Lowell leaves Red Sox thin up the middle

CSNNE.com's Sean McAdam reported this week that Mike Lowell likely will open the season with the Red Sox and likely will not be traded during spring training. It makes sense: With so many free agents signing for bargain-basement prices, there's no need for a team to part with prospects for a question mark like Lowell. If Russell Branyan had to settle for a $2 million deal, why would another team assume anything but a fraction of the money owed Lowell?

Should Lowell stick around, the Red Sox bench would seem to be set in stone before exhibition games even begin. Jason Varitek will be the backup catcher. Lowell will back up the two infield corners. Jeremy Hermida will back up the two outfield corners. Bill Hall will back up everywhere else.

But that leaves the Red Sox awfully thin in the middle infield. Hall was acquired as a jack-of-all-trades utility guy. Here's the problem: He last played shortstop in the major leagues four years ago, and he last saw even semi-regular playing time at second base five years ago. He's spent the last three seasons almost exclusively as a third baseman and as an outfielder.

This leaves Hall as an adequate in-game replacement for Dustin Pedroia or Marco Scutaro in the event of a fluke injury like a foul ball off the shin. At the other end of the spectrum, should either Pedroia or Scutaro suffer any sort of long-term injury, Tug Hulett or Jed Lowrie could be called up from Triple-A Pawtucket and jump into the starting lineup.

It's in the middle that things start to get hazy. What happens if Pedroia sprains an ankle and is sidelined for four games? What happens if Scutaro gets the flu and is laid up for a week?

Should either middle infielder suffer an injury that's not quite severe enough to land him on the 15-day disabled list -- and the Red Sox aren't going to deactivate Pedroia for 15 days if he's expected to be back in 10 -- Hall would have to play second base or shortstop every day for a week. He hasn't done that since 2006.

For a team banking its fortune on being able to catch the ball, being so thin at two key defensive positions seems unnecessarily precarious.

Automatic outs in the Red Sox lineup

The Red Sox, conventional wisdom has it, have upgraded their defense while allowing their offense to get a little bit worse. Mike Cameron has replaced Jason Bay. Adrian Beltre has replaced Mike Lowell. The Red Sox might prevent more runs than they did a year ago, but they're not going to score as many runs.

Well, maybe.

The worst thing a player can do at the plate, after all, is make an out. The fewer outs a team makes, the more opportunities it will have to score runs. A home run tends to do the most damage, but the reason walks have become en vogue is because teams have started to realize that a walk beats virtually any result that involves making an out.

(The only exception might be a sacrifice fly or squeeze bunt that wins a game in the bottom of the ninth. Some might argue that a sacrifice fly trumps a walk with a runner on third and less than two outs -- but while a sacrifice fly plates one run and otherwise lets the air out of a rally, a walk puts another runner on base and makes a crooked-number inning more likely.)

And taking a backwards look at the Red Sox lineup -- measuring players' propensity to make outs rather than players' propensity to hit doubles or triples or home runs -- tells an interesting story:

2008
Ellsbury, .685 outs per at-bat
Pedroia, .668
Ortiz, .686
Youkilis, .605
Drew, .631
Bay, .635
Lowell, .715
Varitek, .701
Green, .744
Total: .669

2009 (with 2008 stats)
Ellsbury, .685 outs per at-bat
Pedroia, .668
Martinez, .644
Youkilis, .605
Ortiz, .686
Cameron, .682
Drew, .631
Beltre, .740
Scutaro, .649
Total: .664

(The American League average last season was .693.)

You can look at this a couple of ways:

1. The Red Sox probably are going to make outs at a lower clip than they did a year ago -- not significantly so, but the rate will be lower nonetheless. For all of the hand-wringing about how Theo Epstein has a worse offense next year than he had last year, well, his lineup has the potential to keep the line moving at an even better rate than it did last year.

2. The Red Sox don't have the black holes in their lineup that they had a year ago.

The biggest issue the Red Sox had a year ago was the lack of depth in their lineup. Once an opposing pitcher got past Jason Bay, he could cruise through the bottom third of the lineup. Lowell, Jason Varitek and Nick Green all averaged better than 0.7 outs per plate appearance a year ago.

(This figure does include double plays as well as sacrifice bunts and sacrifice flies. Double plays skew the numbers a little bit given that they, like RBIs, depend on whether runners are on base, but even Lowell -- the Red Sox leader last season with 24 GIDPs -- saw double plays account for a tiny fraction of his 346 outs.)

Of the hitters expected to start for the Red Sox on Opening Day next year, only Beltre averaged better than 0.7 outs per plate appearance last season -- and the potential exists for Beltre to see his numbers improve thanks to his move from Safeco Field to Fenway Park.

Pitchers won't get a break with the Red Sox lineup. No one other than Beltre can reasonably be expected to make outs at an above-average rate. Marco Scutaro is an enormous upgrade on Green even if his numbers regress from his career highs a year ago. Victor Martinez is an enormous upgrade on Varitek. Cameron is no Bay when it comes to avoiding outs, but he's still above average in that department.

Most importantly, as a team, the Red Sox lineup of a year ago got out more often than the Red Sox lineup of next year likely will. Backwards thinking sometimes can tell a fascinating story.

Adrian Beltre's side-to-side range

Adrian Beltre did not win a Fielding Bible award for 2009, finishing behind Washington's Ryan Zimmerman in voting by a panel of experts. He did, however, win two Fielding Bible awards in three years, winning in a landslide in 2008 and in a tight race with Scott Rolen in 2006.

He consistently has been one of the best third basemen in baseball for most of his career -- as selected by a group of experts that includes Peter Gammons and statistical pioneer Bill James.

If you go a little deeper into John Dewan's plus-minus scale, the primary metric used by the Fielding Bible, it reveals that Beltre's side-to-side range is the best in the game. For pitchers like Jon Lester who were burned so often last season by ground balls sneaking through the infield, Beltre's side-to-side range will be a tremendous boost next season.

Consider, first, the player Beltre will be replacing:

Mike Lowell, minus-23 in 2009
To his right: minus-3
To his left: minus-17

Even in his prime, though, Lowell wasn't the defensive player Beltre is. Consider Lowell during a 2007 season in which he was perfectly healthy from start to finish:
To his right: plus-6
To his left: minus-6

Even when he was healthy, Lowell was making fewer plays to his left -- to the shortstop side of third base -- than the average third baseman, and he wasn't making up for it with any kind of elite defense to his right.

Compare that to the five best defensive third baseman -- as ranked by Dewan's scale -- in baseball last season:

Chone Figgins, plus-40
To his right: plus-1
To his left: plus-23

Ryan Zimmerman, plus-28
To his right: minus-3
To his left: plus-25

Adrian Beltre, plus-27
To his right: plus-9
To his left: plus-11

Scott Rolen, plus-22
To his right: plus-7
To his left: plus-8

Evan Longoria, plus-21
To his right: plus-3
To his left: plus-10

Notice anything?

No third baseman on that list is as balanced as Beltre. Figgins, Longoria and Zimmerman all were better to their left last season than Beltre -- but no one in that group was as good going to their right as Beltre was. No third baseman in baseball, in fact, is better down the line than Beltre.

Theo Epstein made a point of upgrading his infield defense -- and its side-to-side range in particular. Alex Gonzalez, for example, still had the same sure hands he'd always had, but injuries had diminished his range going to his left or to his right.

No third baseman in baseball has better side-to-side range than Beltre.

Welcome back, Mike Lowell

So the Mike Lowell trade reportedly is not going to go through. Lowell will undergo surgery on a torn ligament in his thumb -- a surgery that requires six to eight weeks of recovery time -- and thus likely will be with the Red Sox when spring training opens in February.

(It's natural to ask if the Red Sox would have known about the thumb injury at all if they hadn't tried to trade Lowell -- and if the injury thus would have become a factor in February rather than November. There's no answer to that question yet.)

The first step for Theo Epstein and Terry Francona will be to soothe the egos involved. ("Ha ha! It was all a joke! Max Ramirez isn't even a real person!") The second step, though, will be to figure out a way to juggle playing time both to keep everyone happy and to ensure the Red Sox will be as productive as possible both at the plate and in the field. One of those priorities is more important -- and it's not the former.

Among the strategies they might use to make it work:

1. David Ortiz won't play against lefties, period.
That's an easy one. Ortiz might be the most prolific designated hitter in the history of the franchise. In his career, though, he's OPS'ed almost 150 points higher against righties (.964) than against lefties (.819), and he's OPS'ed under .800 against lefties in each of the last two seasons. Against righties, on the other hand, Ortiz OPS'ed .828 even during the worst season of his Red Sox career.

Lowell, on the other hand, hits lefties: His career OPS is 50 points higher against lefties (.850) than against righties (.798). In the last three years, he's OPS'ed .849, .961 and .867 against lefthanded pitching. He even has a .429 career on-base percentage against Yankees lefty Andy Pettitte.

There's no reason Lowell shouldn't be the designated hitter -- at minimum -- when a lefthanded pitcher is on the mound.

