OT: Should the Red Sox or Rays be worried?

[Schad]

Too bad that they got it together long enough to take two from the Yankees. Tomorrow is Price vs. Lester, followed by a struggling Lackey vs. Shields...this could get fun.

[Randle McMurphy]

Tampa's lineup is apparently good enough to destroy the awful Dice-K.

[Raps in 4]

lol

[hyper316]

it'd be great if rays sweep boston

[DonYon]

wow, the dice-k i know just isn't this bad of a pitcher. maybe all the madness in japan's on his mind?

[satyr9]

wow, the dice-k i know just isn't this bad of a pitcher. maybe all the madness in japan's on his mind?

Well he's not a 2.50WHIP 10.00ERA guy, I'll give you that, but he's pretty bad. What's really incredible about the Sox is their pitching has been turrible and 4 of 5 are now locked up through 2014, DiceK still has this year and next to round out the group.

Yankees have serious pitching problems but at least they don't have 8 figure salaries invested in all of them for 3-4 more years. Personally, I don't think Matsuzaka's gonna make it through the year in BOS, which will have made him so insanely priced for what they got out of him. I think Beckett will be okay, volatile, but okay. Lester is Lester obviously, but Buchholz and Lackey need some kind of serious kick in the pants. Obviously it's way too early to say anything about their seasons, but IMO they've looked awful so far.

I'm not up on their farm, do they have anybody close? I would've thought the AGone move cleaned out the best and closest, but it's a pretty tough sell to eat 20odd million in Dice salary for two years and have to trade assets to get another high-priced guy to fill his spot if they don't have anyone to bring up instead. They may just have to roll with this rotation (and really if 3 and 4 play closer to expectations than superbad, Dice as 5th is probably not so awful) 'cause it's gonna be hella expensive to go in another direction.

[DonYon]

I got to watch most of his pure dominance in Japan & WBC, so he's pretty much etched in my memory as a top-flite pitcher. I thought his ridiculously vast pitching repertoire would translate well to the majors, but I suppose it speaks volume about how important it is in the majors to throw strikes and get ahead in counts.

[Schad]

The Sox fall to 2-9. They seem to have chosen the right year to suck out of the gate, though; with the possible exception of the Indians, there aren't any potential Wild Card teams who are getting a serious jump on them.