Boston Red Sox 2013 Season Preview

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With pitchers and catchers meeting in Fort Myers, FL this Sunday (Feb.10th) baseball season is officially back!! Well alright, “technically” it’s not back until Feb. 21st when the Red Sox  play Northeastern in their first scheduled Spring Training game. Nevertheless, with the season, and spring, right around the corner; I thought I’d give the Fenway Faithful a preview of what 2013 should look like for the Bo-Sox.

Likely Lineups:

1.OF Shane Victorino

2. OF Jacoby Ellsbury

3. 2B Dustin Pedroia

4. DH David Ortiz

5. 1B Mike Napoli

6. OF Jonny Gomes

7. 3B Will Middlebrooks

8. SS Stephen Drew

9. C Jarrod Saltalamacchia

Granted this is just a rough draft of what the lineup “could look like”. Only John Farrell will truly be able to assemble a proper lineup when spring training is complete. For now, the above lineup is my take on where Farrell may go with the batting order.

The lineup could very well have Ellsbury and Napoli batting Cleanup at 3 and 4 which would then likely shift Dustin Pedroia to bat 2nd in front of Ellsbury and have Papi batting 5th after Napoli. Also, Farrell may choose to have a healthy Ellsbury be the lead-off hitter, which Ellsbury has certainly had success at in seasons past. However if Ellsbury puts up 2011 numbers this season, having him 2nd or 3rd could be more beneficial for the Red Sox as far as RBI production is concerned.

Lastly, the bottom of the order is subject to change as well. Middlebrooks, Gomes, and Drew could all bat lower or higher based on their spring training results. Salty will stay at the bottom of the order until he can prove he’s the switch hitting prodigy he was supposed to be. Only time will tell what the everyday batting order will eventually look like.

5 Man Rotation:

1. Jon Lester. 2. Ryan Dempster. 3. Clay Bucholz. 4. Felix Doubront. 5. John Lackey

While the pitching rotation isn’t exactly terrifying to many teams in the majors, this assembly of arms can get the job done for Boston. Lester and Bucholz will have to bounce back, Dempster will have to pitch more consistently than in seasons past, Felix Doubront will have to prove he wasn’t just a one year wonder baller, and John Lackey will have to return to his prime if the Sox want to get the most wins out of this group.

The rotation may change throughout the season, as it often does, as the Red Sox have options should one of these guys fold. Boston can bring up the likes of Rubby De la Rosa or Allen Webster from Triple-A Pawtucket if those two show they are primed for a big league day job.

Also, Boston could add to the Rotation if they choose to sign still-free-agent starting pitcher Kyle Lohse (formerly with the St. Louis Cardinals). Again like the lineup above, only time will tell what is working, and what needs to be worked out.

The Pen:

Relievers: 1. Andrew Bailey 2. Koji Uehara 3. Daniel Bard 4. Craig Breslow 5. Alfredo Aceves

Closer: Joel Hanrahan

The Red Sox Bullpen as it stands right now is the strongest weapon Boston has entering this season. While the 5-man rotation could use some re-tooling, and our lineup is still missing a big bat or two, the pen looks to have great promise in 2013.

Boston went out in the off-season and added the likes of relievers Koji Uehara and Craig Breslow, and new closer Joel Hanrahan to sure up the 7th,8th and 9th innings for this year. All of which were inexpensive upgrades that should ultimately pay off for the Red Sox.

Win-Loss/ Post-Season Projections:

Though I’m a die-hard Red Sox fan to my very core, I must blog with a sense of realism in making these next few predictions.

Win-Loss Record: 85-77 (I didn’t just come up with this record out of thin air just so you know. I went through the entire schedule and chose game by game what I thought were wins and losses for the Red Sox.)

AL East Finish: I sadly have the Red Sox finishing third this year just ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays by a few games. I see the Toronto Blue Jays meeting everyone’s expectations and winning the east with the Yankees somehow frustratingly finishing in 2nd place. The Orioles return to their usual spot, in the AL East’ cellar in last place.