2. Lowell's defensive abilities have to be evaluated.
One of these UZR numbers is not like the other:
2006: plus-7.7
2007: plus-7.3
2008: plus-11.1
2009: minus-10.4

It's clear the hip surgery Lowell underwent a year ago affected his range in the field last season. It's certainly not clear that a year of recovery time will bring back an athleticism and a range that once was well above average -- especially since Lowell will turn 36 in February.

But unless the Red Sox plan on employing two full-time designated hitters -- hint: a 25-man roster doesn't allow for two full-time designated hitters -- the Red Sox have to see what they can get out of him. If he's got some range of motion, he could play third base on a limited basis with Kevin Youkilis moving back across the diamond to first base. If he has less range of motion, it might be worth throwing a first baseman's mitt at him and seeing if it sticks.

Either scenario, of course, would mean that Casey Kotchman would take a seat against lefties even though he doesn't have a severe lefty-right split. That brings us to ...

3. Someone has to make a decision on Kotchman.
If the Red Sox don't see the slick-fielding first baseman as playing a significant role next season, it makes no sense to keep him and an arbitration award around $4 million on the roster. A 12-man pitching staff leaves room for four bench players:
* A backup catcher (Jason Varitek)
* A utility infielder (Jed Lowrie)
* A lefthanded hitting outfielder (Jeremy Hermida)
* A righthanded hitting outfielder (TBD)

Unless the Red Sox want to forgo a fifth outfielder -- and thus leave themselves with Mike Cameron as their only outfielder who swings righthanded -- there's not really room for an extra infielder who only plays first base.

Kotchman will turn 27 in February. He's headed into his prime. He has to have some value to someone. The Red Sox either have to play him or move him.

Lowell deal gives Red Sox tremendous infield 'D'

And that's even without a move to sign Adrian Beltre.

Mike Lowell reportedly has been shipped to Texas in a deal for minor-leaguer Max Ramirez, a catcher/first base-type who can hit for power and who could probably be ready for a platoon with David Ortiz this spring.

(Red Sox blog Surviving Grady might put the Ramirez acquisition in the best terms: "This is, of course, part of Theo's "If I can't have Hanley Ramirez, by God, I'll sign everyone else in baseball named Ramirez" master plan, which just keeps picking up speed.")

Theo Epstein has plenty of time to keep making moves.

If this is his final move of the offseason that involves his infield, though, he's turned a below-average defensive infield into a tremendous defensive infield. A year ago, the offensive-minded Red Sox saw opposing batters hit .244 when they hit the ball on the ground -- a tick above the American League average of .240. The defensive-minded Seattle Mariners, playing most of the season with Beltre at third base, saw opponents hit .227 when they hit the ball on the ground.

Oh, and the move hasn't cost the Red Sox too much at the plate, either. Consider this player-by-player comparison:

Player A, 2008-09: .282/.337/.468 (.805)
Player B, 2008-09: .270/.333/.398 (.730)

Player A is Mike Lowell.

Player B is Casey Kotchman, who bounced around between three teams and had to adapt to a reserve role during the second half of last season. Their on-base percentages still are almost identical.

Kotchman, of course, would play first base every day for the Red Sox if the season started today, and Kevin Youkilis would play third base every day. Dustin Pedroia would play second base, and Marco Scutaro would play shortstop. (Not the other way around.)

Kotchman is an elite defensive first baseman, according to his Fielding Bible numbers (from BillJamesOnline.net):

2007: 18 runs saved (2nd in major leagues)
2008: 10 runs saved (5th in major leagues)
2009: 7 runs saved (7th in major leagues)
(Keep in mind Kotchman played only sparingly over the final two months of the season, too, after his July 31 trade to the Red Sox.)

Only Albert Pujols has consistently been a better defensive first baseman over the last three seasons than Kotchman.

And this is the worst-case scenario.

It's more likely that Epstein already has the parameters of a deal with slick-fielding third baseman Adrian Beltre, a move that would upgrade the Red Sox defensively even more. Youkilis then would move back to first base, and the Red Sox would have four infielders who are among the best in baseball at their respective positions.

Merry Christmas, Clay Buchholz.

Beltre, as previously discussed here, is not a crippling downgrade from Lowell at the plate. During the last two seasons, Beltre has an OPS of .739 -- but he played his home games at Safeco Field, a stadium that does little to reward the power of righthanded hitters.

(This is why the Mariners don't seem to see Jason Bay as a fit.)

The upgrade from Lowell to Beltre in the field seems to be more than enough to compensate for the difference. Beltre was credited with having saved 21 runs last season by John Dewan's Fielding Bible system, and Lowell was charged with having cost the Red Sox 17 runs last season. That's a difference of almost 40 runs -- or, since 10 runs is roughly equivalent to a win, almost four wins.

That's why, according to FanGraphs' Wins Above Replacement statistics, Beltre would be an enormous upgrade on Lowell even without a bounce-back year at the plate:

Lowell, 2008/09: 3.2/1.2 -- 4.4 WAR
Beltre, 2008/09: 4.1/2.4 -- 6.5 WAR

What's most interesting is the fact that the Red Sox will absorb so much money to get rid of Lowell. The veteran still had plenty of value as a platoon-style designated hitter with David Ortiz -- albeit at the cost of a roster spot -- but Epstein (and Terry Francona) must have believed Lowell wouldn't be his same positive clubhouse presence if he was relegated to such a role.

Either that, or Epstein has so much respect for Lowell that he made sure to find him a landing where he could play on something of a regular basis.

He probably won't play much third base for Texas.

As long as he's not playing third base for Boston, though, the Red Sox are going to be a significantly better defensive team.

Nothing predictable about Lowell's health

Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell told ESPNBoston.com he's not losing any sleep over the trade rumors swirling around him for the second straight winter.

But Lowell's health -- and thus his ability to play the defense he's played his entire career -- remains a huge question mark for the Red Sox. A team with an analytic process for just about everything can't do much more than guess at the range he'll have at third base next season.

"You just try monitor it as best you can and balance all the factors," Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein said on Friday. "There's no perfect way to predict how his defense will be. ... We'll see. It's something we'll continue to evaluate up to spring training and in spring training."

Team trainers paid Lowell a visit last week to monitor him during a regular workout, something they do routinely with players to keep lines of communication open. Most players take October and November off but begin their offseason workout programs in December, and a trainer or strength coach often will run a player through his workout program just to make sure it includes everything the team wants it to include.

Lowell now is more than a year removed from surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip, an injury that seemed to impair severely his ability play his typical high level of defense. Consider his Ultimate Zone Rating numbers since his trade to Boston:

2006: 7.7
2007: 8.0
2008: 15.6
2009: minus-14.4

His Fielding Bible plus-minus numbers tell the same story:

2006: 6
2007: 7
2008: 7
2009: minus-23

Were Lowell five or 10 years younger, a return to form wouldn't even be a question. But the third baseman turns 36 years old in February and might have seen a decline in his skills -- albeit not one this precipitous -- even without his surgery.

Doctors predicted that Lowell would need an entire year to recovery fully from the operation, though, and that would seem to be a good omen for next season.

There's just no way to know for sure.

"That was what they said when they originally did the surgery: All the benefits wouldn't be seen until 2010," Epstein said. "We're certainly hoping that's the case."

Replacing Mike Lowell: Adrian Beltre

If the Red Sox move any closer to signing Adrian Beltre to play third base and unloading Mike Lowell, you'll start to see more and more comparisons between the two. Some might even wonder if Beltre, a righthanded-hitting slugger, would put dents in the Green Monster the way Lowell has done for the past four seasons.

That, though, is not what the Red Sox would be signing Beltre to do.

Every move this season has to be examined through the lens of the criteria Theo Epstein laid out only a few days after the Angels eliminated the Red Sox from the playoffs in October:
1. The Red Sox need to get better defensively.
2. The Red Sox need to get better at hitting on the road.

Beltre would serve both purposes.

First things first: Beltre can catch the ball as well as any third baseman in the game. He ranked third in the major leagues in plus-minus this season (plus-27) and third in the major leagues with 21 runs saved on defense. In 2008, he led the major leagues with a plus-32 and with 24 runs saved.

If you accept the sabermetric idea that 10 runs saved or created equal one win, Beltre is worth more than two wins with his defense alone.

Lowell, on the other hand, saw his range drop precipitously this season in the aftermath of a hip injury, and there's no guarantee it's coming back. He finished this season with a minus-23 and was credited with minus-17 runs saved -- meaning he cost the Red Sox almost two wins with his defense alone.

Replacing Lowell with Beltre at third base turns the Red Sox from a below-average defensive team at third base to an elite defensive team at third base -- and that could mean turning a 95-win team into a 99-win team.

But fans aren't going to judge the success of a move by its impact on defense -- not for a third baseman, the type of player who's supposed to hit.

Lowell made a living driving doubles off the Green Monster -- he OPS'ed .932 at home this season -- but saw his slugging percentage drop in a big way on the road (.713). Part of the reason the Red Sox acquired him was because he fit Fenway Park so well.

Beltre wouldn't be as great of a fit for the Green Monster -- and it's easy to look at his spray chart from 2008, his last healthy season, to see why:

Beltre can hit for power to all fields -- and not just to left field.

