Victor or Dustin?

Should the Red Sox decide to move Dustin Pedroia out of his customary No. 2 spot to make room for Marco Scutaro, they'll have to make a decision: Either Victor Martinez or Dustin Pedroia will have to hit in the No. 3 spot with the other bumping down to No. 5. Reports out of Fort Myers had Pedroia ready and willing to hit fifth, but that should be far from a foregone conclusion.

A team typically should slot its best hitter in the No. 3 spot in its batting order. Who's the best hitter the Red Sox have?

Well, actually, that's a trick question. Kevin Youkilis is the best hitter in the Red Sox lineup -- and one of the best hitters in the American League. But because Youkilis hits for more power than either Martinez or Pedroia, he's a natural fit in the No. 4 spot in the batting order.

J.D. Drew, too, ought to be a candidate to hit in the No. 3 spot. He was one of just six players in the American League last season -- Youkilis, Miguel Cabrera, Joe Mauer, Alex Rodriguez and Ben Zobrist were the others -- to compile an on-base percentage of better than .390 and a slugging percentage of better than .500. On a rate basis, he's one of the elite hitters in the American League.

But if the Red Sox didn't hit Drew in the No. 3 spot after David Ortiz was bumped down to the bottom half of the lineup -- that duty fell to Youkilis, with Bay hitting cleanup -- they're probably not going to do so this season.

(Hitting Drew in the No. 3 spot would be the best way for Theo Epstein and Terry Francona to shut up all the "Drew sucks because he hits eighth!" voices, but it's a credit to both that shutting up their detractors is not among their priorities.)

That leaves Martinez and Pedroia -- and that means it's time for a side-by-side comparison:

2009 slash lines
Martinez: .303/.381/.480 (.861 OPS)
Pedroia: .296/.371/.447 (.819 OPS)

Career slash lines
Martinez: .299/.372/.465 (.837 OPS)
Pedroia: .307/.370/.455 (.825 OPS)

Walk rate
Martinez: 11.2 percent
Pedroia: 10.4 percent

Isolated power (ISO)
Martinez: .177
Pedroia: .152

Line-drive rate
Martinez: 21 percent
Pedroia: 18 percent

What does this tell you?

Well, Martinez has better numbers than Pedroia across the board -- not by much of a margin, but, still, better numbers across the board. Martinez probably should hit in the No. 3 hole in the Red Sox lineup -- and this might mean that Pedroia still might be the best fit at No. 2, since dropping him all the way down to No. 5 might be a waste of his on-base skills.

But it's fascinating that this Red Sox team, one whose lineup has caused so much consternation, has options like this.

A logjam at the top of the order

It's almost a foregone conclusion that Marco Scutaro will hit ninth in the Red Sox lineup to create a "second leadoff hitter" effect. By hitting behind Adrian Beltre and his presumably low on-base percentage, Scutaro would become something of a table-setter for Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia as they, in turn, set the table for Victor Martinez and Kevin Youkilis.

(As an aside: There are those who expect Ellsbury to steal 75 or 80 bases this season. Consider, though, how often Nick Green or Alex Gonzalez got on base in front of him last season -- and compare that to how often Scutaro will get on base in front of him this season, taking away some of his opportunities.)

The best way to score runs -- short of hitting home runs, of course -- is to get guys on base, one after the other. From Scutaro straight through until Youkilis and then even David Ortiz, the Red Sox have a chance to put men on base in rapid succession and, naturally, to drive them in. Consider the CHONE projected on-base percentages for the group:

9. Scutaro, .360
1. Ellsbury, .360
2. Pedroia, .379
3. Martinez, .366
4. Youkilis, .384
5. Ortiz, .355

A natural question arises: Why wait?

Why leave Scutaro at the bottom of the batting order? Why not hit Scutaro up near the top, where his on-base percentage will be well above average even if he regresses, and get him on base as often as possible in front of Martinez and Youkilis?

Ellsbury would still hit at the top of the order. He sees himself as a leadoff hitter. Manager Terry Francona said over and over last year that the Red Sox lineup is at its best when Ellsbury is its leadoff hitter.

But Scutaro is a natural leadoff hitter himself. He hit leadoff in all 144 of his starts with the Blue Jays last season. His ability to get on base and his ability to work counts -- he saw a career-best 4.06 pitches per plate appearance last season -- makes him a better candidate for the top of the lineup than the bottom.

The natural move would be to insert Scutaro between Ellsbury and Pedroia and bump everyone down from there, creating something of a logjam of high on-base percentages at the top. It would, as Francona would say, lengthen the lineup, make it deeper and tougher and more of a challenge for opposing pitchers.

