Friday, July 20, 2007 |
Hullo, Nancy: J.D. Drew's Contract Already An Albatross In Boston?
For the first time this season, Drew became the target of fans Wednesday night, a repository for their frustration with the team’s month-long slide into undistinguished play. Each unsuccessful plate appearance — he was 0-for-4 with a sacrifice fly — seemed to make it worse.Wow — so not only is J.D. Drew failing to show up and play every day, but he's been relegated to platoon status? And he's being outslugged by Alex Cora (.450 vs. .380)? Amazing. I'll try not to hurt anything patting myself on the back. (Via BTF.)The wonder is that it has taken this long for the fans to express their unhappiness with a player whose very signing engendered little welcome among the faithful.
In 3½ months, Drew has done little to assuage initial fears that the Sox grossly overspent — 5 years, $70 million — to pry him out of his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. For that matter, his frequent absenteeism has only helped reinforce the notion that Drew is too quick to come out of the lineup.
“We’re facing a guy who he’s had a lot of success with,” said Terry Francona of Chicago White Sox starter Javier Vazquez, against whom Drew held a career average of .391 with three homers. “We’re trying to do what’s right and it’s not very easy. We would love to play him and he’d love to play. At the same time, we don’t want him to get hurt again.”
This, of course, is a familiar refrain. It’s not the prolonged stints on the disabled list that test teams’ patience; it’s the frequent one- and two-day absences that can be so infuriating. More than one teammate yesterday afternoon, taking note of his exclusion from the lineup card, managed to roll his eyes in response.
Without a visit to the disabled list this season, Drew has already missed 20 of the first 95 Red Sox games. Admittedly, some of those weren’t injury-related. But it speaks volumes that Drew is often held out against lefties. Should the player with the second-highest salary on the team have to be platooned?
Labels: contracts, ex-dodgers, funny
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