Postseason: With the Sox finishing third by my count, there will be no post-season play for this Red Sox group. I have the Blue Jays clinching a spot with the division crown and the New York Yankees beating out Boston for the final of two Wild Card spots by a few games.

Final Thoughts: I whole heartedly hope I’m way wrong about my season predictions for the Red Sox. I hope some how, some way, the Red Sox can bring back some of that 2004 magic and sneak into the post-season. Realistically though, I only foresee a minor improvement for Boston as this is a rebuilding year. I look at it this way, ANY results this season should be better than last seasons 69-93 last place finish. How do you see the 2013 season going for Boston? Leave a comment below.

B’s Take Down Buffalo

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The Bruins started an hour after the Celtics and still almost ended before them, especially the way that game just kept going. The Bruins traveled to Buffalo to take on the Sabres tonight, after having yesterday’s game rescheduled due to some snow flurries.. The B’s started off flat but were able to draw blood first, in the 2nd period, when Marchand notched his team-leading 6th goal of the season. Keep in mind that he was injured last game and didn’t play, and was reportedly going to sit out tonight too. Thankfully, he didn’t.

The Sabres tied it up later in the second period as Ennis slipped a goal b9127148-standardy Anton Khudobin (26 saves) as Tuuka Rask had the night off. This was clearly a Goaltender’s game, with both Goalie’s coming up with huge saves, especially by Ryan Miller (38 saves) of the Sabres.

Patrice Bergeron added one of his own to make the game 2-1 halfway through the 3rd period. That is two on the season now for Bergy. David Krejci had a wide open net after the Sabres pulled Miller in the last minute, but decided to give it up to Milan Lucic, who notched his 3rd goal of the year. Krejci made that assist number 7 on the season and leads the Black and Gold with 9 points on the season. That pretty much sums up this Bruins team. They don’t care about stats, they just want to win. Not many players would make that pass. Amazing game, and the Bruins are now 8-1-1. It was even more satisfying because they are the only team to beat us in regulation this season.

This is a new Bruin’s record for the best start in franchise history. The B’s are now tied for first place in the Eastern Conference with the Devils.

They will take on the Rangers for the third time this season on Tuesday. Each team has won one game a piece. Then, we will travel back to Buffalo again on Friday. Who designed this schedule? Anyways, hopefully both Boston teams can keep playing as hot as they have been!

Celtics Win Triple OT Thriller

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The Celtics were up by as many as 10 during tonight’s game against the Denver Nuggets. However, the Nuggets, who were on a 9-game winning streak coming into tonight’s game, made it a game late in the 4th quarter. The Celtics seemed to have the game wrapped up when they got robbed by a call. At least that’s how it looked on every spierce-nuggets-20130210-440x352ingle replay that they showed. It looked like two Denver players clearly knocked the ball out of bounds. This would all be okay If they didn’t review it. But they did. They spent two minutes looking at a play from every angle and it still seemed like they got the call wrong. Denver then tied it up with 0.8 seconds left on an easy layup.

In the first overtime, the Nuggets got off to an early lead. However, Jeff Green made a clutch 3-pointer from the corner to tie it up at 99 a piece with one minute remaining, eventually forcing a second overtime. Pierce made an unbelievable 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds left in the 2nd OT to tie it up yet again. However, it was really close as the officials reviewed where his foot was, and it was about a centimeter from the line, thankfully. Eventually, the Celtics were able to win the game 118-114 and extend their win streak to 7 games. They are now 27-23 on the year.

Pierce led the C’s with 27 points, but also was only 7-of-20 shooting from the field.. He was also able to add 13 rebounds and 8 assists. The bench played huge for us. Jeff Green gty-154249437-3_4_r536_c534scored 17 points and played amazing all around. Jason Terry has stepped it up as of late, putting in 26 of his own. JET made five 3-pointers in the contest. He also had 15 against the Lakers the other night. Avery Bradley played great defense as usual and scored 13. Garnett was off early, but really stepped it up in overtime adding 20 points and 16 rebounds.