It also would be a little bit unconventional:

Ellsbury, LF
Scutaro, SS
Pedroia, 2B
Youkilis, 1B
Martinez, C
Ortiz, DH
Cameron, CF
Drew, RF
Beltre, 3B

Martinez and Youkilis could flip-flop. There's not a huge difference between them. Youkilis does have slightly better on-base and power numbers, so it makes sense in some ways to hit him ahead of Martinez.

Drew and Ortiz could flip-flop, too, though it makes sense to get the power bat of Ortiz into the middle of the lineup where it can do the most damage if and when it catches fire. Even Drew and Beltre could flip-flop, turning Drew into yet another leadoff hitter in the No. 9 spot, though it would incite of the "J.D. Drew is overrated" camp.

Drew, for what it's worth, could fit into that No. 2 spot ahead of Pedroia just as easily as Scutaro, if not more so. Drew is projected to compile an on-base percentage of .372, a number that would look awfully good in front of Pedroia, Youkilis and Martinez.

That would leave you with this:

Ellsbury, LF
Drew, RF
Pedroia, 2B
Youkilis, 1B
Martinez, C
Ortiz, DH
Cameron, CF
Beltre, 3B
Scutaro, SS

Either way, that's an unconventional lineup.

Pedroia isn't a prototypical No. 3 hitter, though it's worth pointing out he spent a week hitting cleanup two seasons ago. He OPS'ed .819 last season -- which would be above average among No. 3 hitters in the American League (.805). He's not a home run hitter, but his doubles power would be good enough with the speed on the bases in front of him.

The Red Sox have put together a lineup with six or seven hitters who could hit in the top half of the lineup. Leaving both Drew and Scutaro in the bottom third of the order doesn't seem like the best way to score runs.

Dustin Pedroia loves the breaking ball

Subtitle: A voyage through FanGraphs' Pitch Value statistics.

Every hitter has his pitches he loves. Every hitter has his pitches he loves a little less. Thanks to FanGraphs' Pitch Value numbers, we can find out a little bit about what pitches each Red Sox hitter loves or loves less.

The measure here is "Runs created per 100 pitches seen." The calculations are complicated but the idea is relatively simple: A single contributes a certain fraction of a run. A double contributes a certain fraction of a run. A strikeout costs a certain fraction of a run.

Against the fastball
1. Kevin Youkilis, 2.56 runs
2. Victor Martinez, 2.42
3. Jason Bay, 1.8
4. J.D. Drew, 1.73
5. Julio Lugo, 1.03

Against the changeup
1. David Ortiz, 1.92 runs
2. Julio Lugo, 1.39
3. Jason Bay, 1.13
4. Kevin Youkilis, 1.94
5. Jason Varitek, 0.29

(You're probably wondering why Julio Lugo looked so bad if he was so good against fastballs and changeups -- or maybe you've already guessed that he was a minus-2.56 against curveballs.)

Against the curveball
1. Dustin Pedroia, 2.56 runs
2. Alex Gonzalez, 2.44
3. Kevin Youkilis, 1.94
4. David Ortiz, 1.35
5. Jason Bay, 0.76

Against the slider
1. Jason Varitek, 2.67 runs
2. Jacoby Ellsbury, 1.56
3. Jason Bay, 1.14
4. Dustin Pedroia, 0.92
5. J.D. Drew, minus-0.03

Pedroia actually ranked ninth in the major leagues last season against breaking balls, compiling a combined 3.48 runs against curveballs and sliders. He might claim he loves the high, inside fastball, but he was most productive last season against breaking balls.

Two seasons ago, Pedroia ranked 11th against breaking balls, compiling 3.67 runs against curveballs and sliders.

According to the new Red Sox Annual, Pedroia swung and missed at just six percent of curves and sliders against righthanded pitchers -- best in the major leagues. He hit .350 against curveballs last season, including .375 against curveballs from righties.

Kevin Youkilis, on the other hand, loves pitches that come in straight and don't break. He ranked 16th in the major leagues last season with a combined 3.5 runs created against fastballs and changeups. Two seasons ago, Youkilis ranked eighth in the major leagues with a combined 4.48 against fastballs and changeups, nestled right between Albert Pujols and Chipper Jones.

His Achilles' heel over the last two seasons has been the slider. He compiled minus-1.42 runs against the slider last season.

All of this is subject to context: Bay is, by reputation, a fastball hitter who has little success against good breaking pitches. Bad breaking pitches still count on the scale -- and Bay pounds bad breaking pitches.

(Want more context? The best fastball among Red Sox pitchers last season, per 100 pitches, belonged to Tim Wakefield. It only was so effective, though, because he threw it as a complement to his mystifying knuckleball.)

Weaknesses still are weaknesses, and strengths still are strengths. If a pitcher is going to try to get Pedroia out with a breaking ball in a big spot next season, it had better be an awfully good one.

Putting together the Red Sox lineup

(For real this time.)