If you look closely at the chart, there actually aren't many doubles or fly balls that the Green Monster would turn into home runs, and there might be a few doubles or home runs that the cavernous right field at Fenway Park would turn into outs.

But here's the M. Night Shyamalan twist: The Red Sox don't need a hitter who can tattoo the Green Monster. No team in the American League had a higher home slugging percentage than the Red Sox's .498, and no team in the American League scored more runs than the Red Sox's 481 -- or 5.93 per game.

The Red Sox need a hitter who can do some damage on the road.

Playing his games at Seattle's Safeco field, Beltre OPS'ed a woeful .702 at home in 2008 and .646 in 2009. On the road, though, where everything evens out, Beltre has OPS'ed .862 and .717, respectively, in the past two seasons

If you want to give Beltre a break for this season because of his injuries, it's worth pointing out that only Victor Martinez, Jason Bay and Kevin Youkilis OPS'ed better than .850 on the road for the Red Sox season.

If you don't want to give Beltre a break for this season, well, at least he'd become one of the few hitters in the Red Sox lineup who seems to be at least as comfortable cruising around the American League as he is in his home ballpark.

Oh, and Beltre has a career .534 slugging percentage at Yankee Stadium.

The biggest reason to make the investment in Beltre would be for the defensive upgrade at third base. His numbers at the plate actually are remarkably similar to those of Lowell -- and, in terms of OPS+, he's actually a little bit worse than Lowell.

But if the Red Sox are looking for someone who can hit on the road -- and, of course, for someone who can catch the ball -- Beltre might be just the guy.

Signing Scutaro or fitting in Figgins

If the Red Sox move Mike Lowell in an effort to upgrade both their defense and their offensive production, as has been discussed in this space, it seems likely the Red Sox would target either Chone Figgins or Marco Scutaro to play third base.

The defensive upgrade is obvious. The offensive upgrade isn't quite so obvious -- particularly when you start to think about where they'd hit in the Red Sox lineup. Still, though: It's there. Check out how the three players stacked up this season:

Figgins: .298/.395/.393: 107 OPS+
Lowell: .290/.337/.474: 104 OPS+
Scutaro: .282/.379/.409: 109 OPS+

It's even more disparate if you look at them only on the road:
Figgins: .290/.387/.396: 116 OPS+
Lowell: .276/.331/.382: 96 OPS+
Scutaro: .322/.405/.429: 130 OPS+

Here's the issue, though: The Red Sox need a middle-of-the-order bat. Lowell is a No. 5 or No. 6 hitter in the Red Sox lineup. Neither Figgins nor Scutaro is No. 5 or No. 6 hitter. Neither Figgins nor Scutaro is a middle-of-the-order bat.

Both fit better as a leadoff hitter or a No. 2 hitter, and the Red Sox seem to have their leadoff hitter and No. 2 hitter entrenched in their lineup for next season -- and probably for five or six seasons beyond that. Hitting either one of them eighth or ninth, on the other hand, risks wasting the $20 million or more it might take to sign either of them.

You'd have to get creative.

You've have to bat Dustin Pedroia third in the lineup.

Check out the average numbers for an American League No. 3 hitter this season:
.274/.348/.457 (.805 OPS)
Check out the average numbers for Red Sox No. 3 hitters this year -- starting with David Ortiz but transitioning to Kevin Youkilis and Victor Martinez -- good for fourth-best in the American League:
.271/.364/.468 (.832 OPS)
Check out Pedroia's final line:
.296/.371/.447 (.819 OPS)
Check out his line if you eliminate his stint in the leadoff spot:
.311/.388/.470 (.858 OPS)

Pedroia almost certainly would be the smallest No. 3 hitter in the history of the Red Sox. He certainly would draw some snickers from elsewhere in the league.

But Pedroia is used to being too small, and he's used to hearing snickers from elsewhere. Those snickers, in fact, often motivate him as well as anything else.

He's also one of the best hitters in the American League and has all the tools -- except maybe home-run power -- to be the same quality of No. 3 hitter Victor Martinez would be. He also would create a top half of the lineup as ferocious as any in baseball.

Check out this hypothetical lineup:

Ellsbury, CF (.355 on-base percentage)
Figgins/Scutaro, 3B (.395/.379)
Pedroia, 2B (.371)
Youkilis, 1B (.413)
Martinez, C (.381)
Bay, LF (.384)
Drew, RF (.392)
Ortiz, DH (.332)
Gonzalez, SS (.279)

The Red Sox could bump Ellsbury back down to the bottom of the order where he spent a couple of months this season. It seems, though, that the Red Sox see Ellsbury as their best option as a leadoff hitter: They'd have left him down at the bottom of the order if that's where they saw his future.

Instead, if Ellsbury can keep developing -- his on-base percentage jumped from .336 to .355 this season -- the Red Sox could have a top lineup in which each of the first seven hitters has an on-base percentage miles beyond the league average (.336).

It's not just about hitting home runs.

It's about keeping the line moving.

The team that cherishes J.D. Drew knows that as well as any.

Upgrading the defense and hitting on the road

The question was a terrific one from Baseball Prospectus' David Laurila to Theo Epstein at a postmortem press conference at Fenway Park today: The Rays last year got a lot better in part because they greatly upgraded their defense. This year, the Angels got a lot better because they greatly improved their on-base percentage. What do you need to do next year? Which area needs to be upgraded the most?

"You probably start with your weaknesses because there's the greatest room for improvement there," Epstein said. "If you look back at this year's club, we weren't the defensive club we wanted to be. There is room for improvement with our overall team defense, our defensive efficiency. Offense on the road. We didn't really hit on the road at all this year. We'll take a look at seeing if there's a way to improve that a little bit."

There's one move that can upgrade the Red Sox in both areas.

Defensive efficiency
The usefulness of advanced defensive statistics still is up for debate. It's tough to argue, though, that they aren't more valuable than the antiquated system of errors and fielding percentage. The Red Sox finished the season as a middle-of-the-pack defensive team according to Ultimate Zone Rating, their minus-17.2 ranking them just ahead of the Yankees but miles behind the Angels and Rays.

The trouble areas have been well-documented in this space already, but just for the sake of simplicity, below are the final UZR numbers for the Red Sox regulars:

Dustin Pedroia, 2B: 10.2
J.D. Drew, RF: 9.7
Alex Gonzalez, SS: 4.4
Casey Kotchman, 1B: 4.3
Kevin Youkilis, 1B: 4.3
Jed Lowrie, SS: 3.7
Nick Green, SS: 3.6
Victor Martinez, 1B: minus-1.1
Kevin Youkilis, 1B: minus-1.3
Mike Lowell, 3B: minus-10.6
Jason Bay, LF: minus-13.9
Jacoby Ellsbury, CF: minus-16.5*
David Ortiz, DH: Plays no defense

* Quibble with it all you want, but the fact remains that the speedy Ellsbury still doesn't break on the ball as well as he could -- especially on fly balls hit in front of him.

Offense on the road
If you want to get really simple, you can line up the Red Sox players expected play regularly next season -- eliminating Nick Green and Jason Varitek from the equation -- and subtract their road OPS from their home OPS to see who saw the greatest benefit from hitting at Fenway Park this season:

(Home/Road)
Mike Lowell: 932/713: 219
David Ortiz: 880/703: 177
Dustin Pedroia: 903/736: 167
J.D. Drew: 991/844: 147
Jacoby Ellsbury: 802/742: 60
Kevin Youkilis: 992/933: 59
Jason Bay: 936/904: 32
Victor Martinez: 744/1024: minus-280
(Beware: Martinez only played for the Red Sox for two months.)

What we've learned
Two players stick out above. Two players hit substantially worse on the road than at home and brought either nothing or negative production to the table defensively. Two players, if replaced, could represent an upgrade in both of those areas.

Those two players are Mike Lowell and David Ortiz. Both Lowell and Ortiz have tattooed the Green Monster throughout their Red Sox careers with doubles that would be fly balls anywhere else. Just check out their respective hit charts from this season:

Mike Lowell

David Ortiz

Those two players, however, are going to be awfully difficult to ship elsewhere.

Ortiz, you can rule out almost immediately. The aging designated hitter endured an epic slump in April and May, and while he bounced back in June, he didn't exactly look like his old self. (His post-June 1 on-base percentage of .356 would have ranked him 39th in the American League had it been his total for the season.) Oh, and he can't play a defensive position.

Lowell, on the other hand, is a different story. He can play a defensive position -- albeit with spectacularly limited range -- and showed this season that he still can hit when his hip gets adequate rest. A team needing a third baseman certainly might listen to a sales pitch for Lowell if the Red Sox were willing to pick up quite a bit of the $12.5 million due him next season. Seattle, a team that might be losing Adrian Beltre to free agency, might be a fit; the Cardinals, who will have to decide what to do with Mark DeRosa, might be another.

Don't be surprised if Epstein shops Lowell this offseason.

