Beantown's View

Now that football is over let's go around the horn.

THE AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST

With the addition of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez,the Red Sox figure to be contenders for years to come.These signings have improved both their offense and defense while adding additional speed in Crawford.Their Bullpen,which was dreadful last season is much improved.By acquiring Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler it gives the Red Sox a back end of Bard,Jenks and Papelbon all could close on most teams.You put Wheeler in the middle it makes life a lot easier for starters to be more relaxed.Speaking of starters with a rotation of Lester,Buckholtz,Lackey,Beckett and Dice K on paper you figure to be all set.Unfortunately the game is played on the field not on paper.Questions remain about both Lackey and Beckett.We believe with a year under his belt pitching in A.L. East and at Fenway Park John Lackey will be more like the pitcher He was in the past.On the other hand Josh Beckett needs to shut down his ego, thinking He can just throw the ball by hitters.The feeling is that the stories about small injuries are put out to cover his sorry little a--.Red Sox Nation needs Josh to pitch like the gutsy kid he once was.

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Red Sox Nation let's not buy our World Series seats yet.The New York Yankees are not going away any time soon.Although the Yankees lost the Cliff Lee and the retirement of Andy Pettite they will be there until the bitter end.With the addition of Rafael Soriano(45 saves last year with Tampa)gives them possibly the best back end 1-2 punch with Mariano Rivera.They also added catcher Russel Martin who is projected to be the starter ahead of Jore Posada.If healthy he could be huge addition to an already potent offensive lineup.Baseball fans believe me the Yankees will be contending for the A.L.East Title until the very end.

The Toronto Blue Jays with new manager John Farrell will make things interesting for a while.With the trade of Tori Hunter to the Angels,they trade for centerfielder Davis (Oakland) who has great speed and will leadoff.The trading of Hunter to Angels for Juan rivera and Mike Napoli allowed them to send Napoli to Texas for closer Frank Francisco. The Jays need Adam Lind to rebound after off year.Will Jose Batista repeat last year's production?Can promising young outfielder Travis Snyder(23) stay healthy and perform like a first round draft choice?All these concerns have to be positive for the Jays to stay in contention.

In Tampa the Rays will have a totaly revamped team.We feel the bullpen will suffer the most.The losses there include closer Rafael Soriano ( Yankees) set up man Joaquin Benoit (Tigers) middle men Dan Wheeler and Grant Balfour all of whom were extremely important in last year's strong season.Matt Garza,traded to Cubs for a couple of good young prospects,will be replaced by 24 year old Jeremy Hellickson on the back end of the rotation.Their other starters headed by Price should be just fine.They have a good core of young talent led by Evan Longoria and B.J.Upton (who needs to bounce back)to complimant the additions of Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon.The loss of Carl Crawford with his speed,defense and occasional power will surely be missed.We look for Tampa to stay close for a while but will start to fade by mid to late July.

In Baltimore the Orioles were more active this offseason than in the past.Their infield was totally revamped with the additions of 1b Derrek Lee(free agency)
ss Mark Reynolds(trade) and  3b JJ Hardy(trade)leaving only Brian Roberts at 2b as the only holdover.As usual in the strong American League East the pitching will be key to winning.The young pitching staff will be lead by Brian Matusz and Brad Bergesen.Bullpen help was provided with addition of free agent Kevin Gregg to help last years closer Koji Uehara.Also late in the off season they added free agent Vladimir Guerrero to be the D.H. who should help with an already good offensive team.We believe that Manager Buck Showwalter will have a difficult time keeping his team competitive in A.L.East.
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Please contact us if you need any tickets in and around the city of Boston.
We have seats to all events and we can meet all your needs(location and price)
Just click on any part of beantown.

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