The acquisition of Adrian Beltre almost certainly closes the book on changes to the Red Sox starting lineup on Opening Day. The issue now is figuring out how Terry Francona will slot everyone in.

It's not a random process. Francona has a method to what he does, and he's not unaware of the statistics that make some players better fits at certain spots in the lineup than others.

Below are some of those considerations:

1. J.D. Drew and David Ortiz will not hit back-to-back.
More than a few lineup projections have David Ortiz hitting fifth in the Red Sox lineup and J.D. Drew hitting sixth. Francona, however, has a strict aversion to making opposing managers' jobs easy -- and if Drew and Ortiz are hitting back-to-back, a trained monkey would know enough to bring in a lefty to face both of them in a key spot in the late innings.

Drew and Ortiz played in 137 and 150 games, respectively, last season.

Any guesses how many times they hit back-to-back in the Red Sox lineup?

Seven. All season.

Most of the time they did so, it came in a game in which Jason Bay -- the natural buffer between the two -- was taking a day off. Francona wasn't going to put Rocco Baldelli or Josh Reddick any higher than seventh in the Red Sox lineup when they were playing on such a limited basis.

When Ortiz hit third, Drew hit fifth. When Ortiz hit fifth, Drew hit seventh. In all of those games down the stretch when Drew hit eighth, both Bay and Mike Lowell buffered him from Ortiz.

It might happen once in a while -- it did a year ago -- but there's no chance Drew and Ortiz are going to hit back-to-back on a regular basis next season.

2. Dustin Pedroia is a perfect No. 2 hitter
It's not that anyone is proposing moving Pedroia out of his home between Jacoby Ellsbury and Victor Martinez. He draws walks and hits line drives but doesn't hit the home runs that would make him a No. 3 or No. 4 hitter in a World Series-caliber lineup.

Drew and his inclination to take pitches and get on base likewise would be a better fit at the top of the batting order than in the middle. Some will criticize -- and have criticized -- Drew because he's a $14 million player who can't hit higher than No. 7 or No. 7 in the batting order.

If not for Pedroia, though, Drew would be where he belongs.

3. Mike Cameron is a more productive hitter than Adrian Beltre
It's tough to project the way Beltre will hit next season upon having been liberated from Safeco Field. Just using road splits, however, tell a story by themselves:

2009
Beltre: .279/.324/.393 (.717 OPS)
Cameron: .257/.355/.432 (.787 OPS)

2008
Beltre: .292/.349/.512 (.862 OPS)
Cameron: .258/.346/.548 (.895 OPS)

2007
Beltre: .288/.320/.538 (.858 OPS)
Cameron: .254/.341/.449 (.789 OPS)

On top of that, Cameron is a far better fit for the grind-it-out approach the Red Sox cherish in their hitters. A handful of other numbers:

Pitches per plate appearance (2009)
Beltre: 3.56
Cameron: 3.96

Pitches per plate appearance (career)
Beltre: 3.77
Cameron: 4.05

Pitches swung at out of the strike zone (2009)
Beltre: 36.8 percent
Cameron: 17.4 percent

Pitches swung at out of the strike zone (career)
Beltre: 30.1 percent
Cameron: 16.9 percent

Beltre is a tremendous defensive third baseman and certainly will benefit from being able to pull the ball at the Green Monster.

He's not, however, someone who should be hitting ahead of Drew or Ortiz -- or Cameron -- in the Red Sox lineup.

4. Marco Scutaro is a second leadoff hitter
In the same way some experts have endorsed the idea of National League teams hitting their pitchers eighth in their lineups, it makes sense for the Red Sox to put the least productive hitter in their lineup -- Beltre, most likely -- in the No. 8 spot rather than in the No. 9 spot.

One way to approach lineup construction is to put the No. 6, 7, 8 and 9 hitters in descending order of quality. In a close game in the late innings, after all, it makes sense for a team to have its best hitters in line from best to worst.

The difference between the No. 8 spot and the No. 9 spot in the lineup for the Red Sox a year ago, though, was 19 plate appearances. In exchange for those 19 at-bats, the thinking has it, a team is better off getting a quality on-base guy in front of its productive hitters at the top of the lineup. Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia both are line-drive hitters who are fully capable of driving in runners on base -- and Scutaro is going to get on base at a rate 50 points higher than Beltre will.

***

With all of that said, here's how the Opening Day lineup comes together:

1. Ellsbury, LF
2. Pedroia, 2B
3. Martinez, C
4. Youkilis, 1B
5. Ortiz, DH
6. Cameron, CF
7. Drew, RF
8. Beltre, 3B
9. Scutaro, SS

Felipe Lopez a Scutaro-type fit for Red Sox

With the news today that Dustin Pedroia is open to a move to shortstop -- and keep in mind Pedroia only moved to second base to accomodate Hanley Ramirez -- the options for the Red Sox seem to have been thrown wide open. A team that seemed to be at the mercy of Marco Scutaro, natural fit that he might be, all of a sudden can take a look at the pool of available second basemen as it tries to fill out its infield.