The key, then, would be to find a replacement who represented an upgrade defensively and who can hit anywhere. An upgrade in the field shouldn't be too difficult: Among third basemen this season, only the Mets' David Wright had a worse UZR (minus-10.9). Several infielders available on the market could represent an upgrade on Lowell:

DeRosa
Defense: The well-traveled veteran has played almost everywhere in his career, settling in mostly at second base in back-to-back seasons with the Cubs but playing mostly third base this season with the Indians and Cardinals. He had an UZR of minus-6.0 and a Fielding Bible plus-minus rating of minus-12 -- mostly due to ground balls either straight on or to his left.
Hitting anywhere: DeRosa this season had a .700 OPS in home games and an .804 OPS on the road. In his there months with the Indians, he was a dramatically better hitter at home -- but in his three months with the Cardinals, he was a dramatically better hitter on the road.

Chone Figgins
Defense: According to UZR, only Evan Longoria and Ryan Zimmerman had a better season at third base than Figgins. According to the Fielding Bible's plus-minus, no one had a better season at third base than Figgins. The Fielding Bible had Figgins at a sensational plus-40 for the season -- including plus-23 on ground balls to his left.
Hitting anywhere: Figgins had a .795 OPS at home this season and a .783 OPS on the road, not enough of a difference to tell you anything. In his career, the difference is even smaller: He's OPS'ed .754 at home and .748 on the road. He can, it seems, hit anywhere.

Marco Scutaro
Defense: A year ago, Scutaro put up a Fielding Bible plus-17 at third base after replacing the injured Scott Rolen there, including a plus-11 on ground balls to his left. This season, he put up a plus-16 at shortstop, including a plus-14 on ground balls to his left. Ultimate Zone Rating had him as a spectacular defensive third baseman two years ago but an average shortstop this season. Either way, though, it seems clear he's an average defender -- at worst -- at both shortstop and third base.
Hitting anywhere: Scutaro OPS'ed .834 on the road this season and .734 at home. In his career, he has OPS'ed .706 at Rogers Centre in Toronto but .737 everywhere else. He can hit anywhere.
What does that tell us?

It tells us something we really already know: The Red Sox would be a more complete team next season with either Figgins or Scutaro playing third base than with Lowell -- but that doesn't mean it'll be easy to find a taker for Lowell.

Red Sox defense still an issue in some ways

It's hard to pinpoint a significant weakness on this Red Sox team. The starting pitching is tremendous. The bullpen is tremendous. The lineup is deep -- and tremendous, particularly since the acquisition of Victor Martinez.

The team's biggest weakness, in a lot of ways, might be its defense. That's not to say that the defense is bad, per se, but back in mid-May, the Red Sox certainly weren't giving their pitchers much in the way of help. (The link will take you to a snapshot in mid-May of where the Red Sox stood on the Ultimate Zone Rating and Fielding Bible Plus-Minus leaderboards.)

As the season winds to a close, though, it might be a good idea to check back and see how the Red Sox fared in some of the advanced statistical measures. (We'll use UZR/150 -- averaging the numbers across 150 games -- rather than straight UZR because rate stats, as we've discussed, give a better sense than counting stats. Plus-minus is a counting stat.)

First base
UZR/150
1. Travis Ishikawa, plus-13.5
2. Casey Kotchman, 7.5
3. Kevin Youkilis, 7.1
Plus-minus
1. Albert Pujols, plus-15
t-2. Kevin Youkilis, plus-14

(In the ongoing "Kevin Youkilis ought to be the MVP runner-up behind Joe Mauer" debate, his ability to deliver terrific defense at first base and adequate defense at third base ought to be a big, big pactor.)

Second base
UZR/150
1. Ben Zobrist, plus-24.1
2. Dustin Pedroia, 9.1
(Yes, the gap is that wide.)
Plus-minus
1. Ian Kinsler and Ben Zobrist, plus-23
t-5. Dustin Pedroia, plus-12

(Pedroia might not buy into advanced defensive statistics, but they sure do reflect well upon him.)

Third base
UZR/150
1. Ryan Zimmerman, plus-16
29. Mike Lowell, minus-10.2
Plus-minus
1. Chone Figgins, plus-41
35. Mike Lowell, minus-23

(Were you expecting anything else?)

Shortstop
UZR/150
1. Jack Wilson, plus-15.2
6. Alex Gonzalez, plus-7.0
10. Nick Green, plus-5.3
Plus-minus
1. Jack Wilson, plus-32
19. Nick Green, plus-1
27. Alex Gonzalez, minus-5

(There's a discrepancy between the two interpretations of Gonzalez's defense. There's no such discrepancy below.)

Left field
UZR/150
1. Juan Rivera, plus-14.2
12. Jason Bay, minus-8.0
Plus-minus
1. Carl Crawford, plus-32
26. Jason Bay, minus-9

(That's still not good, but it's certainly better than you saw from Bay earlier in the year. The Fielding Bible has him at minus-14 on deep fly balls but plus-6 on medium-range fly balls.)

Center field
UZR/150
1. Franklin Gutierrez, plus-19.2
26. Jacoby Ellsbury, minus-12.6
Plus-minus
1. Franklin Gutierrez, plus-42
29. Jacoby Ellsbury, minus-8

(The Fielding Bible has Ellsbury at minus-12 on shallow fly balls -- which actually should seem about right to anyone who's seen the way he reads shallow fly balls off the bat.)

Right field
UZR/150
1. Ryan Sweeney, plus-20.5
8. J.D. Drew, plus-9.7
Plus-minus
1. Ichiro Suzuki, plus-22
t-10. J.D. Drew, plus-11

(As much as Drew doesn't get credit for his contributions at the plate, he really doesn't get credit for his contributions in one of the biggest right fields in baseball.)

As a team, for the season, the Red Sox rank 17th in the major leagues with an UZR/150 of minus-2.3.

It's not as abysmal as it was earlier in the season. Nick Green saw improvement as the year progressed, and replacing Julio Lugo with Alex Gonzalez certainly helped. Playing Mike Lowell at third base less has helped as well -- in infield with Gonzalez, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Casey Kotchman is actually a pretty impressive defensive infield.

But while J.D. Drew continues to be an above-average defensive outfielder, both Jason Bay and Jacoby Ellsbury continue to receive low marks. Fortunately for the Red Sox, neither this park nor this park feature the type of cavernous left-center field gap that could cause problems.

Swinging at first pitch pays dividends

The Red Sox are not a first-pitch-swinging team.

No team in baseball swings at fewer first pitches -- 21 percent -- than the Red Sox. No player in bseball swings at fewer first pitches -- seven percent -- than Dustin Pedroia. Of the first 21 hitters to come to the plate for the Red Sox on Wednesday, only two swung at the first pitch.

One was Mike Lowell, and he immediately regretted his hack at a slider on the inner half of the plate. The result was an error on a long throw from Melvin Mora at third to Ty Wigginton at first, a throw Lowell beat out when Wigginton couldn't dig it out of the dirt.

"I didn't want to swing at that pitch," Lowell said. "But speed never takes a day off."

The other was Jason Varitek on the very next pitch, and the only reason he swung was because the Red Sox had called a hit and run. It didn't go quite the way it was drawn up, but it worked out regardless. Lowell, in fact, ended up with his first stolen base of the season.

As the not-so-fleet-footed third baseman pointed out after the game, he now has at least one stolen base in each of the last 10 seasons.

"I stopped halfway because I didn't think 'Tek swung, and then he swung after it hits his mitt," Lowell said. "What do you want me to do?"

Said Jason Bay, "Speed kills. A straight steal -- and without a throw. That's pretty impressive."

Fluke stolen bases aside, those two examples represented the only instances the Red Sox swung at the first pitch in the first 4 1/3 innings of the game. In a stroke of irony, when Bay swung and missed on the first pitch of his fifth-inning at-bat, he ended up striking out looking on a slider on the inside corner.

The Red Sox just don't swing at the first pitch.

"That’s one of the few pet peeves I have as a hitting coach: Unless you’re doing a lot of damage on the 0-0 count, I don’t want guys swinging at the first pitch," hitting coach Dave Magadan said a couple of weeks ago. "Now, I want guys up there ready to hit on the first pitch. If you get a good pitch to hit, I want you to hit it and drive it. But if you’re hitting .270 on the first pitch with a .500 OPS, you’re not doing a good job. If you’re hitting .270, that’s what your on-base percentage is because you’re putting the first pitch in play."

One guy who has done a lot of damage on the 0-0 count, however, is Victor Martinez. So far this season, entering play Wednesday, the catcher was hitting .341 and slugging .526 when he swings at the first pitch. Since his trade to the Red Sox, he was hitting .375.

But that's not the only reason he took a hack at the first pitch he saw in the bottom of the seventh inning. He was pinch-hitting for George Kottaras with the bases loaded and one out and a back-and-forth game tied at 4.

Sure, righty Danys Baez had just walked Mike Lowell on four pitches to load the bases. But that only gave Martinez more reason to swing away: If there ever was a time for a pitcher to groove a first pitch, this was the time.

"Pinch-hitting is not for everybody," Bay said. "I was once told by somebody who pitch-hit quite a bit: 'There's no working the count as a pinch-hitter. You've got to be ready right from the get-go. You've got to hit that first pitch because it might be the only one you get.'"

