Francona refuses gift from Rivera
I have a lot of respect for the baseball savvy of Francona but his apparent loyalty to catcher Jason Varitek cost the Red Sox the game Saturday.
For some reason, Mariano Rivera likes to make things interesting when playing the Sox. He loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth and a run in and tried to hand the game to Francona on a silver platter. After Coco Crisp struck out with the help of some questionalbe umpiring behind the plate Varitek came to the plate with the bases loaded and down by one run to Joe Girardi’s Yankees.
The arm chair quarterback in me says Francona should have pinch hit for Varitek. I’ve seen him strike out on way too many occasions to have him trying to break out of his humungous slump in such a critical situation. His swings are sometimes feeble. His timing is off, he is often fooled, guessing wrong on what’s coming and it’s probably playing on his mind. Sit him down! Give him time to clear his head. He doesn’t need to prove anything. So he’s not Iron Man - That’s OK! But we will need a healthy Varitek - mind, body and spirit - for the post season.
I don’t care that Francona wants him to keep his confidence level up. He doesn’t look very confident at the plate to me. He looks more like a pitcher who’s forced to hit for himself but knows he can’t. Everybody in Red Sox Nation new Varitek was not the man to have up at the plate in that situation, maybe even Varitek.
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