Young At Heart
It is very nice to see that the Red Sox have the ‘young pen’ up. Delcarmen, Hansen, and Paps who has been there all season are expected to provide the missing pieces thus far in a far from dominating season. Jon Lester is in the starting rotation, and the others are, hopefully, going to sow the seeds of what has been talked up as a rebuilt farm system.
Delcarmen has been up before, and sent down on a few occassions. The same is almos true of Hansen. However it appears the brass and Tito are willing amongst all of the uncertainty of the Red Sox bullpen to try the young arms out for a bit.
The Sox dominated the Nationals in tonight’s 11-3 victory, but Hansen gave up a couple of runs over 2 innings. Is that something to worry about? I’m not sure since Hansen was a closer, not a long relife guy. Delcarmen has been hit or miss with his brillince, but has shown some talent and an ability to come through given the chance.
We already know about Papelbon and Jon Lester’s last start completely obliterated his first start; which wasn’t spectactular, but wasn’t too shabby.