Martinez got a fastball on the outer half of the plate, and he stroked it right up the gap in left-center field to clear the bases and hand the back end of the Red Sox bullpen a three-run lead.

(The last time Martinez pinch-hit, he came up against Chicago's Matt Thornton on Aug. 25 with Nick Green at second base. He took a rip at the first pitch he saw from Thornton, another first-pitch fastball, and drilled a line-drive single to left field.)

“Mikey Lowell walked on four straight pitches,’’ Martinez said. “I told myself that he’s going to try to throw a strike right here and just look for the good pitch to hit."

The Red Sox aren't a team that likes to swing at the first pitch. When they do, though, they're dangerous: No team in the major leagues has an OPS higher than their 1.067.

On Wednesday, it won them the game.

Drawbacks of DH'ing

Many Red Sox analysts -- this one included -- have theorized that Mike Lowell might fit nicely as a full-time designated hitter for the Red Sox next season. The Red Sox could sign Chone Figgins or Marco Scutaro to play on the left side of the infield alongside Jed Lowrie, and David Ortiz could shift from designated hitter to designated over-the-hill power bat off the bench.

Lowell then could play the field once in a while but DH most of the time, coming up to bat four times a game and hitting line drives and home runs. It's a role that perfectly fits a veteran who can't run and can't move laterally in the field but who still can rake.

Here's the problem: Lowell doesn't necessarily want to be a designated hitter every day. He sees himself as a guy who should play third base as often as possible, and he sees DH'ing more as a chance to take a break than as something he wants to do on a regular basis.

"I think I'd pull my hair out if I had to do it all year," Lowell said back in late July. "But here and there, I enjoy it. For me, it's really a half day off."

Terry Francona has given Lowell plenty of half days off and full days off in the last month and a half. The extra rest, coupled with a stint on the disabled list, appears to have done Lowell some good. The third baseman hit .282 and OPS'ed .789 before the All-Star break, and he's hitting .328 and OPS'ing .959 since.

Even better, he's OPS'ing .829 as a third baseman but OPS'ing 1.110 as a designated hitter. According to the numbers, he's a better hitter when he doesn't have to play the field.

The average American League hitter this season is OPS'ing .763. The average American League designated hitter is OPS'ing .783. You can expand the hypothesis. Not having to play the field allows a hitter to flourish. Make Mike Lowell your designated hitter next season. Game, set and match.

Wait a minute. Hold on. Not so fast.

The sample size we're using is unbelievably small: Lowell has just 23 plate appearance as a designated hitter this season. You can't draw any conclusions based on a sample size of 23 plate appearances. Joe Mauer went 2-for-23 as recently as mid-July, and he's still going to win the American League batting title.

The idea of using designated hitter splits has its problems, too. For one thing, teams routinely put subpar hitters in their lineup because they bring other attributes to the table -- namely an ability to catch the ball when it's hit to them. Those players drag down the overall numbers. Designated hitters, on the other hand, have to hit and thus would be expected to have better numbers.

For another thing, comparing the way David Ortiz is hitting this season with the way Jason Bay or Jason Varitek is hitting isn't going to tell you anything about how being a designated hitter would affect Mike Lowell. Those players all hit the ball differently and are affected by different things that have nothing to do with what we're trying to determine here.

Another small sample size, in fact, seems to indicate the opposite. Edgar Martinez, the greatest designated hitter in the game's history, played third base full-time and DH'ed 28 times in 1992. He OPS'ed .948 that season -- including 1.002 when he DH'ed, a run not unlike the one Lowell is enjoying now. When he suffered a career-threatening knee injury, though, the Mariners made him their full-time designated hitter -- and he saw his OPS drop to .869, including .823 when he DH'ed. He hit worse as the designated hitter than as a third baseman. It wasn't until the next season, his first fully healthy season, that his numbers began to rebound.

With all of that in mind, let's expand the sample size and eliminate the background noise and draw some conclusions.

Here's the question: Does DH'ing improve or detract from performance at the plate as compared to playing in the field? Does an average hitter put up better numbers as a designated hitter than as a position player?

Here's the method: Let's look at players who played a substantial number of games in a season -- let's say 30 percent -- both in the field and as a designated hitter. That eliminates much of the background noise because that player ought to be similarly able to hit a fastball and ought to be enduring the same types of ups and downs whether he's playing in the field or not.

There were 33 players between 2000 and 2008 who played at least 30 percent of their games in the field and as a designated hitter. We're ignoring 2009 because the season isn't over yet and thus the statistics are still in flux, but the rest of the decade is fair game.

Let's sort those 33 players by what we'll call the "DH Advantage": The number of points their OPS improved while they were DH'ing as compared to their overall OPS for that season. Starting from the top:

1. David Ortiz, 2003: .961 overall, 1.089 as a DH: 128 points
Well, that should be no surprise. The slugger who will go down as one of the best designated hitters in the game's history saw his performance spike when the Red Sox took him out of the field and allowed him to focus on hitting clutch home runs against the Yankees.
2. Vladmir Guerrero, 2008: .886/.969: 83 points
3. Scott Hatteberg, 2002: .807/.885: 78 points
As detailed by Michael Lewis in "Moneyball," Hatteberg was terrified of playing first base when the Oakland Athletics signed him before the 2002 season. It makes sense that he hit better when he didn't have to worry so much about fielding throws from across the diamond after having spent his whole life as a catcher.

Let's skip ahead a bit past Randall Simon and Garret Anderson and Jason Kubel and Dmitri Young:
8. Lew Ford, 2005: .716/.739: 23 points
What's amazing isn't that Ford saw his OPS improve by 23 points when he wasn't playing in the outfield. What's amazing is that Ron Gardenhire saw fit to make Ford his designated hitter 44 times. What's not amazing is that the Twins finished in third place and finished last in the American League in runs scored.
9. Mike Sweeney, 2005: .864/.882: 18 points
10. Manny Ramirez, 2001: 1.014/1.029: 15 points
You forgot that Ramirez spent so much time DH'ing back in the day, didn't you? Manny Being Manny actually appeared in more games in 2001 as a designated hitter (87) than as a left fielder (55). (Who says Jimy Williams didn't know what he was doing?) Remember some of the other players who had at-bats as the designated hitter for the worst Red Sox team of this decade? Among them: Dante Bichette, Morgan Burkhart, Israel Alcantara and Calvin Pickering.
11. Raul Ibanez, 2005: .792/.792: 0 points
It's somehow fitting that one of the streakiest and most inconsistent hitters in the game today once managed to put up the same OPS in 234 plate appearances as a left fielder as he did in 425 plate appearances as a designated hitter.
12. Garret Anderson, 2008: .758/.756: -2 points

That's right: This list has 33 names on it, and only 11 of those names either saw a benefit when they were the designated hitter or, in the case of Ibanez, broke even. Let's keep moving on down the line:

16. Aubrey Huff, 2007: .778/.765: -13 points
17. Jack Cust, 2008: .851/.829: -22 points

Still going:

23. Jason Giambi, 2006: .971/.904: -67 points
24. Bernie Williams, 2004: .795/.726: -69 points
25. Tim Salmon, 2003: .838/.762: -76 points

And still going:

31. Jason Giambi, 2002: 1.034/.886: -148 points
32. Jim Thome, 2000: .929/.764: -165 points
33. Jason Giambi, 2005: .975/.771: -204 points

If you tally up all the numbers and average them out, the 33 players on this list lost an average of 28.45 points off their OPS numbers when they DH'ed as compared to their overall numbers. Two-thirds of the players in the study saw their production suffer when their managers took their gloves out of their hands.

There might be something about the rhythm of the game affecting a player's rhythm at the plate. If a player has grown up playing a position in the field, as every player has, it's a big change to sit in the dugout and effectively pinch-hit for the pitcher four times and then go back and sit down. He can't atone for a strikeout with a big defensive play. He can't go run around and keep his body warm. He can't do much except chew gum and spit and take some swings in the batting cage every couple of innings to try to stay loose.

Research has indicated that managers should expect pinch hitters to lose something from their typical performance when they come in cold off the bench. The above numbers demonstrate that many hitters lose something from their typical performance when they're employed as a designated hitter.

Lowell might stay on the same type of run he's on now if the Red Sox make him their full-time designated hitter. It's more likely, though, that he'll see his numbers suffer quite a bit if the Red Sox don't let him play third base and stay in the rhythm of the game. If the numbers are right, Lowell should expect to lose 25 or 30 points off his OPS.

Then again, if Lowell continues to play statue-esque defense at third base, it's worth absorbing that hit at the plate to make a huge upgrade in the field.

The optimal Red Sox lineup

Kevin Youkilis will return from his suspension on Tuesday in Toronto and bring with him one of the best bats in the Red Sox lineup. His return, though, will make things even more challenging for Red Sox manager Terry Francona in his effort to juggle playing time for the weapons at his disposal.

