Goodbye, McDonald

Darnell McDonald was designated for assignment Saturday to make room for Josh Beckett on the roster. Even though I enjoyed having McDonald on the team and was even pushing for him to have a starting position during Spring Training (his numbers were great, if you remember), it really wasn’t surprising to see him go. (Un)Fortunately, it looks like we’ll be saying goodbye to more players in the next few weeks.

For the season, McDonald hit .214 with 2 home runs, 7 doubles, and 9 RBIs. His strike outs (17) were more than his walks (12), and he was caught stealing (1) as often as stealing (1). Minus the players who have seen less than 10 games, McDonald was the worst. It’s a business, plain and simple.

Darnell McDonald is one of my favorite players to follow on Twitter. He always seems to have something positive to say, no matter the situation. Even when he was DFA’d, he tweeted: Dream come true to playin Boston want to wish my boys good luck the rest of the year! Much love to RSN! #ShowGoesOn. Then he was sent back to Boston to learn his fate (traded or released essentially), and he tweeted: Back to Boston to wait and see where the journey leads S/O to all my followers! #twitterswag #blessed. As with many players who have left the Red Sox for other things, I will continue to follow McDonald. I just hope he gets picked up by another team and continues to play.

In 2012, the Red Sox has seen 11 players in the outfield; from most games to least they have been: Sweeney (52), Ross (50), Nava (45), McDonald (38), Byrd (34), Podsednik (19), Kalish (13), Ellsbury (7), Anderson (6), Lin (6), and Repko (5). The outfield has seen way too many players on the disabled list (Crawford, Ellsbury, Ross, Kalish, Sweeney, McDonald, Podsednik, and Repko). Crawford has yet to play a game, and Ellsbury has played a week’s worth of games.

It appears to me that once Crawford and Ellsbury come back (early indications are July 13th for Crawford and July 19th for Ellsbury), other players will either be traded or DFA’d as well. Likely, Ross would bring in the most for a trade, followed by Sweeney and Nava. I don’t believe Kalish will be traded, since he was dubbed “Right-Fielder of the Future” in 2010. Podsednik will most likely be traded as well, possibly in a package to bring in a starting pitcher.

As we learned from Youkilis’s trade last week, no one on this team is untouchable in terms of trades (well, maybe not Pedroia). I’ve stated before that Shoppach will probably be traded in favor of Lavarnway, but as my brother pointed out yesterday, wouldn’t that trade already have happened? The bullpen is fluid, as anyone can be traded in favor of new, fresher arms. Bailey should be coming back at some point, so what do they do with Aceves?

As we say goodbye to Darnell McDonald, I think in the back of everyone’s minds the question remains, “Who else will we say goodbye to?”

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Red Sox are on a three-game winning streak heading into to their early (10:05 Central time) game for Patriots Day. Instead of recapping the three games, I thought I would give a few observations and tidbits from what transpired this weekend:

The Good

* The Red Sox are winning, so that’s the main good thing to come out of this weekend.

* Josh Beckett found his groove again. For Fridays game, he went 8 innings pitched, giving up 1 run on 5 hits and 1 walk, while striking out 1.

* The Red Sox owned Tampa Bay in the 8th inning. On Friday, they scored 8 runs, and on Saturday, the scored 5 runs

* The offense really started coming around these three games:

Gonzalez: 5/13 with a double and an RBI

Youkilis: 4/10 with 3 RBIs
Ortiz: 9/13 with a home run, 4 doubles, and 8 RBIs
Ross: 3/10 with 2 home runs, a double and 8 RBIs
Aviles: 5/13 with 2 home runs, a double, and 2 RBIs
Shoppach: 4/7 with 3 doubles, 3 RBIs, and a stolen base (his first attempt in the Majors… ever. It was nic-named “The Stop, Shop, and Roll” on Twitter).

* The bullpen was great (minus Melancon on Friday who gave up a home run):

Morales: 1 IP, 0 hits, 0 BBs, 1K

Atchinson: 1/3 IP, 1 hit, 1 BB, 1K

Padilla: 1 2/3 IP, 1 hit, 0 BBs, 2Ks
Aceves: 2 IP, 0 hits, 0 BBs, 3Ks

 The Bad

* For some reason, Valentine is not playing Sweeney, who, if memory serves me, has not gone a game he’s played without a hit. In the two games he played this weekend, he went 2/7 with 2RBIs.

* As much as I like McDonald, he’s cooled way off since Spring Training. This weekend, he was 1/9 with a double. With Ellsbury out (more on that in The Ugly section), I’m sure we’ll be seeing much more of McDonald.

