Let's talk baseball. The other day the Manny Ramirez era of Red Sox baseball came to an abrupt end, as he was traded to the Dodgers in a three team deal. The Sox got Jason Bay, a 29 year-old left-fielder from the Pirates. With the exit of Manny, everyone took to lamenting the impossibility of the Red Sox making any substantial playoff run (including me). Manny's and Bay's stats at the time of the trade were almost identical, although Manny had a batting average a good 20 points higher. The issue was that while Bay is a good player and can hit the ball over the fence, Manny is the most feared hitter in the game, reducing the opposing team to shakes, jitters, and sudden bouts of diarrhea each time he steps into the batter's box. ESPN also cited Manny's .400+ average with runners in scoring position, while Bay's is somewhere in the low .200's. "The Red Sox," ESPN's Peter Gammons said with stone-faced conviction, "will not make the playoffs without Manny."
Fastforward to last night. Jason Bay stepped up to the plate, stepped out of the batter's box twice (on account of the Fenway Faithful's ecstatic ovation), and he got on base on a walk. In fact, he got on base four times in the game (two walks, hit-by-pitch, two strikeouts and a triple). Even though the walk was a bit anti-climactic, you could very well see how excited the fans were to finally have a hardworking professional who will ACTUALLY run out ground balls. Hell, he even ran to first base on the walk. He RAN! Bay scored the first run on a sac-fly, and in the 12th inning, with two outs and nobody on, he hit a high fly that bounced off the Green Monster, just a few feet shy of a walk-off home run. He made it to third and scored the winning run on a Jed Lowry grounder. Thank God Jed Lowry runs out his ground balls too. Sox won the game 2-1, and you want to imply, by citing RSP averages, that Bay isn't clutch? Sure, numbers don't lie, but given this guy's performance in a game proceeding a string of Sox losses, a guy coming from a non-contender to the World Series Champions, in Boston of all places...I have to say, he doesn't seem like one to choke. Bay also made a brilliant sliding catch, one that I could never have seen Manny making.
I say after one game, yes only one game, the Sox are clearly the winners in this deal. The energy is there, and I'm a believer in Bay. Red Sox WILL make the playoffs, and they'll go deep.
Oh, and what did Manny do last night in his first game with the Dodgers? He did get two hits. But in the 9th inning with no outs and one man on, he grounded into a double play and the Dodgers lost.
Red Sox - 1
Manny - 0
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