We can hold a few truths to be self-evident:

1. Jason Bay, J.D. Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury, Victor Martinez, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis should be in the Red Sox lineup just about every single day.
2. Neither Alex Gonzalez, acquired Friday from Cincinnati, or Nick Green should be hitting higher than ninth in the lineup.
3. Casey Kotchman is a terrific defensive first baseman.
4. Red Sox pitchers, particularly Josh Beckett and Jon Lester, love throwing to Jason Varitek.
5. Mike Lowell and David Ortiz both are getting older and slower and bring varying degrees of effectiveness with the bat -- and both have significant numbers left on their contracts

The issue facing Francona right now revolves mostly around first base, catcher and designated hitter. Ortiz and Varitek each have a long history with Francona and with the Red Sox, but neither is swinging anything resembling a productive bat. Mike Lowell is swinging a hotter bat than anyone on the team but doesn't have adequate range to play third base every day. Casey Kotchman is a fairly average hitter but can really, really pick it at first base.

But with Victor Martinez an everyday presence, only two of the four can play every day.

Who should it be?

Here's how they stack up this year against lefties...
Lowell: .903 OPS
Varitek: .872
Ortiz: .720
Kotchman: .634

... and against righties:
Lowell: .818 OPS
Kotchman: .806
Varitek: .719
Ortiz: .696

It really is that simple.

Lowell should be DH'ing every day. Varitek should catch primarily against lefties and sit primarily against lefties, though his rapport with Josh Beckett and Jon Lester ought to have something to do with it, too.

Kotchman should sit against lefties and play against righties. Ortiz should be a formidable lefthanded bat off the bench who can give opposing managers pause when they're thinking about bringing in a right to face the bottom of the Red Sox lineup.

Youkilis will be back Tuesday. We'll see how Francona plays it.

Making do without Kevin Youkilis

(Update: Youkilis has been suspended for five games and will begin serving his suspension on Wednesday night.)

The Red Sox will be without the services of Kevin Youkilis for between five and eight games over the next couple of weeks, the severity of his punishment for charging the mound likely to be announced at some point today.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who was ejected the same inning for an argument unrelated to the brawl, seemed resigned Tuesday to losing his best hitter and most versatile infielder.

"I'm sure something will happen," he said. "We'll just wait and see. Youk's a real good player, and his versatility makes it even better for us. But we have guys -- we should be able to do this. You don't want to lose any players, but I'm sure something will happen."

Might the throw of the helmet tack on a game or two?

"Yeah, probably," Francona said.

To take a quick look at history, Coco Crisp charged the mound against Tampa Bay a year ago and had a suspension of seven games handed down the next day. Crisp appealed the suspension and played for the next two weeks or so before a conference call with league officials could be scheduled, and he then served a five-game suspension at the end of June.

(Crisp did not throw his helmet the way Youkilis did, but he did throw a punch, and that might even things out.)

It's unlikely the league will allow Youkilis to drag out his appeal as long as Crisp did given how little time is left in the season. The Red Sox travel to Texas for a three-game set on Friday and host the Yankees for a three-game set starting Aug. 21, and that means it might be most convenient for Youkilis to start serving his suspension on Aug. 24, right in the middle of a lengthy homestand.

Either way, though, Youkilis is going to miss some time.

The Red Sox will have to piece things together without him -- and the biggest impact actually won't come at the plate, particularly given the way Francona has managed his lineup to this point.

Mike Lowell will play third base just about full-time during the suspension with Nick Green or Chris Woodward perhaps being able to spell him for a day or two. (Woodward played third base 15 times for the Seattle Mariners earlier this year.) Lowell has made just five starts -- including just three in the field -- since the team's July 31 trade for Victor Martinez, and the Red Sox have made it a point of emphasis to give him frequent days off as they juggle their glut of corner infielders.

"I don't think we need to take credit for him swinging the bat well," Francona said. "He’s been a good hitter for a lot of years. I have a feeling his hip hopefully feels a little bit better. I think he would like to play more. I completely understand that. I would hope his hip feels better as he doesn’t grind on it as much, but I don’t think we need to take credit for him being a good hitter."

But the 35-year-old is hitting .333 and OPS'ing 1.107 during that span, and he's been among the team's most productive hitters in the month of August:

* Jason Bay, 1.303 (including a home run on Tuesday)
* Youkilis, 1.133
* Lowell, 1.107
* Dustin Pedroia, 1.044
* J.D. Drew, .770
* Victor Martinez, .755
* Jacoby Ellsbury, .666
* David Ortiz, .339
* Jason Varitek, .310

(As an aside: It's getting more and more obvious that Lowell needs to be taking at-bats away from Ortiz, whose OPS is only six points higher than Lowell's batting average. Ortiz has 40 plate appearances in August so far, and Lowell has just 25. If Lowell keeps tearing the cover off the ball during Youkilis' suspension, he's eventually going to force Francona's hand.)

Playing Lowell every day in place of Youkilis -- with Victor Martinez and Casey Kotchman sharing time at first base -- isn't going to ruin the Red Sox offense.

Defensively, though, it's going to be a problem.

It's been well-documented here and elsewhere: Lowell has been a woeful defensive third baseman this season. His Ultimate Zone Rating now is minus-9.9, third-worst among all third basemen, and if he'd played as many games as the Rangers' Michael Young, he'd be second-worst among all third basemen. He's made just nine errors all year, but his limited mobility means it's almost impossible for him to get to anything hit more than two steps to his left or to bunts or slow ground balls in front of him.

Youkilis hasn't been a spectacular defensive third baseman this year -- his UZR is minus-1.7 after coming in at 4.8 last season -- but his athleticism has given him a chance to make some plays Lowell has not.

On top of that, by playing Kotchman or Martinez at first base, the Red Sox have to make a compromise in some area. Kotchman has never become the Will Clark-type hitter many expected him to be, but he is a terrific defensive first baseman. His UZR this season is plus-3.8, and that's coming off back-to-back seasons in which it was at least 5.1.

According to John Dewan's Fielding Bible plus-minus system, Kotchman has been the sixth-best defensive first baseman in the major leagues this season. (The best? Youkilis.)

Martinez, on the other hand, is an All-Star hitter but an average defensive first baseman -- and certainly not in the category of either Kotchman or Youkilis. He certainly could play catcher most of the time and take at-bats away from a clearly struggling Varitek, but if Francona hasn't made that choice to this point, he's not going to do it while Youkilis is suspended.

Either way, the suspension of Youkilis is going to cost the Red Sox runs both through diminished defensive range at third base and through subpar offensive production at either first base or catcher.

On the other hand, if Lowell plays lousy defense but keeps crushing the ball at third base, he might just convince Francona he needs to be in the lineup every day as the team's designated hitter.

"I don't know why you wouldn't want good bats in your lineup," Lowell said after the game, his tone that of a veteran who doesn't want to rock the boat but who also wants to answer questions honestly and get a point across. "When you're swinging the bat well, you want to play every day. I stand by that."

That, my friends, is what you call a silver lining.

Big Papi in midst of big slide

It was 2 1/2 months ago that David Ortiz went a woeful 0-for-7 in a 12-inning loss to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the worst game of his worst season as a professional baseball player. It was minutes after that game that he uttered the memorable line, "Just put down, 'Papi stinks.'" It was less than two weeks later that Terry Francona dropped him out of the No. 3 spot in the batting order for the first time in almost exactly four years. It was as bad as it could possibly get.

Well, it's that bad again. David Ortiz went 0-for-5 on Sunday against the Baltimore Orioles and left an astounding 10 runners on base:
* He popped to shallow left field with the bases loaded in the first;
* He drew a walk with the bases loaded in the second;
* He lined out to second with two on in the fourth;
* He rolled into a double play with the bases loaded in the sixth;
* He grounded out to first with a runner on second in the eighth.

He had a chance to drive home 13 runs in the game -- 18 if you include the possibility of home runs -- and he drove in just one. (The double play did plate a run, but if you're going to argue that the double play was a productive at-bat is grasping at straws.)

Now that Victor Martinez is in the fold and ready to rake, it's again time to wonder if David Ortiz might best serve the Red Sox by playing only against righthanded pitchers -- and, even then, maybe not against all righthanded pitchers. The only problem is that Martinez, too, has had to endure a pretty epic slump through the month of July.

Consider these numbers:

* Ortiz this July: .247/.306/.539
* Ortiz in July in his career: .314/.410/.617
(He has no month in which he has a higher batting average, on-base percentage or slugging percentage than in July.)
* Ortiz in August in his career: .264/.371/.531
* Ortiz in September in his career: .284/.381/.571

* Victor Martinez this July: .175/.280/.250
* Martinez in July in his career: .274/.350/.413
(Only May, historically, has been a worse month for Martinez.)
* Martinez in August in his career: .316/.390/.484
* Martinez in September in his career: .310/.392/.459

Ortiz just OBP'ed .306 in a month in which he normally OBP's over .400, and he normally sees his numbers fall across the board as the calendar turns to August and September.

Martinez, on the other hand, scuffled through July the way he normally scuffled through July -- and his five-hit day on Sunday might just be an indication that he's ready to get hot in August the way he normally gets hot in August.

