the shoulder I built up in Japan.” Was he misquoted? I got no problem at all with someone calling anyone out be it a coach, player or organization, but be h-o-n-e-s-t about what you said. This comes off as extremely week Dice-K, and I hardly think it will help to mollify those who felt offended at his comments from July 28th.

B.J. Ryan suffered the same fate as he did when he was a Blue Jay. He failed to perform and was released, this time by the Cubs. Apparently his injuries have robbed him of about five mph off his fastball, he usually works in the 86 mph range at this point, and he just doesn’t possess the type of stuff/control that would allow him to be successful at that level. I wish him luck, but unless some rest makes the difference, we may never see him in the big leagues again.

By Ray Flowers

Tags: B.J Ryan, Chad Gaudin, Clint Barmes, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Erik Bedard, Esteban German, Olier Perez