Consider last year's the Wins Above Replacement numbers for the available middle infielders on the market -- and, for reference, Pedroia was worth 6.2 wins above his replacement last season:

Second basemen
Ronnie Belliard, 1.3
Eric Bruntlett, minus-1.0
Jamey Carroll, 1.5
Craig Counsell, 2.8
Ray Durham, 2.6
Damion Easley, 1.5
Orlando Hudson, 2.9
Adam Kennedy, 1.7
Felipe Lopez, 4.6
Mark Loretta, minus-0.2
Placido Polanco, 3.1

Shortstops
Orlando Cabrera, 0.6
Bobby Crosby, minus-0.7
Adam Everett, 0.9
Khalil Greene, minus-0.8
Marco Scutaro, 4.5
Miguel Tejada, 2.6

WAR, of course, is far from a perfect stat. But it is a stat that incorporates both offense and defense -- that's how Adam Everett is in the black despite an on-base percentage of .288 last season -- and it's a good starting point for measuring quality.

Scutaro, of course, is near the top of the list. But there's another player who actually had a higher Wins Above Replacement number than Scutaro -- and a player who can play either shortstop or second base at an acceptable level in the major leagues: Felipe Lopez. The 29-year-old infielder has bounced around throughout his career, but he posted the highest on-base percentage (.383) and slugging percentage (.427) of his career last season. His ability to work the count, though, has never wavered -- he's seen 4.0 pitches per plate appearance (or better) four times in his nine seasons.

As long as we've looking at infielders who had career years last year, let's compare Lopez head-to-head with some of the bigger names on the list:

On-base percentage in 2009
Orlando Hudson: .357
Felipe Lopez: .383
Placido Polanco: .331
Marco Scutaro: .379

On-base percentage, career
Hudson: .348
Lopez: .338
Polanco: .348
Scutaro: .337

Swinging at pitches out of the strike zone in 2009
Hudson: 20.6 percent
Lopez: 21.5 percent
Polanco: 23.7 percent
Scutaro: 12.3 percent

Swinging at pitches out of the strike zone, career
Hudson: 17.7 percent
Lopez: 19 percent
Polanco: 21 percent
Scutaro: 14.5 percent

Pitches per plate appearance, 2009
Hudson: 3.86
Lopez: 3.92
Polanco: 3.48
Scutaro: 4.06

Pitches per plate appearance, career
Hudson: 3.80
Lopez: 3.97
Polanco: 3.37
Scutaro: 3.79

Ultimate Zone Rating/150, 2009
Hudson (at 2B): minus-3.7
Lopez (at 2B): 7.6
Polanco (at 2B): 11.0
Scutaro (at SS): 1.0

Ultimate Zone Rating/150, career
Hudson (at 2B): 2.6
Lopez (at 2B): 2.6
Polanco (at 2B): 10.0
Scutaro (at SS): minus-2.9

Polanco appears to be the best option defensively but by far the worst option for what the Red Sox are trying to do offensively -- in other words, the same type of player as Alex Gonzalez. Hudson, on the other hand, has seen his defensive abilities decline rapidly and wouldn't necessarily be a fit, either. If the Red Sox were willing to settle for subpar defense at second base, they might as well make a deal for Florida's Dan Uggla.

(Uggla had a WAR of 2.9 last season even with his defensive deficiencies.)

Looking at the numbers, though, there's not really a measurable difference between Lopez and Scutaro -- and given that Lopez has the ability to play shortstop as well as second base, he's worth as much discussion around these parts as the man whose bandwagon this blog has driven.

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.

Pedroia: For better or for worse?

Terry Francona jumped into a recent interview the Providence Journal's Joe McDonald was conducting with Dustin Pedroia in the Red Sox dugout at Fenway Park, taking advantage of the chance to mock his second baseman.

"I used to be a good player," Francona said. "Now I'm horrible."

Pedroia won't win his second straight American League MVP award this year. He's not the MVP of his own team. He might not even be one of the top five candidates for MVP of his own team. He led the league in runs scored for a second straight year, but many of his other statistics are down: Batting avearge (from .326 to .296), doubles (54 to 48), home runs (17 to 15), RBI (83 to 72).

But it's been far from a down year -- particularly given the turmoil at the top of the Red Sox lineup throughout the first half of the season. When Jacoby Ellsbury was bumped from the top of the order to the bottom until his ability to get on base improved, it was Pedroia who moved to the top of the order in his place. Pedroia spent almost the entire month of June hitting leadoff for the Red Sox before Francona got him out of that spot.