Here's one more set of numbers for you:

Mike Lowell's Ultimate Zone Rating: minus-9.7
Mike Lowell's Fielding Bible Plus-Minus: minus-21
Mike Lowell at the plate since his DL stint: .415/.500/.694

Lowell has been smoking the ball at the plate. He's also shown almost zero range at third base. One example: With one out and runners on first and second in Sunday's third inning, Clay Buchholz induced a slow ground ball between shortstop and third base. Lowell lunged for it but never got his glove on the ball. Had he made the plate, he might have turned an inning-ending double play -- and Buchholz would have escaped without allowing the six third-inning runs about which Red Sox fans will be talking on Monday morning.

But Lowell didn't reach it. The statistics above demonstrate why: His hip injury has robbed him of almost all of his range. Does that sound like a designated hitter to anyone else?

Lowell would fit nicely as a designated hitter

Mike Lowell has been a terrific hitter over the last couple of games.

"The last couple?" catcher Jason Varitek said with a degree of indignance in his voice. "How about all year? Mike has swung the bat well all year for us. He's been one of our guys, our RBI, guy, and he continues to do so."

OK, that's true. Entering play Wednesday, Lowell ranked fifth on the team in hits, third in doubles, fourth in RBI and, most importantly, third in OS -- ahead of both J.D. Drew and Dustin Pedroia.

But it was when the third baseman landed on the disabled list for the first time this season that some began to question how much he'd be able to give his team the rest of the way. He's answered that in a big way, swinging a hot bat for the last two weeks in a lineup full of slumping bats. Jason Bay is hitting .179 since the All-Star break, and Kevin Youkilis has fanned 14 times in 46 trips to the plate. Entering play Wednesday, Lowell was hitting .429 and OPS'ing 1.113 since the All-Star break -- and delivered another run-scoring double as the Red Sox came from behind to earn a split with the Oakland A's.

Here's the only problem: He can't field.

No, really, he can't field.

Lowell used to be a terrific defensive third baseman. He won a Gold Glove four years ago with the Florida Marlins, for those who believe in that sort of thing, and he consistently has been a plus-6 or plus-7 defensive third baseman on the Fielding Bible's plus/minus system since he was traded to the Red Sox, for those who believe in that sort of thing.

This year, though, he's been atrocious. It's pretty obvious it's all because of the hip surgery he underwent in the offseason, but, still, he's been atrocious. He's a minus-22 on the Fielding Bible scale, good for 35th among third basemen. He's a minus-11.6 on the Ultimate Zone Rating scale, good for 18th among third basemen.

Charlie Finley pushed for a solution for such a problem in the early 1970s. It was called -- you guessed it -- the designated hitter. Edgar Martinez, the greatest designated hitter ever, was a terrific hitter who no longer could field because repeated knee injuries had robbed him of his mobility.

Sound familiar?

Lowell took David Ortiz's regular spot at designated hitter on Wednesday night -- and he drove in five of the team's six runs in the process. He didn't seem to mind DH'ing as much as other position players do, though he said it's not something he'd want to do every day.

"I actually loved it," he said. "I think I'd pull my hair out if I had to do it all year, but here and there, I enjoy it. For me, it's really a half-day off. ... After the game (on Tuesday), I could feel that this hip was a little more tired than this hip. I welcome it."

Ortiz, his three-run home run on Thursday notwithstanding, isn't hitting the way a designated hitter is supposed to hit. His OPS has slipped from 1.062 in June to .729 in July -- and with Jason Bay and Kevin Youkilis scuffling badly, too, the Red Sox need all the hitters they can get.

"Bottom line, and I said it a few days ago: If you're hitting, you're going to be in the lineup," Lowell said. "We need guys that hit to score runs. We're trying to put the best team out there. I would hope everyone's on (the same) page for that goal. I try to keep it simple. When I'm at the plate, I try to hit the ball hard. Things have been going pretty good lately, and I don't see any reason why it should stop."

They just can't afford to trade runs at the plate for runs in the field with lousy defense. The more Francona can get Lowell into his lineup as his designated hitter, the better.

"This isn't going to be, like, a rotation"

So said Terry Francona on Friday after the Red Sox announced the acquisition of Adam LaRoche. The lineup that gave the team the best chance to win, the manager said, would play. Pride and hurt feelings were going to have nothing to do with

Kevin Youkilis is going to play just about every day. He's not affected in any way by the acquisition of LaRoche. That leaves three players -- LaRoche, Mike Lowell and David Ortiz -- for two spots in the lineup every day.

Let's look at the splits (in terms of OPS):

LaRoche, L
vs. LHP: .749
vs. RHP: .847
Of note: OPS'ing 1.250 in first three games with Red Sox.

Lowell, R
vs. LHP: .915
vs. RHP: .754
Of note: Having trouble defensively but is OPS'ing .935 since his return from the disabled list.

Ortiz, L
vs. LHP: .823
vs. RHP: .963
Of note: His home-run power remains, but his July batting average (.231) and on-base percentage (.291) look awfully similar to his April batting avearge (.230) and on-base percentage (.290).

And let's look at the pitchers the Red Sox will be facing:

Vin Mazzaro, RHP
vs. LHB: .723
vs. RHB: .845
Of note: Has never faced the Red Sox.

Brett Anderson, LHP
vs. LHB: .802
vs. RHB: .704
Of note: Allowed just two hits -- to righties Jason Bay and Nick Green -- in a complete-game shutout of the Red Sox on July 6.

Gio Gonzalez, LHP
vs. LHB: 1.553
vs. RHB: .806
Of note: Has faced lefties for just 38 at-bats in the major leagues. In the minor leagues, his numbers are pretty similar against righties and lefties.

You might be surprised, then, to learn that LaRoche is sitting out today's game against Mazzaro but will be back in the lineup -- with Ortiz sitting -- against Anderson on Wednesday. Lowell, who sat out each of the last two games, is back in the lineup and playing third base today.

It's not a rotation, Francona said. But the Red Sox are going to face far more righties than lefties the rest of the way, a scenario that appears to marginalize Lowell despite the $12 million he's being paid this year and the $12 million he'll be paid next year.

The third baseman appeared to fit best in the lineup on Wednesday and Thursday against back-to-back lefthanded pitchers. Instead, though, he's in the lineup on Tuesday against a righty -- a move almost transparent in its intention to appease a veteran who the Red Sox don't yet want to marginalize.

What if Lowell can't go?

Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell will receive an injection in his hip this morning as he and the Red Sox try to find a solution for the discomfort he's been feeling. If the injection doesn't do anything for him -- and manager Terry Francona said Sunday he had a similar injection once and it had no effect -- he could wind up on the disabled list.

He's 9 for his last 47 (.191) and has just two extra-base hits since June 7. On top of that, thanks presumably to his hip injury, his range at third base has been among the most limited in baseball. (He ranks 34th among big-league third basemen in Bill James' runs saved statistic, and his Fielding Bible plus-minus is minus-19.)

But with July 31 approaching, as WEEI.com's Rob Bradford has pointed out, third base suddenly has become the biggest question mark on the field. Theo Epstein has to start thinking about worst-case scenarios. No one except possibly the Dodgers can be considered more of a World Series title favorite than the Red Sox at this point, and it would be ludicrous for the Red Sox to miss a chance to win their third title in six years because they hadn't acted to plug a hole at third base.

If they get to a worst-case scenario, if Lowell is feeling so much pain in his hip he either can't play or can't play with any effectiveness, they've got to be prepared. Among the options:

1. Trade for a third baseman
Supply dwindled and demand potentially increased when Adrian Beltre opted to undergo shoulder surgery that will sideline him for at least the next six weeks. Not only would Beltre have been a possible fit -- had the Mariners fallen out of the race in the American League West, that is -- but the Mariners now might think about adding a third baseman themselves.

Now that Mark DeRosa is off the market, dealt to St. Louis over the weekend, it's slim pickings for third basemen. The Red Sox apparently offered Takashi Saito for Texas' Hank Blalock, but Blalock has primarily been a designated hitter this season and hasn't played more than 360 innings (which works out to 40 games) at third base since 2006.

Unless the Orioles show a willingness to deal with a division rival and make Melvin Mora available, there's not much out there.

2. Move Kevin Youkilis to third base full-time and promote a first baseman
Chris Carter and Jeff Bailey both had cups of coffee this spring -- Bailey hit .188 in 69 at-bats, and Carter went hitless with four strikeouts in five at-bats. Carter is hitting .254/.314/.414 at Triple-A Pawtucket this season, and Bailey is hitting .261/.381/.433.

Neither appear to be sensational long-term options -- but that's what might face the Red Sox if Lowell has to shut things down after the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline.

3. Move Youkilis to third base full-time and trade for a first baseman
Yes, that means we get to bring up this guy again.

But he's not the only one out there. Pittsburgh's Adam LaRoche is the last year of his contract, and the Pirates already dealt their center fielder for a haul of prospects. Washington's Adam Dunn fits what the Red Sox want to do with their lineup. Baltimore's Aubrey Huff, too, would be an interesting idea if the Orioles were open to dealing with the Red Sox.

