I am blaming Lugo for last night’s frustrating loss. It seems to me that there really is no hope for this guy. How many errors does he have to have before we run him out of town like we did with Edgar Renteria? It didn’t help that Rentaria himself was the one to score the walk off run.

Boston Globe Photo

Fielding like this is simply unacceptable. This is his tenth error already (TENTH!) and its not like he is hitting the cover off the ball to make up for it. Yes, he did get on base twice last night (hit and a walk) and is hitting .293. This is better than last year, but still, he was brought in to be a lead-off hitter and have a high on base percentage and is now hitting 9th on most days with an OBP just 50 points higher than his average (Youkilis, Drew and Pedroia all have OBPs that are much closer to 100 points over their average). This means he isn’t walking enough.

The numbers are actually putting it better than it really is. A lot of Lugo’s “production” is coming from infield hits and generally lucky hits. He is fast, and has beat out several grounders for hits that have inflated his performance somewhat. The real problem is that pitchers know he is struggling overall this year and are pitching aggressively. He’s trying to see lots of pitches as is the Red Sox philosophy, but always seems to be falling behind in the count anyway.

His speed is what should be saving him this year. After all, even after a poor season hitting last year, he still stole 33 bases. But this year, he is 4 for 6 in SB attempts. 66% isn’t good enough for a base stealer, so that better change.

In conclusion, when I look at Julio Lugo, I see a struggling player who can barely hold down the #9 spot in the lineup. He hits way too many ground balls, doesn’t walk enough, and is on pace to make about 50 errors this year. I really don’t know how long the Sox are going to let Jed Lowrie sit behind him in the depth chart if he keeps playing like this. We all knew the Sox overpaid for Lugo when we got him, but even I expected more than this. Let’s go YouBlow - time to get that line drive power that the Sox thought you had back.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 8:31 am and is filed under General Postings, Game Recaps, Big News!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.