Check out these splits:
Batting 1st: .219 batting, .287 on-base, .333 slugging
Batting 2nd: .311 batting, .388 on-base, .470 slugging

(That .388 on-base percentage, spread out across an entire season, would have ranked him 13th in the American League -- ahead of Jason Bay, Mark Teixeira and Victor Martinez -- rather than 22nd.)

Compare that to last season:
Batting 1st: .208 batting/.256 on-base/.264 slugging
Batting 2nd: .331 batting/.382 on-base/.502 slugging

The downturn in his numbers might or might not have coincided with a slump he would have gone through anyway. You can't automatically assume the move to the top of the order caused his lousy numbers.

It certainly didn't help, though.

"It did take a little of my aggressiveness away," Pedroia said immediately after Terry Francona dropped him back to his customary spot and installed J.D. Drew at the top of the lineup. "When you hit leadoff, you want to get on base so bad. They're throwing pitches on the corner and stuff like that, and, usually, I'm kind of a hacker a little bit, and that took it away from me a little bit. He just said, 'We'll move you down, flip-flop you and J.D., and just go do your thing.'"

But Pedroia's peripherals even improved from last season:
* His strikeout rate decreased (from 7.2 percent to 6.3).
* His walk rate increased (from 6.9 percent to 10.4).
* His pitches per plate appearance increased (from 3.70 to 3.95).

Defense, too, was a factor a year ago: Pedroia's plus-15 on The Fielding Bible's scale ranked him fifth in the major leagues. This year? You guessed it: Pedroia's plus-12 ranked him fifth in the major leagues.

You can say Pedroia had a down year if you want.

But it seems pretty obvious where he's more comfortable hitting in the batting order -- and had his manager left him there, it's likely he'd have put up MVP-caliber numbers once again.

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.

Red Sox just keep grinding

"The biggest thing to do is just to keep grinding."
-- Red Sox manager Terry Francona before Monday's game

Dustin Pedroia came to the plate with Jacoby Ellsbury on first base -- soon to be on second base -- during the first inning of Friday's game against the Yankees. Pedroia worked a four-pitch walk, perfectly happy to get on base in front of Victor Martinez and Kevin Youkilis.

It was only because Martinez grounded into a double play and, after a Youkilis walk, David Ortiz grounded out to second base that the inning became the first of the 31 consecutive innings in which the Red Sox did not score a run.

Pedroia came to the plate again with Ellsbury on second base during the first inning of Monday's game against the Tigers. Edwin Jackson didn't give him a chance to work his walk, though. A missed bunt attempt -- anything to get the runner over, right? -- and a tough fastball in on the hands put the second baseman in an 0-2 hole.

"Once I get two strikes me, I'm not just trying to hit the ball to right field to get Ells over," Pedroia said. "I'm trying to just put a good at-bat together."

Pedroia set about doing what he does so well -- he laid off a fastball high and a slider in the dirt and a fastball off the plate away to run the count to 3-2. He then fouled off a full-count slider at the knees to force Jackson to throw one more pitch.

The next pitch Jackson threw actually wasn't that bad of a pitch. He threw a 93-mile-an-hour fastball down and in and didn't really give Pedroia a chance to get his arms extended. But the reigning American League MVP seemed to sense a fastball was coming and was out in front of it, taking a big swing and depositing it in the Green Monster seats for a two-run home run.

Just like that, the Red Sox had scored as many runs as they'd scored on Friday, Saturday and Sunday combined.

But Pedroia wasn't the only one to get a big hit, and he wasn't the only one to grind out an at-bat. Nine of the first 12 hitters of the game saw at least four pitches, and the only ones who didn't saw their at-bats end with hits. Eight straight batters in the first inning worked the count -- except J.D. Drew, who singled up the middle on the first pitch -- and eight straight batters either hit the ball hard or drew a walk.

The second inning was much the same story. Nick Green worked his way back from a 1-2 count, refusing to chase a couple of pitches down and out of the strike zone, and jumped on a fastball up and over the middle and launched it over the Green Monster. Even though Pedroia and Martinez both struck out, they both did so after lengthy battles that only served to drive Jackson's pitch count up.

By the end of the fourth inning, Jackson was done.

"We had long at-bats, and that's huge," Pedroia said. "To get their starter out of the game after four innings, especially playing them four times, that's pretty good."

The result -- the Red Sox survived a late rally to earn a 6-5 win -- in some ways served as a validation for the grind-it-out approach the Red Sox took with them to New York. They just hadn't gotten anything for their efforts. The Red Sox already ranked third in the major leagues in pitches seen per plate appearance (3.92), well above the league average of 3.83, and they actually maintained that approach pretty well in New York in the face of a total lack of results:

Thursday: 4.11 pitches per at-bat
Friday: 4.63
Saturday: 4.13
Sunday: 4.21

As a team, overall, the Red Sox saw 4.24 pitches per at-bat against the Yankees over the weekend -- a pretty impressive feat the way the home team's hurlers were pounding the strike zone.