The Celtics now have only two games until the All-Star break next weekend. They will travel to Charlotte tomorrow to take on the league’s worst team—the Bobcats. The Bobcats are 11-39 this season and allow 103.0 points per game. On Wednesday, the C’s will take on the Bulls who are 30-20 (4th place in the East) even without their MVP Derrick Rose. With Rajon Rondo injured, Kevin Garnett will be the only Celtic player represented at the ASG next Sunday.

Adios Tim Thomas

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The Bruins have traded Goaltender Tim Thomas to the New York Islanders for a 2014 or 2015 second-round pick. That part of it will be decided down the road. Tim Thomas is a imagestwo-time Vezina Trophy winner, which is given to the best Goalie in the league each year. Thomas was also the MVP of the Stanley Cup finals two years ago when we won it.

Since Tim Thomas took the year off to spend more time with his family, the Bruins suspended him. He had no intentions on coming back to play this season, and at 38 years old, who knows if he will ever be back. By completing this trade, the Bruins were able to create a lot more cap room, while the Islanders, were able to use his remaining one year contract towards their cap floor, which they were well below before this. Even if Thomas doesn’t report, they will still be able to have him on the books, but won’t hindexave to pay him. It’s a win for everybody involved.

Thomas is 196-121-45 all-time with a 2.48 Goals Allowed Average and a .921 Save Percentage. His biggest moments coming in the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals against the Canucks.

Everyone around here loves Timmy, but at the end of the day, it’s still a business. I would rather have them give up someone who won’t play than a valuable asset that reports day in and day out. Tuuka Rask has taken over between the pipes and is playing great. Rask is 6-1-1 with a 1.97 GAA and a .922 Save Percentage. The Bruins will take on the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday afternoon.

Rivers Wins 400th with Celtics

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Doc Rivers is one of three Celtics coaches who have reached the 400-win plateau. He is third behind Tommy Heinsohn (427 wins), who is now the very colorful commentator for Celtics games. In first place is the greatest coach of all-time, Red Auerbach. Red’s record won’t get touched seeing as he has 795 wins, and could have probably reached 1000 if he didn’t decide to step down as coach and move into the front office. Still, he is responsible for bringing Parish, Bird, and Mchale imagestogether after he was done coaching, so he should get credit for those years as well!

Doc is 400-288 with the Celtics over the 9 years he has been in Beantown. He won 171 games as a coach of his hometown Orlando Magic. Doc was also an NBA player beforehand, and is regarded as one of the best, if not the best players’ coach. He was also voted as one of the best coaches at designing set plays from out of bounds. That was from a poll taken before every season. The Celtics have now won 5 straight games.

Garnett Going Away?

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There is a rumor going around that the Los Angeles Clippers are very interested in obtaining Kevin Garnett to help them in a playoff run. With KG’s experience, tenacity, and outside jumpers, who wouldn’t want him on their team? He is still a solid player, even if he is just a fraction of his former self. It is great that Garnett always says he wants to retire aindex Celtic, and I think he should too, but if it is between trading him or Pierce, I’m letting go of Garnett. Pierce got stabbed a bunch of times, had to play alongside some of the worst Celtics ever (i.e. Antoine Walker after his “prime”), and stuck with the team throughout their down years. He holds many records in this storied franchise and I think he deserves to stay. But I digress..

It’s hard to keep Garnett with the season we are having. Yes, we have been playing a lot better since Rondo went down, but before that, it hardly seemed worth the two year, $23.5 million deal that he still has after this season. However, for what they are offering, at least what is rumored, is to trade him for Caron Butler (10 year veteran with 15.7 PPG in his career, most of which occurred a few years back), and 2nd year point guard Eric Bledsoe, who the Clippers are very high on, it is not worth it. Bledsoe is averaging just over 9 points a game this season, playing behind Chris Paul when he was healthy.

Danny Ainge went on the record saying that he really hasn’t talked about moves, but will take a wait-and-see mentality before the trade deadline on February 21. Anyways, KG has a no-trade clause in his new contract, and can veto any trade that we try to do. That being said, do you think he would go? In my mind, the Clippers have a lot better of a chance of winning than we do. However, he has been the harshest since the Ray Allen-to-Miami signing. Would it make him a hypocrite? What do you think?

