Much has been made of the inexperience of this year’s Tampa Bay Rays team.  Experience doesn’t have anything to do with postseason success.  The Rays are a team who have been around the league and have experienced just about everything necessary to cope with the playoffs.To perform in the postseason all a player really needs is two years of big league experience.  Two years is about the amount of service time that a ball player needs to become acclimated to the intensity of professional baseball and to pick up on the nuances in a hitter or pitcher’s tendencies.  There really isn’t much that a player will see in the playoffs that they haven’t encountered at some point during the regular season.In the playoff push, the intensity ramps up at the end of regular season and prepares the team for what they will see in October.  There are plenty of guys who have thrived in the playoffs in their first or second season.  For examples, look no further than the postseason performances of Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury in 2007.  For every Rick Ankiel meltdown in the playoffs you have 5 or six players like Pedroia, Ellsbury, Francisco Rodriguez, Adam Wainwright, or Josh Beckett who thrive while under the spotlight.

Far more important than post season experience is clubhouse chemistry. The Yankees have a lineup loaded with talent and experience, and yet they haven’t won anything in years.

Everyone is nicked up at this point in the season.  When you play 162 games there are bound to be some aches and pains as you approach the end of the season, but the key is, as a professional, try to step it up another notch and remain productive in spite of injury.  There may seem to be some injuries on this team now, but this group of vets will be able to play through most of it.I haven’t heard anything on Mike Lowell or JD Drew but I expect them to be back in the lineup before the end of the season.  I wish I could give a more definitive answers but this type of information is kept so quiet in today’s game.  No injury talk goes on in the clubhouse and the team keeps a lot of information back because they don’t want the opposition to gain an advantage.

Mark Kotsay will be a productive addition to the Red Sox.  One thing that can be said of the Red Sox front office is that they are extremely thorough in their research.  They aren’t going to go out and get someone that isn’t a good fit on this ball club.  They compile so many stats that they will go out and get the best option available, and in this case that option is Mark Kotsay.

Last night was a key win for the Boston Red Sox because it means they can’t be swept in the Bronx and, unfortunately for Yankee fans in their last season at the original Yankee Stadium, a sweep of Boston was the Bombers’ only hope of making the playoffs this season.  Of course the Red Sox need to take their season one game at a time, but this Yankees series no longer has a chance to break Boston.  The next series against Chicago will be much more important than this New York series.  For the remainder of the season the outcomes of games involving Tampa Bay, Minnesota, and the White Sox will be much more important to the postseason hopes of the Red Sox than any of the events occurring in New York.

Also, did my eyes deceive me or did George Scott wear a batting helmet and a batting glove on his throwing hand while playing first base?
Roy J.

Long before John Olerud came into the big leagues, Boomer did wear a batting helmet in the field.  But Boomer’s helmet wasn’t like the helmets that hitters wear today, it was like a hat helmet.  Before the current helmet used in baseball became mandatory, hitters would wear a skull cap to the plate.  This is what Bob Montgomery would wear when he hit and it is what the base coaches wear nowadays.

I don’t think Boomer ever wore a batting glove on throwing hand while playing first base.  I can’t think why he, or any other first baseman, would ever do something like that.

Do you recall a bomb you hit at old Comiskey Park in the mid seventies? I believe you hit it over the center field wall which was 440′, (OK I looked it up). Is this the longest homerun of your career? If not, I’d be curious as to which one was.

I don’t remember that homerun.  Comiskey was a very small ball park.  It was shorter than Fenway to centerfield, short to leftfield, and shorter than that in right.  I had two long homeruns in my career that stand out in my mind:

I hit one into the 3^rd or 4^th deck (however many they have, it was the top one) in Yankee stadium off Matt Keough.  I think Keough hit me with a pitch twice in that game, but third time I got him.

The other homerun, which is probably the biggest shot of my career, was off of Kansas City pitcher Steve Busby in 1975.  Mr. Yawkey said it was probably the longest homerun he had ever seen.

Well it was another tough match-up against Toronto this weekend, just as it has been for the Red Sox against Blue Jay teams over the last 20 years.  Josh Beckett missed his locations, but I don’t think it has anything to do with injury.  The only thing to do after a series like that is to move on and play the next game.

Now, I hope the Red Sox leave Baltimore with three wins and we can then take our chances in New York and Toronto.  I think Toronto will be a tougher series than the Yankees; I never worry about New York.  If you look at the salaries they should win the World Series every year but they can’t put it together.  When you throw 9 All Stars out there you expect to win.

Tonight kicks off an important series because with Tampa Bay playing well and the Twins staying close in the Wild Card Race, the Red Sox need to gain some momentum.

This past series against the White Sox was a split but I thought the Red played pretty good.  They ran into some tough pitching but played each game competitively and, had they been able to score some runs against the bullpen, this could have been a 4 game sweep for Boston. I think people are worried about Josh Beckett but he just hasn’t been getting run support.  Clay Buchholz is a different story; Clay needs confidence to hit spots because he has live fastball and good breaking ball.  The problem is that he gets rattled when pressure’s on causing him to guide the ball the ball to the plate.  When the velocity is not there his pitches hang. Clay has the ability and talent but his is still a little immature in his makeup.

Now Boston has a good opportunity to gain some momentum against Texas. Mike Lowell and Papi are both ready to go tonight (Lowell is here reading the paper).  They both appear healthy so this series looks good for Boston.

I just talked to Bob Montgomery and he said that Charlie Zink is not quite as good as Wakefield in terms of movement on the knuckler, but that he has the ability to get outs regardless.  What Zink needs to do is hit his locations and get swings and misses from last minute movement.  If Zink can keep the team in the game and keep the ball in the ballpark, the Sox have a good chance of getting a win tonight.

Find some momentum in this series and get some confidence going into what could be a tough series at the end of the week against Toronto.

Hi Jim - It amazes me that with all the recent technology that has become part of sports, along with nutrition and money, that we have not had a triple crown winner or a .400 batting average in many many years.  Do you think there is a player in baseball that has a LEGITIMATE shot at either of those records?

I don’t think you will ever see anyone approach those milestones in the near future.  To accomplish a feat like the triple crown, you need to have a player who can hit for power and average, and hit within a lineup that puts people on base in front of him.  Aside from that, to reach either of these milestones you need a guy who can stay healthy and play enough games while remaining productive.

I don’t think we will see anyone approach either of these milestones in the near future.

As the Red Sox travel to Chicago for this 4 game weekend series, I am reminded of the times played against the White Sox.  The new stadium is nice, but I played at the old Comisky, a dingy ballpark if there ever was one.  The grass was high and at one point they even had Astroturf in the infield. Bill Veeck and Charlie Finley (A’s) were maverick owners of their time.  Veeck was the first owner to disco to the ballpark, he had a shower in center field, and was the first person to have a picnic areas at the ballpark.

When I played, I played against Ozzie Guillen and, from what I see, he is entirely different as a manager than he was as a player.  This is understandable because managers need to be tough to get the respect of their players.  This fiery demeanor that he has now is not what he was as a player.  When he played Ozzie liked to have fun.  He was solid fundamentally; an infield guy that was good with the glove and could handle the bat.  He was a small guy and you never saw the anger from him that you see now.  There were too many giants out there for him to start fights.

Jacoby Ellsbury has made some changes that should help his approach at the plate.  I saw him at batting practice the other day at batting practice and with each pitch, Jacoby would drop his hands so that he was starting his swing with hands below waist.  Hitters need to keep their hands up so that they don’t get underneath the baseball.  I think he looked at some video that has corrected this flaw and now you will see a different Jacoby!