A Modest Proposal

I'm not talking about the game from Sunday, per se. Brad Penny pitched a good game. He matched Shields and had better control. The Sox got some hits and scored some runs.

No, this is personal.

Julio. Lugo. Must. Go.

I don't care how. I don't care where. I don't care if the Sox have to eat every last penny of that dumb-ass contract they signed him to a couple of years back. All I know is that Stone Hands needs to get the hell out of a Boston uniform now.

Lugo has started at short in two games since he rejoined the squad. And in both games, he botched a key play that allowed the opposing team to either get back in the game and win or widen their lead and saddle the Sox with a loss.

Enough. I would rather have Nick Green and his errors at short than Lugo and his mistakes. At least Green commits his mistakes at non-critical times and then makes up for it with his bat. Lugo extends a Rays' rally and goes 0-4. Big shock. Never saw that one coming.

16 errors last year. 19 errors the year before. And two flubs in two games in 2009. Edgar Renteria commited 30 errors in one year in 2006 and was run out of town on a rail. Lugo has 36 so far and one costly bobble last night. It's not "Renteria Bad" but it's getting there. At least Edgar hit .276 that year. Lugo's always competing for the low score in the Sox lineup and seeing if they can rename the Mendoza Line after him.

The pisser is that pretty much every fan who knows anything about baseball and Boston knew that Lugo would be a lousy fit. I believe my exact words at the time were "Please don't sign Julio Lugo." And yet here we are 2+ years later and suffering through another Season O' Mediocrity. Jesus wept. Meanwhile, Orlando Cabrera is still outperforming him. Gosh, it would have really sucked to have kept him around...

And so here is what will happen over the next few days. The Sox will lose a game they should have won because of Lugo and no one on the team will state the obvious. Boston fans will lose their collective...you know what, and the cycle will repeat. The reason being that Theo and Sox management steadfastly refuse to admit that signing Lugo was a mistake of the highest order. And since they won't correct said error, Tito will be compelled to keep playing him because of all the zeros at the end of Lugo's annual compensation.

I mean, isn't the obvious play right now to keep starting Green? At this point I'd favor Gil Velasquez on a daily basis.Hell, I would even prefer to see Argenis Diaz get rushed up from Portland to handle the position because even though his bat would suck, his glove is MLB-ready today (and it is, the kid is a vacuum cleaner). But if I have to watch Lugo screw up at short for another day I may lose my mind.

Bottom line - Lugo must go.

Oh ya, the game...Sox should have won. Penny pitched well, Delcarmen looked shaky. Ellsbury is heating up, Ortiz looks shot. Now it's a pair of games in New York. I'm betting it's a split.