Collier: Winning on a dime is possible
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The Pirates have 48 homers; the Red Sox have 46 homers on the road. The Pirates on Clint Hurdle's lineup card Friday night had 28 homers; the Red Sox on Terry Francona's had mashed 49, and the head banger, David Ortiz with 17, wasn't even on it.
And none of that even begins to describe the offensive mismatch that provides the inescapable framework of the hotly anticipated weekend series now in progress.
At one point in a baseball season still not half over, Boston scored 14 runs or more six times in a 29-game stretch. The Pirates, one time, scored 10.
All right, two times.
It's got everything to do with talent, logically enough, which so often in Major League Baseball has everything to do with money, and Boston first baseman Adrian Gonzalez being this summer's Exhibit A.
Apparently no one informed Gonzalez that sluggers who sign obscene contracts in overheated baseball-centric markets often struggle to sustain anything resembling the casual excellence that crackled off his bat in laid-back San Diego.
Do tell.
When he came up in the seventh inning Friday night against Pirates rookie Tony Watson, Gonzalez was hitting .363, which meant he was leading the big leagues in hits, RBIs, doubles, extra-base hits, total bases, batting average, front office I-told-ya-so's and in the number of games in which he had a least three hits. He'd done it 14 times.
Adrian Gonzalez is astounding, and all it's costing the Red Sox is $154 million over this and the next half-dozen summers, which means, considering that Gonzalez averages about 595 at-bats in a full season, he's getting just a hair under $37,000 per at-bat.
He pops foul to the catcher? That'll be $36,974.79. Need a receipt? Have a nice day.
(It also means, with fellow free agent Carl Crawford and his seven-year $142 million contract on the disabled list, the Red Sox are paying as much for two players as the Pirates are paying for just about everybody).
Not to be bitter.
The Pirates were ahead 3-1 in that seventh inning, and Watson had just taken over for Chris Resop, who had gotten starter Paul Maholm out of the sixth with a double-play ball. Pinch hitter Josh Reddick swatted Walker's 2-2 pitch to right for a leadoff single, and, with one out, Dustin Pedroia walked in front of Gonzalez.
First Published June 25, 2011 12:00 am