"Those guys, they're pounding the strike zone, and they didn't walk a lot of guys," said left fielder Jason Bay, who watched most of the series from the bench with an injured hamstring. "It's about throwing quality strikes. I don't care if it's Single-A or the big leagues: ... If they're putting it where they want it, it's going to be hard to put a good swing on it."

Next up: Detroit rookie Rick Porcello, who threw 84 pitches but didn't get out of the fifth inning (4.0 pitches per at-bat) when he faced the Red Sox in early June.

Just keep grinding. Just keep grinding.

Dustin Pedroia's home runs

Dustin Pedroia hit his longest home run of the season on Tuesday, a 384-foot blast eight or 10 rows deep in the Tropicana Field bleachers. It also was his first home run of the season that would have been out in any other ballpark.

HitTracker measures every home run hit in the major leagues not just by standard distance but by "true distance," taking into account wind, temperature and altitude conditions that often can affect the flight of the ball. With the Red Sox playing the Rays inside Tropicana Field at sea level, there weren't any extra atmospheric conditions in play. Pedroia's blast really traveled 384 feet.

As you can imagine, the diminutive second baseman doesn't hit the ball that far very often. A year ago, in fact, he only hit three home runs that traveled that far. (He has never hit a 400-foot home run in the major leagues, and Jason Bay has 14 home runs just this season longer than Pedroia's career best of 394 feet.)

But just like this seems to be his favorite time of the year for hitting in general -- his hot streak in August a year ago is likely what won him the MVP award -- this seems to be his favorite time of the year for hitting long home runs. Four of his seven longest home runs have come either in August or the first week of September.

Just for fun, here's a collection of Pedroia's longest home runs:

1. 394 feet: Aug. 27, 2008 into Monument Park at Yankee Stadium
2. 394 feet, May 23, 2008 at McAfee Coliseum in Oakland
3. 389 feet, May 18, 2008 against Milwaukee at Fenway Park
4. 388 feet, May 8, 2007 at Rogers Centre in Toronto
(This was his first career home run. Also, the link is broken.)
5. 384 feet, Aug. 4, 2009, at Tropicana Field
6. 382 feet, Sept. 2, 2008, at Fenway Park
(That one hit the Sports Authority sign.)
7. 381 feet, Aug. 1, 2009, at Camden Yards

If it's not coming up on Labor Day or Memorial Day, apparently, don't expect Dustin Pedroia to be going real deep.

(Speaking of real deep, Pedroia doesn't do this.)

Tough at-bats spark Red Sox rally

"If you're going to walk people," Baltimore manager Dave Trembley told reporters after Wednesday's game, "it's not the time to do it in the ninth inning."

That's true. But if you're going to draw walks, the ninth inning is precisely the time to do it. Red Sox hitters drew three walks in Wednesday's ninth inning, and all three proved critical as the Orioles got a taste of their own come-from-behind medicine.

"Good hitters get on base, grind out at-bats, and you have a lot better chance going forward and scoring runs and having innings like we did late in the game here," said outfielder Rocco Baldelli, whose pinch-hit single tied the game with two outs in the ninth inning. "At no point have I ever seen us in a game where we've just folded up and gone home. We've won some good games. I don't know if any of them were more spectacular in the late innings than this one.

"It's something you don't necessarily expect to happen, but we expect ourselves to try to make it happen."

It started with Dustin Pedroia, the scrappy second baseman whose 10-pitch at-bat against CC Sabathia turned the tide in a come-from-behind win against the Yankees three weeks ago. Pedroia drew a five-pitch walk from reliever Jim Johnson to get himself on base in front of Kevin Youkilis -- and Youkilis hit a fastball into the right-field bleachers to cut the deficit to two runs.

Orioles closer George Sherrill, summoned in a hurry, then fanned Jason Bay and David Ortiz before surrendering a soft single to center field to Jacoby Ellsbury.

First baseman Jeff Bailey reached base in four of his five plate appearances on Tuesday, and he came to the plate for the first time on Wednesday representing both the tying run and the potential third out. It was his chance to be a hero or a goat. He didn't take the bat off his shoulder. Sherrill threw a curveball for a strike on the first pitch but missed the strike zone with each of his next four pitches. He didn't miss by all that much -- Bailey looked back twice at the home-plate umpire on his way to first base -- but he missed just the same.

"I thought Bailey's at-bat was as tough an at-bat, considering the circumstances," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "You have a righty that's running it in on his hands. He knows he's got to move the runner, and he found a way to do it."