Sullinger Out For Season

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Well… so much for wearing my Sullinger shirt all season. The breaking news is that Rookie Jared Sullinger will be out for the rest of the season after re-injuring his back. The reason why he fell so far in the draft was because teahi-res-158984834_crop_exactms didn’t think that he could get past his injury. I guess they were right. Apparently, he will be perfectly fine after he rehabs, but you never know. This happens less than a week after we found out that Rajon Rondo would miss the rest of the season as well.

Sullinger has proven himself to be one of the better rookies in the league, and by far the best one the Celtic’s have brought on board in years. Jared averaged 6 points and 5.9 rebounds in just under 20 minutes per game. These aren’t outstanding numbers, but as of late, he has been on of our most solid contributors. The Celtic’s have called up Fab Melo from the Development League, and he may see some time.

C’s Versus Kings

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The Sacramento Kings (who probably won’t be known as that for long) come to the Garden tonight to take on the Rondo-less Celtics. We are better than them in every category except rebounds and points (barely), even though we are going to miss Rondo’s 11.1 Assists Per Game. After beating the Heat in double OT on Sunday, this should be an easy game, but ya never know.NBA: Miami Heat at Boston Celtics

There has also been speculation that we were trying to acquire their hot-headed star Demarcus Cousins for Bradley and Sullinger and maybe something else. I hope this doesn’t happen since I would then be stuck with a Ray Allen and Jared Sullinger shirt and nothing to do with them. Anyway, tune into our Twitter (https://twitter.com/BostonSB) tonight for periodic updates and follow us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/BostonSportsBlog)

Kings Celtics
W-L 19-29 21-23
Points Scored 96.9 95.1
Points Allowed 103.2 96.5
Rebounds 40.5 39.6
Assists 19.9 23.1
Turnovers lost 14.7 14.6
Turnovers forced 14.8 15.8

The Fraud That Is Ray Lewis

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Like any Boston fan, I’ve been trying to avoid Sportscenter as much as possible lately. Aside from the Bruins, there’s just too much upsetting news in the sports world right now. I mean the Red Sox are still irrelevant for the time being, the struggling C’s lost Rondo for the year, and Ray Lewis’s face pisses me off now more than ever.

But with said, it’s kind of hard to raycriesavoid hearing about the latest in the Ray Lewis fraud fiasco. I honestly don’t know how he is getting off so easily with all this. For starters, he may or may not have murdered two guys outside a nightclub, or was at least involved enough to pay off the family of the victims and lead them to cringe each time they see him on TV. I know this is old news and only coming up again now because he’s back in the Super Bowl, but it wouldn’t be nearly as bad if the man didn’t pretend to be a saint. Wes Welker’s wife hit the nail on the head and I really wish she stuck by her words instead of apologizing. As much as he pretends to be and wants to be, the man is no role model.

nfl_u_raylewis_cmg_600With the murder situation aside, new insight from Sports Illustrated claims Ray used banned substances to recover from his torn triceps injury. Again, the man just simply denies it when confronted at media day and everyone moves on. HOW? How in the world did the media just give up on that question? Ray says he doesn’t want to talk about it and that’s it? A 37 year old Ray Lewis suffers an injury that would keep a 23 year old specimen of an athlete out at least 6 months. Within 7 weeks, the guy is back on the field. In less than 3 months he’s playing again. Oh and just happens to announce upon return that this will be his last year. I call bullshit.

Now I’m all about a good sports story. Coming back from an injury to end a Hall of Fame career with a Super Bowl win, who wouldn’t want to see something like that? But not from this guy. And I’m not saying that as a Pats fan whose still bitter about losing in the AFC championship game, even though I am. I’m saying that as a human being who doesn’t want to see people praising a murderer, cheater, liar, fraud, etc. In fact, I despise Jim Harbaugh so much I would actually root for the Ravens if it weren’t for Ray Lewis. I know this new story will have no effect on Ray playing Sunday but I truly hope more comes of it after the season and his career gets yet another asterisk next to it. I say this with reluctance, but let’s go Niners!