Give the Man Some Love

I've give Coco Crisp more than his fair share of guff over the last two years, and Lord knows he's deserved it. From the day in 2006 when he broke his finger sliding into third base at Baltimore until just recently he has been nothing more than an automatic out. When he's gotten on base he's been a serious threat to run, and he's played a mean center field... but that's about it.

That was before now.

Check this out. Over the last thirty days Crisp has cracked 28 hits in 69 at-bats for an average of .406 and an OPS of .974; when you compress your sample size a little more, he's hitting .514 with an OPS of 1.250 over the fifteen days. No, you didn't misread that. Exactly. He's been hitting like a cleanup hitter from the bottom of the order.

All of this hullabaloo, highlighted by the 3 for 3 night he had today against the Rays, has given the season of our once forgotten center fielder new life. His season stats of .284/.344/.416 have him approaching the line Theo and the front office anticipated when they dealt away Kelly Shoppach and Andy Marte to Cleveland in the winter of 2006. It's a good thing, to be sure, because it's allowed Tito more flexibility with his outfield, as he's no longer forced to play a slumping Jacoby Ellsbury (much to the chagrin of my fantasy team).

Today's win over the Rays really has highlighted the success of this team over the last few weeks. The Sox had one of the best records in baseball for the month of August, coming in just behind the Rays, who have managed to lose 6 of their last 7 games, and are now in danger of coughing up the lead in the AL East. The Sox have been able to stay on the heels of Tampa Bay because of the efforts of Superma--- I mean, Dustin Pedroia, Jed Lowrie, Mark Kotsay and Paul Byrd. After his home run of a deadline deal for Jason Bay, Theo has managed to add the latter two names on waiver deals and give what was a floundering team a much-needed spark. When that spark can meet the fully healthy fuel that his Josh Beckett (my metaphor goes too far, I know), we're now talking playoffs instead of groaning about all the bad breaks we get.

It's a good thing, too, because otherwise we'd have nothing to focus on except the fact that Tom Brady is out for the season.

Yea, good thing.