Memo to Tito

Memo To: Terry Francona
From: Your Red Sox Diarist
Re: Recent Resurgence of Red Sox Offense
With a copy to: Theo Epstein

Over the past 3 games against the Chicago White Sox your offense has scored 35 runs. For this you should be congratulated. This is an average of approximately 12 runs per game. As you know, this is clearly above your season average, even though as a team you are 3rd in the American League in runs scored, 2nd in on-base percentage (OBP) and 2nd in on-base percentage plus slugging (OPS). At the risk of generalizing, I ask you to give serious consideration to my view that one of the reasons for your recent offensive surge is that your third baseman, Mike Lowell, has been batting in the number 5 spot in your batting order for the past six games (of which the Red Sox have won five).

During these games, Lowell, who as you know is my often-stated choice for Red Sox MVP for 2007, is 13 for 21, with 8 runs scored and 10 RBIs.

In case you believe that these statistics are an aberration, I have compiled the following for your information:

Batting in the 6th slot in the order, where he has had 391 at bats this season, Lowell has a batting average of .304, an OBP of .358 and OPS of .842.

In the 5th spot in the order, Lowell has had 69 at bats and is batting .464 with an OBP of .537 and an OPS of 1.276.

Compared to J.D. Drew and Kevin Youkilis, who have had the majority of the team’s at bats in the 5th spot this year (270 at bats and 129 at bats respectively), Lowell excels.

J.D. Drew has a .261 batting average and .359 OBP with only 6 home runs and an OPS of .746—both career lows.

In the 5th spot of the batting order Youkilis is only hitting .217, with an OBP of .313 and an anemic OPS of .616. When moved to the second spot however, he is hitting .299 with OBP of .398 and an OPS of .913 in 249 at bats. It is very clear from these stats that the number two spot in the order suits Youkilis well and this is where he should remain.

While you enjoy a deserved reputation as the consummate players’ manager, admirably standing up for your players during both their highs and lows, I offer that you have had enough patience with the charade that is J.D. Drew in 2007 and instead depend on your MVP, Mike Lowell, to protect the big guys in your number 3 and number 4 slots.

By copy to Theo, please consider the above in deciding whether to re-sign the 33 years old Mike Lowell to a multi-year contract or let him become a free agent in the offseason.

Swept Away

Though Jim Croce's Leroy Brown said that the South Side of Chicago was Chicago's baddest part of town, the Red Sox did all of the tail wuppin' on Friday as the Sox pulled out the brooms and swept the Chisox in their day-night doubleheader . The Red Stockings beat the White Stockings 11-3 and 10-1 and, according to the Boston Globe's Amalie Benjamin, this was the first time since a double header against Kansas City in 1957 that the Sox scored 10 runs in both games of a two-set.

It was the recently emerging offense that did the damage-along with a strong outing from Curt Schilling in game 2-allowing the Red Sox to move to a year high 27 games over .500 and increase their lead over the Yankees to 6 1/2 games as the Evil Empire lost to Detroit in dramatic fashion (a three run walk-off home run by Detroit's Carlos Guillen in the bottom of the 11th).

There was lots of good news from Chicago.

Kevin Youkilis, who had been batting only .226 since the All-Star break (compared to .328 before the break) and has a post-break OPS of .697 compared to .920 prior to the break, went a combined 4 for 7 with one home run, a double and 4 RBI's in the two games.

David Ortiz went 4-5 in the nightcap, belting his 22nd and 23rd home runs of the year and scored 3 runs to go with his 3 RBI's.

Mike Lowell continued to underline the reasons why he is the Red Sox MVP for 2007 by going 2-4 with a walk and getting two more RBI's. He leads the team with 90.

The Captain, Jason Varitek, who has struggled since the All-Star break (batting only .231), went 2 for 3 in the first game with a two run homer and 4 RBI's.

In addition to Schilling's 3 hit, 1 run performance over 6 innings in the second game, Josh Beckett won his league leading 16th game of the season going 5 2/3 innings in game 1.

Random Thoughts:

Peter Gammons had some interesting things to say in his online chat on Thursday. Gammons noted that although the Sox had the best record in baseball, they were not getting the offensive production that they expected from the 3rd, 4th and 5th spots in their batting order. The Commissioner pointed out that Manny and J.D. Drew were having the worst years of their careers. Manny's OPS of .874 was his career low and he will struggle to hit 30 home runs. J.D. Drew, with a .748 OPS and 6 home runs, is also far off his norm.

Hopefully, the offensive display in Chicago on Friday will be the spark that this team will need down the stretch and Manny, Papi and J.D. Drew will return to form in September.

Lineup !! -- Single File

Opening a three game set against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim today, Tito Francona used what seems to have been his 50th different batting lineup permutation. This is no small feat given that the Red Sox have only played 101 games thus far this year. In this Boston version of "who's up first," the Red Sox finally had rookie of the year candidate Dustin Pedroia leading-off followed by Kevin Youkilis, Big Papi and Manny Ramirez. Pedroia, who by the way has the second highest batting average on the team (Papi is 1st) and the team's third highest on base percentage (Papi and Youkilis are one and two respectively), has hit leadoff only sparingly this year and has usually been relegated to the 2nd spot in the order. The number one spot has seen at various times: Julio "Look Ma, I'm batting over .220 Now" Lugo, Coco Crisp and a somewhat ill-conceived experiment involving J.D. Drew. While Papi and Manny are regulars in the 3rd and 4th slots, Youkilis has been moved around from 2nd to 5th to 4th and anywhere else where there has been an opening in the batting order (notwithstanding that the past two years have clearly shown that Youkilis hits much better out of the number two slot and this is where he should reside for the remainder of the year). The 5th slot is usually J.D. Drew's but, with his continuing ineffectiveness, Tito should wise up and put Mike Lowell in the 5th spot (at least for now). The 5th spot is a spot where Lowell can more easily drive in runs by hitting the doubles for which he is rightly becoming renowned for. The Captain, Jason Varitek, fits nicely in the 6th or 7th spot (J.D. Drew would go into one of these spots as well) leaving Coco Crisp and Lugo for the 8th and 9th places. If anything has remained constant this year about Lugo and Crisp, it is that when these two guys get on base at the same time, they usually create chaos for the other team. Let's just hope that when Tito goes out to home plate tonight to exchange lineup cards before the second game against the Angels, the lineup he used in the opening set will be the lineup he uses again today and each day going forward.