Catcher Jason Varitek then saw a 3-0 count turn into a 3-2 count and almost took a hack at a hellacious curveball that looked good for a while only to dive down toward his ankles. He checked his swing. Ball four. Bases loaded.

"(Sherrill) made a bastard pitch on 'Tek," Francona said.

Baldelli then came to the plate, pinch-hitting for Nick Green. He took two curveballs -- one a strike, one a ball -- and then went after a fastball up and in that he somehow punched into center field for a two-run single that tied the game.

"It wasn't like he hit a pea," Francona said, "but he fought it off and stayed in the middle of the field. It looked beautiful."

The Red Sox mustered nothing against the Baltimore bullpen on Tuesday and nothing against rookie starter Brad Bergesen through eight innings on Wednesday. In the ninth inning, though, the plate approach that has so permeated the Red Sox clubhouse paid off in a huge way.

"This is not a team that's going to roll over," said shortstop Julio Lugo, who chopped the go-ahead single through a drawn-in infield in the 11th inning. "We'll never roll over. They've got to get 27 outs, and we proved that. We've got a group, guys that work hard, and you've got to get 27 outs on this team."

'We pretty much imploded'

It seemed hilarious at the time. It seems like a microcosm now.

Shortstop Julio Lugo threw to first base to retire Felix Pie, a fairly routine defensive play in a fairly routine sixth inning. Dustin Pedroia began to trot off the field, and Lugo, Jeff Bailey and Kevin Youkilis followed. All three of the Red Sox outfielders took a couple of steps toward the dugout. Only catcher Jason Varitek, standing next to a bewildered Nick Markakis, held his ground, waving frantically at the gray shirts leaving the field.

There were only two outs.

"It was my fault," Pedroia said. "I got ahead of myself, and everyone followed me."

Said manager Terry Francona, "I looked up and I saw 'Tek standing there all by himself. The first thing I think is, 'I must be nuts.' I've never seen that. ... I'm looking down at my (lineup) card, like, 'What the hell did I miss?'"

Pitcher Justin Masterson then blew away Robert Andino with a 96-mile-an-hour fastball to retire the side. The Red Sox trotted off the field once again, chuckling to themselves a little bit as the Camden Yards crowd gave them a good old-fashioned Bronx cheer.

"That's really irrelevant to the game," Pedroia said.

Maybe not directly. But it was the very next inning that the Red Sox imploded, blowing a 10-1 lead to an Orioles team they'd beaten eight straight times and handled so easily before a 71-minute rain delay. It was as if they decided to sleepwalk through a game they seemed to have well in hand, particularly with the major leagues' best bullpen taking over for an encouragingly effective John Smoltz.

The collective inability to keep track of the outs in the sixth inning seemed like a goofy fluke at the time. In retrospect, it was a bad, bad omen.

"It would have been funnier to talk about under difference circumstances," Francona said.

The Red Sox lost to the Orioles on Tuesday night in the type of game that can become a turning point if they let it, the type of game that can snowball for the whole team the way it snowballed for the bullpen in the seventh and eighth innings.

Masterson, so dominant in the fifth and sixth innings, allowed a line-drive double to Luke Scott and a no-doubt-about-it home run to Oscar Salazar. He then gave way to Manny Delcarmen, who allowed an RBI single to Pie. Delcarmen gave way to Hideki Okajima, who retired the side in the seventh but allowed four straight hits to open the bottom of the eighth. Okajima gave way to Takashi Saito, who allowed a sacrifice fly and a tough-luck single down the left-field line. Saito then gave way to closer Jonathan Papelbon, who struck out Pie but gave up a ringing double to Nick Markakis that gave the Orioles the lead.

"We pretty much imploded," Papelbon said. "I can't think of any better word to use. That's just what happened."

Said Francona, "We wanted to get to the lefties" -- Markakis and Aubrey Huff -- "for Oki, but that wasn't happening. We sandwiched Manny in there and even stayed with Oki to start the next inning because we wanted to get through (switch-hitter Matt) Wieters. Nothing we did worked."

At the same time, after the rain delay, Red Sox bats went virtually silent against Dave Hendrickson, a journeyman junkballer relegated to the bullpen because he had a 6.35 ERA as a starter. The last time the Red Sox saw him, he pitched the first five innings of what turned out to be a 12-1 win. Tuesday's game looked like it was headed that way before the Orioles started hitting rockets all over the place.

It even looked like the Red Sox would survive the scare, would emerge to smile about the near-miss, until Markakis launched a Papelbon fastball to left-center field to drive home the tying and go-ahead runs.

"We still held onto the lead until that big hit Markakis got," Pedroia said. "It felt like we were fine until that ball that he hit. I was hoping it would have at least bounced over (the fence) to keep (Brian) Roberts at third, but it didn't work out for us."

