Maddux Sports Blog

So, Sammy Sosa is a ‘roid-head? It seems that some people have been surprised by this revelation today. To those people I have a few more shocking pieces of news – water is wet, it’s dark at night, and we are all going to die. In other words, this is the least shocking news ever. In fact, I assumed that the reason that no one was talking about Sosa anymore was that they all just assumed that he was doped to the gills. The only truly interesting part of this story is that Ferguson Jenkins came right out and defended Sosa. The Hall-of-Famer coached Sosa, and he seems to have believed that he was clean. Bizarre? How did he explain the explosion in power and the doubling of size? Though this ‘news’ obviously was no surprise, it does make me sad – it’s just one more reason to believe that no one has been clean in the last 15 years.

I wonder if this means that we will get another name leaked off the list of positive tests every four to six months? There were 104 names on that 2003 list, so our childrens’ children are still going to be hearing these revelations at this rate.

John Smoltz is going to make his debut with the Red Sox on June 25. He will get one more start with Pawtucket (he has already had two there) and then he’ll join his new team. He looked very good in his first outing in Pawtucket, and not as good the next time out. Overall in five rehab starts in the minors he has 19 strikeouts and just three walks, so the control that has made him so effective throughout his career hasn’t failed him yet. He’s obviously trying to be a starter, but it will be interesting to see if he can hold up well enough physically to stay out of the bullpen for long. Either way, he’s an intriguing addition to Boston’s staff. The timing of his return is good, too – his first game is a road game against the Washington – an easy opponent without the pressure of the home crowd.

While I was checking out Smoltz’ minor league stats, I came across those of Clay Buchholz as well. He’s tearing it up in the minors – 4-0 in 11 starts, with an ERA of just 1.75, and a 4:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He finally came out today and expressed his frustration that he hasn’t got called back to the show. He was terrible last year for Boston – 2-9 – but he clearly has the game to play in thebigs, and he seems to be working on the maturity it takes as well. It will be very interesting to see if the Red Sox do call him up soon – not that they have a ton of room with Smoltz on the way – or if they decide to deal him. Good starting pitching has a pile of value, so maybe they would be better served by looking for a better fit in exchange for him. Either way, the rich will just get richer – Boston either gets another top pitcher or a top prospect to replace him.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Baseball Handicapping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.