***

The flexibility of Youkilis gives the Red Sox an opportunity to trade for a first baseman rather than a third baseman. Unless it's someone like LaRoche, a 29-year-old power hitter for whom the Pirates would have to get something worthwhile to stave off a fan mutiny, the Red Sox shouldn't have to part with any of the crown jewels of their system, either.

It's all about insurance. Lowell easily could come back strong after the injection. He also, however, could feel more and more pain as the year progresses and wind up on the disabled list for much of the second half of the season. The best news for the Red Sox is that they have until July 31 to figure out what they're going to get from him -- and if he's going to miss significant time, they'd risk blowing a golden opportunity at a World Series title by not making a deal to replace his bat in the lineup.

What about Adrian Beltre?

(Warning: The trade talk ahead is all contingent on the Red Sox deciding David Ortiz isn't going to play a key role in their lineup this season. That's not a step they've so far been willing to take; if Ortiz can't build on his pandemonium-inducing home run on Wednesday, though, they might not have that choice.)

Speculation so far has centered around the Red Sox adding a slugger who can play first base but who primarily would be penciled in as the team's designated hitter. If the Red Sox can get someone like that -- a Victor Martinez, perhaps -- they might be satisfied. But if they can't get someone like that, they might be better served looking at an upgrade on the defensive side.

Here's a theory: If David Ortiz isn't an everyday player, could the Red Sox be a better team with the aging Mike Lowell as its designated hitter and a stronger defensive player at third base?

Lowell has been an above-average defensive player ever since he was traded to the Red Sox. His Fielding Bible plus-minus (for plays made as compared to what an average player at his position would make) was plus-6 in 2006, plus-7 in 2007 and plus-7 in 2008.

So far this season, though, he's at minus-12. His "Ultimate Zone Rating" is at minus-2.0, meaning he's cost the Red Sox two runs. (Washington's Ryan Zimmerman leads all third basemen with a plus-6.7, meaning he's saved the Nationals 6.7 runs.)

Lowell still is a capable hitter post-hip surgery, but he's part of the problem on the left side of the Red Sox infield. Should the Mariners fall out of contention, though, Adrian Beltre might be the type of player who could fit nicely at third base for the Red Sox.

A year ago, Beltre finished the year with a plus-32 in the Fielding Bible ratings. So far this year, he's fourth among big-league third basemen with a 4.1 UZR. He's had some error issues, but his range is statistically better than any third baseman in baseball other than Zimmerman.

Oh, and he can hit a little bit, too. He's hitting just .213 this season and hasn't walked nearly as much as he used to walk, but his BAPIP is low (.248) and he's someone who normally is good for 20 home runs a year with a .450 slugging percentage. (He has two home runs so far this year.)

Beltre's five-year, $64 million deal with the Mariners expires after this season. He's been a fixture in trade rumors for the past year -- he would have been a great fit for the Twins last summer, but nothing ever happened. His name hasn't been tossed around much this year because the Mariners are hanging around in a fairly weak American League West.

But if the Mariners start to slip -- they were five games back entering play today and have allowed more runs than they've scored so far this season -- Beltre might land on the block.

Can you envision a Beltre-Jed Lowrie left side of the infield?

Doesn't that sound appealing?

The speed of Mike Lowell and the clutch hitting of Jeff Bailey

First baseman Jeff Bailey came into Tuesday's game hitting .182. Third baseman Mike Lowell came into Tuesday's game with a 40 time that could be measured by sundial. But it was Lowell's decision to try to steal third and Bailey's sharp single to left field that plated the key run in Tuesday's 2-1 win over the Blue Jays.

"Speed never takes a day off," Red Sox manager Terry Francona deadpanned after the game.

It wasn't speed, of course, that gave Lowell the confidence to try to steal third in that big spot in the second inning. Lowell now is 35 years old and coming off hip surgery and runs like he's dragging Santa's sleigh behind him. But when you've been around as many years as Lowell has, you pick up on a few things.

What Lowell picked up on in the second inning was that Brian Tallet (a) wasn't paying any attention to him, and (b) was going to throw a changeup down in the zone with two strikes, the perfect pitch on which to run.

"He's been talking a big game about doing it at some point," left fielder Jason Bay said, "and he finally did it. ... He just says, 'One of these days, someone's going to not be paying attention to me at second base, and I'm going do it. I'm going to take third.'"

Bailey, for his part, was just trying to make contact with two strikes and get a hit to score a run. Last year's International League Most Valuable Player been handed the full-time gig at first base when Kevin Youkilis was placed on the disabled list but hadn't exactly seized his opportunity; entering play Tuesday, he hitting .195 in the two weeks he'd had the job. Other than the solo home run he'd hit on Saturday in Seattle, he'd gone two full weeks without driving in a run.

"You're hitting under .200, and you know it," he said. "You get in your own head sometimes. You've got to fight that and take on the task at hand and go pitch-by-pitch, whatever you can do."

About all he'd done well was hit lefthanded pitching. Going into Tuesday night, he was hitting .400 (5-for-16) against lefties and just .100 (4-for-40) against righties.

That specialty, though, might come in handy if Terry Francona opts to begin platooning David Ortiz in the next few weeks. Bailey could get a spot start at designated hitter if the Red Sox have to face lefties like the Yankees' Andy Pettitte or the Phillies' Cole Hamels; he also might get a pinch-hitting opportunity or two against Mike Gonzalez, the Braves' lefthanded closer.

"The one positive that I'm taking out of all this is that I'm still hitting lefthanders decent," he said. "That's what I'm here to do. Anything extra off righthanders is a bonus. I'm still feeling good against the lefthanders, and they know it, too, so that's one positive for me to go off."

With Youkilis due back from the disabled list on Wednesday, Bailey was far from oblivious to the fact that Tuesday's game would mark the end of his run of 12 straight starts at first base. He's not about to be shipped back to Pawtucket -- not with Mark Kotsay still hitting speed bumps in his road back from offseason surgery.

But unless someone else gets hurt, he's not going to get the chance to play every day the way he has over the past couple of weeks.

"You just keep working, and you do what you can," he said, nodding toward the sign on the whiteboard that read Extra hitting Wednesday: 3:00. "Three o'clock tomorrow, extra hitting, I'll be there for that. I'll take extra swings in the cage. That's all you can do -- try to get better. It's always about trying to get better."

Bailey already wasn't exactly swimming with confidence. It didn't help matters when Tallet's third pitch, a fastball, nipped the outside corner to push the count to 1-2. Entering play Tuesday, Bailey was 1-for-13 when facing a 1-2 count and had struck out nine times.

As Tallet went into his windup, out of the corner of his eye, Bailey suddenly saw Lowell breaking for third in one of the most surprising attempted steals anyone will ever see. Tallet had thrown over to first base during J.D. Drew's at-bat; that, though, seemed more like a formality than anything else.

After Drew walked, Tallet barely glanced at Lowell again.

"I think maybe (Lowell) saw something, like a grip, like he knew he was going to throw a changeup," Bailey said. "(Tallet) had been keeping it down for the most part, and if the ball's in the dirt, he's got it easy. I think that's what he's thinking right there."

Lowell actually has stolen third base five times in his career -- and four of those steals of third have come since he was traded to Red Sox, including two just last year. Both of those steals of third also came when he was on second and another runner was on first -- but both of those also came with righthanded pitchers on the mound and lefties at the plate, increasing the degree of difficulty significantly.

Since then, though, Lowell has undergone hip surgery and has lost quite a bit of whatever speed he had to begin with.

"I know I'm not a burner on the bases," Lowell said. "but you don't have to be fast to be able to see things and maybe try to take advantage of a situation."

It almost backfired on him, though.

"I actually was a little bit scared because I thought Tallet was a little quicker (to the plate) on the ball I decided to go on," he said, "so I was really hoping Jeff would make contact. I'm not sure the likelihood of me being safe was very high."

Bailey made contact. He saw Lowell out of the corner of his eye, but he still jumped on a changeup that in the middle of the strike zone and laced it into shallow left field for a base hit.

"He hung a changeup," he said. "I probably should have hit it harder than I did. But a hit and an RBI is a hit and an RBI."

Lowell scored easily, and Drew cruised into third. If the runners hadn't been off with the pitch, neither would have had a chance to advance more than one base. George Kottaras then followed with a sacrifice fly to score Drew, and Tim Wakefield had the two runs he'd need to win his fifth game of the season.

But this wasn't about Wakefield. This was about Bailey and Lowell.

Bailey got the game-changing hit for which he'd been searching for two weeks.

"Yeah, it's good to -- well, I wouldn't say go out; I don't think I'm out of here yet," he said with a chuckle. "But when you're struggling, you try to just get one hit, and then you get the one hit and you go from there. Unfortunately, that's all I've been able to muster in the past few games, but one hit helps the team, and you do what you can do."

And Lowell got to act like he was capable of stealing third base without actually drawing a throw down to third base.

"I'm just curious, had Bailey not swung at that ball, what we might have seen," Bay said.

Said Lowell, tongue firmly in cheek, "As you can see, Jacoby (Ellsbury) got thrown out at third (in the eighth inning), so only the really elite runners would have been safe."