* While Beckett seemed to have found his groove, Buchholz and Doubront still have some work to do:

Buchholz on Saturday: 7 IP, 6 hits, 5 runs, 3 walks, and 5 strikeouts. (Also worth noting, that while I wasn’t able to watch most of this game, I did check the score in the 3rd inning. It was 5-0 Rays. Luckily for Buchholz, the offense clicked later in the game.)

Doubront on Sunday: 5 IP, 9 hits, 4 runs, 1 walk, 7 strikeouts (Doubront did great until the 5th inning, when he gave up all 4 runs).

 The Ugly

* The Red Sox will be without Ellsbury an estimated 6-8 weeks because he has a subluxed right shoulder. A shoulder subluxation is when the shoulder doesn’t completely become dislocated. I wrote briefly about how the injury occurred on Friday. The word “surgery” hasn’t appeared associated to Ellsbury’s name as of yet, and it could just require rest and rehabbing.

* Valentine is causing controversy with Youkilis. Valentine made the following comment to WHDH’s Sports Xtra show Sunday night:

I don't think he's as physically or emotionally into the game as he has been in the past for some reason. But [on Saturday] it seemed, you know, he's seeing the ball well, got those two walks, got his on-base percentage up higher than his batting average, which is always a good thing, and he'll move on from there.

When Youkilis was asked about the comments this morning, he replied with:

I’m more confused than anything because everyone knows I go out and play the game as hard as I can. It’s just my style of play. I was never blessed with the raw tools and I’ve always had to use playing the game hard and with full effort my whole life.

Valentine stated that he met with Youkilis and offered him a clarification and an apology. For what it’s worth, Youkilis was not in the line-up today for what Valentine called a “groin injury.” When asked about the clarification and apology, Valentine stated:

Kevin came in this morning and I thought it was about his groin. I thought he was going to tell me how his groin was, and I said, `Hey, how’s the groin?’ and he said, 'Well, all right, but what’s going on?'

When he told me that people called him and told him that I said things that he didn’t like, I totally apologized. I said the last thing in the world I want you to think is that I'm doing anything to criticize you. I was giving an answer to a question and I should've been more specific and said your physical was about your swing and your emotional was not being happy when you don't hit a ball off the wall.

I don't know if he accepted my apology, but it was very sincere. The last thing in the world is that I didn't want him to think that this was anything but an answer to a question that seemed to be jabbing at him. I was just trying to smooth it over and I guess that I didn't.

I’m not sure how I want to read into this. I want to think that everything’s going great with the new manager, but it just may not be that way. Pedroia said it best, I think:

I don't know what Bobby's trying to do, but that's not the way we do things here. Maybe that stuff works in Japan.

Ugly indeed.

Does McDonald Deserve to be an Opening Day Starting Outfielder?

Darnelll McDonald has been raking during Spring Training. In fourteen games, he’s hitting .467 with five doubles, one triple, and two home runs. He has a .515 OBP, a .900 SLG, and 1.415 OPS. Even a limited amount of “practice” games, that’s still pretty impressive.

Darnell McDonald is in his third year with the Red Sox, and he’s always been one of my favorite players to watch. He’s one of those guys who can come off the bench and make a difference, and he always seems to have a good attitude. In 2010, he seemed to come out of nowhere to help with the outfield (remember, we had holes for Ellsbury, Drew, and Cameron, who were all injured at some point that season).

Last year, McDonald had a less-than-impressive year. In 79 games, he had a .236 BA, a .303 OBP, a .401 SLG, and a .704 OPS. Because of these numbers, he lost the right-field position (when Drew was hurt… again) to Josh Reddick. Reddick seemed to carry the team when he won the position, though he did cool off as the season continued.

In 2010, McDonald’s truly breakout season, he batted .270 with a .336 OBP, a .429 SLG, and a .766 OPS in 117 games. He had nine home runs, nine steals, and three triples. I always seem to find the triple stat the most interesting, since it seems like only a select number of hitters can get a triple, most of the team there needs to be speed involved.

*A quick note, David Ortiz is one of only three American League players to have at least one triple in each of the past eleven seasons…A stat that seems pretty remarkable.*

The Red Sox are going to start the season with essentially two holes in the outfield, right and left field. From various reports, it appears that right field is going to be platooned by Ryan Sweeney and Cody Ross, who are both deserving of the position, in my eyes at least. Left field is vacant because of Carl Crawford’s injury.

I think Darnell McDonald deserves to start in left field at the start of the season. Not only has he earned it based off his Spring Training, but he has been a member of this club for the past two seasons. He has the hot bat at the moment, it seems as well. I, for one, would like to start the season with a win, and I think McDonald can be one of those players who can carry the team at the start of the season.