blue, red and green

Although a sweep of the Royals at the stadium does nothing to allay my doubts about the Yankees pitching or Torre's handling thereof, I might have jumped the gun a bit on the Red Sox and their prospects. with two bad starts from Clement, a blow out start for Wells, and Wakefield's inconsistency, there rotation looks as top heavy and limited as the Yanks. And with Seanez and Foulke both looking awful and Tavarex being a fucking psycho, their bridge to Papelbon doesn't look much steadier than the Yanks' bridge to Rivera. Actually the two teams look a little like one another, with the Red Sox having the edge in defense, the Yankees in offense.

I must further concede that Williams may not be quite as bad as I have been assuming, though better pitching alone will provide the necessary test.

It also occured to me today than any forecast of how the season will turn out is inevitably clouded by the new ban on greenies. A common crutch for many, but by no means all major leaguers, greenies, or rather the enforced absence thereof, will really come into play in July, August and September for those players that habitually relied on them to get through the long season. their production is likely to fall off, while those who did not use them will likely see their productiveness increase as the median level of competition declines. since we or at least I don't know who took and who avoided amphetimines, it is impossible to predict which players and which teams will experience a late season melt down or renaissance. Transparency has never been quite so lacking as this year. I suspect the impact of greenies was much greater if less conspicuous than the impact of steroids.