- Curt Schilling is officially off the DL and in the bullpen. He is joined, as expected, by Chad Bradford, ROOGY (like a LOOGY but against righties) extraordinaire picked up from Oakland in exchange for Jay Payton. To make room, the Sox sent Youkilis and Scott Cassidy back to Pawtucket. The changes put the Sox back up to twelve pitchers, although I like Sully's idea that Bradford and Myers should only count as one roster slot together because of their limited effectiveness. I'm frankly a little nervous about the Schilling return, especially in a series against New York, but in a way it's appropriate: the Sox are at home and Schilling loves a big game. If he's brought it, the pressure may actually help. On a related note to the trade, Oakland used the Payton deal to send Eric Byrnes and Omar Quintanilla to Colorado in exchange for Joe Kennedy and versitile reliever Jay Witasick, a righty with an incredible (for Coors Field) 2.52 ERA and 2.09 opposing batting average and 40 strikeouts over 35+ innings. That's going to be trouble for other teams in the AL later.
- New York Newsday printed a very brief rumor that Kevin Millar could be heading to Houston in exchange for reliever Chad Qualls. Robin had me on the phone last night talking about Qualls and he doesn't sound half bad - certainly not a bad exchange for a guy's who not having a great season.
- I spotted this piece the day it was printed, but lost the link until The Joy of Sox reprinted it: According to Gary Sheffield, the Yankees will be backing up Alex Rodriguez if the Sox start any trouble during the upcoming series. From the gist of the article, it seems like A-Rod is somehow more deserving of support this year, or something like that. It makes me wonder if the fight last year was some sort of weird form of hazing for Alex, to see if he was really tough enough to be a Yankee. Apparently he passed, because Sheff's now calling the third baseman the Yankees' "jewel." All told, probably one of the weirder pieces I've seen in a while.
Technorati tags: red sox | curt schilling | yankees | alex rodriguez | gary sheffield
Posts
