It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Well, the St. Louis Cardinals are finally showing some life against the Red Sox long after the World Series spotlight has dimmed and the media hordes have drifted off. Why the difference now? Perhaps the World Series logo on the jerseys set their hitters off balance.
Yes, a two game losing streak to a very good team in June is relatively unimportant, but Jose worries that this series is highlighting the difference between this year’s Sox team and last year’s championship edition.
The reason the Red Sox had such an easy time in last year’s World Series was their starting pitching. We had great starters, they had merely good starters. Over the course of the season our rotation was not so much better than theirs, but in the October chill, our great pitchers pitched great and their good pitchers pitched poorly. (Note: Okay even our bad pitchers like DLowe, pitched great).
What troubles Jose is that when he looks at the Red Sox rotation right now, he sees the St. Louis rotation from 2004. Five perfectly good pitchers, any of whom he is happy to have in his rotation, but who among them would you like to have pitch Game 1 of the World Series for you?
Right now the Sox rotation is like playing five card draw and getting dealt a King, a Queen, a Jack a Ten all hearts, and then having a 9 of clubs. Yes, all of those cards are just fine, and any of them could be part of a great hand under the right circumstances, but with those five together, you’ve got a loser. Yes, you can bluff your way along with it for a while, but when the time comes to draw, you need to trade that nine in and pray for the ace of hearts. If you draw that ace of hearts then you have something special, if you draw any heart you’ve got something good and if you pick up any other ace or a ten you have something okay, but be assured, the status quo is not good enough. (Note: Jose knows that poker analogies are cliché, but he would like to take credit for defying fashion by using a five card draw analogy rather than a hold ‘em analogy.)
The question is how do you force the ace? Drawing a healthy Curt Euro is the clearest possibility, but who knows if it is a realistic one. So what are the other options? With Ben Sheets and Johann Santana safely tied up and Roger Clemens an overpriced relic who cannot be relied upon to beat Jeff Suppan in the big games, Jose thinks we are stuck relying on holograms or possibly robots… robots have been good before. (Note: What did you really think you were going to get sound analysis of the market for starting pitchers from KEYS TO THE GAME? If you want sounds analysis, go to the SoSH main board. If you want robots as the answer for pretty much everything, come to the KEYS.)
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Wednesday, June 8
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1 comment:
technically with a made straight in 5-card draw based on pre-draw action and your position you probably don't take any cards and see what the betting tells you, since you probably have the best hand.
but i digress.
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