From the looks of it, Epstein needs to stay focused

July 25, 2007|On baseball, Nick Cafardo, Globe Staff

CLEVELAND -- You beat C.C. Sabathia, 1-0, behind Daisuke Matsuzaka and great relief, to win your second consecutive game against one of the best teams in the American League. You could lose the next two for all you know, but baseball is a series of snapshots and this frame portrays the Red Sox as a very good team with good pitching.

Be careful not to be fooled by snapshots.

If you're Sox general manager Theo Epstein, you have look at the bigger picture over the week remaining before the trading deadline and determine, "Should I do something huge, something small, or nothing at all?"

If you go by this snapshot, you know you have five pretty good starting pitchers, one of whom -- Jon Lester -- made his 2007 debut Monday night and beat a strong Indians lineup.

What can be learned from this snapshot is you need offense so you don't have to trot Wily Mo Peña out to left field, even though last night the defensively challenged young man made a nice play crashing against the wall to steal extra bases from Casey Blake in the fifth.

What you know is that you have the possibility soon -- after Curt Schilling makes his second rehab start tomorrow -- of having six starting pitchers. Six pretty good starting pitchers.

"Things have a way of working themselves out," said Sox pitching coach John Farrell.

You know you have two guys -- Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon -- at the end of the bullpen that are lights out. You know you have an emerging righthanded set-up man in Manny Delcarmen and you're buoyed by the comeback of veteran Mike Timlin. You could upgrade your lefty situational man, someone like Pittsburgh's Damaso Marte over Javy Lopez, but you'd have to give up someone that you prefer to keep.

You also know the team chemistry is very good.

You know you have a manager in Terry Francona that has won a world championship and knows the buttons to push to maximize his pitching staff and his roster. Farrell was raving before last night's game about the way Francona has used the bullpen.

"Outstanding," said Farrell. "His matchups have been great. He's so prepared before every game as to what he's going to do."

What the snapshot told you is that you beat one of baseball's best pitchers and best teams, but you didn't hit much. So, if you're Epstein, you try to project what to do and who to bring in to make your offense a little more productive, remembering that in this particular snapshot, you haven't had David Ortiz in the lineup.

What also has to be considered if you're Epstein is that you know your biggest hitter, Ortiz, has physical issues. Certainly, he should have had his knee injury taken care of in the offseason, which would have needed a one-month rehab and then he would have been done with it.