Nothing did.

The last time the Red Sox blew a lead of this magnitude, back in 1989, insult and injury came hand in hand: Second baseman Marty Barrett had expected to have the day off; he pinch-hit in the ninth inning only because a 10-0 lead had turned into an 11-11 tie. Barrett tripped over first base running out a ground ball and tore up his knee and never was the same player again. Two years later, not yet 33 years old, he was out of baseball.

That's the silver lining: No one got hurt on Tuesday night. Everyone emerged safe and sound.

Even better, the Red Sox ace is pitching on Wednesday.

"There's games in the year you just chalk up to fluke," Smoltz said. "Our bullpen is outstanding. You give credit where credit is due: Baltimore took advantage of every opportunity. They got the bloops to fall. They got some big hits late. They got some two-out hits. But as far as our bullpen is concerned, this will sting a little bit, but when you've got Josh Beckett on the mound tomorrow, he has a tendency to erase that. ...

"It's just one of those games where you shake your head because you can't believe what you just saw."

Leadoff spot agrees with Drew

J.D. Drew was well aware he needed a double to complete the cycle when he strode to the plate in the eighth inning.

"Not a player alive wouldn't know he was ready to hit a double in that situation," said Drew, his bubbly side rising to the surface. "I was trying to hit a double. It just didn't quite work out."

How exactly does one try to hit a double, you might ask?

"I don't know how you try," he said with a chuckle. "I was just going to hit the ball and run straight to second if I had to."

Over the pitcher's mound?

"Right through the middle of the infield."

All joking aside, Terry Francona's decision to flip-flop Drew (.380 OBP) and Dustin Pedroia (.367 OBP) in the Red Sox batting order paid off in spades right away. Drew opened Monday night's game with a triple and Pedroia singled him home, giving the Red Sox a 1-0 lead and Jon Lester all the runs he would need.

"That got a little bit of a reaction in the dugout in the first inning, as you can imagine," Francona said with a smirk.

Pedroia and Drew had gone a combined 7-for-32 (.218) in their last four games batting first and second, respectively, in the Red Sox order. But Francona's decision wasn't a reaction to the results as much as it was a reaction to what it was doing to his second baseman. Pedroia had taken it upon himself to work more counts and see more pitches -- and thus was finding himself taking pitches he normally wouldn't take.

"It did take a little of my aggressiveness away," he said. "When you hit leadoff, you want to get on base so bad. They're throwing pitches on the corner and stuff like that, and, usually, I'm kind of a hacker a little bit, and that took it away from me a little bit. He just said, 'We'll move you down, flip-flop you and J.D., and just go do your thing.'"

Drew, for his part, didn't do anything differently at the plate when he first stepped to the plate. But that's precisely what makes him an ideal leadoff hitter -- his natural approach makes him perhaps the best on-base guy the Red Sox have.

He's such a natural in that spot, in fact, that Francona didn't bother to tell him about the change in person. It wasn't until just after he'd taken his swings in batting practice that he found out he'd be starting the game at the plate rather than in the on-deck circle.

"DeMarlo (Hale) said, 'Hey, you swung the bat like a leadoff hitter in BP,'" Drew said. "I was like, 'What are you talking about?'"

He didn't really need to know. He doesn't make any adjustments.

"I don't really understand the whole concept -- if I'm supposed to take pitches or if I'm supposed to hit the pitches that are right down the middle or what I'm really supposed to do," he said.

A game in which he singled, tripled and homered, well, that's not a bad start.

Pedroia back in No. 2 spot

Dustin Pedroia didn't have to worry about getting on base in his first at-bat on Monday. J.D. Drew was on third base following a leadoff triple, and it seemed as easy as anything for Pedroia to go after a fastball down and in and rip it through the box for an RBI single.

See the ball. Hit the ball. Nothing to it.

For Pedroia, though, there was plenty to it. He'd hit .328 in 48 games as the No. 2 hitter behind Jacoby Ellsbury -- but when Red Sox manager Terry Francona shuffled the lineup and installed Pedroia as his leadoff hitter, the second baseman hit .214 of his next 24 games.

It's easy to make too much of a shift in the lineup. Pedroia's slump has coincided with the recent struggles of Jason Bay and Kevin Youkilis, and they haven't moved out of the No. 3 and No. 4 spots since Memorial Day.

But there is something to be said for the mentality of table-setting, Francona said before Monday's game, and for putting too much pressure on yourself to be that spark at the top of the lineup.

"He sees himself hitting first, and he wants so bad to do the right thing that he was getting himself in a hole in the count," Francona said. "He wasn't complaining. He was like, 'I'm fine.' ... It's not the biggest deal who hits first and second. But Pedey's trying too hard to do the right thing, and we just want him to be himself."

One question that naturally arises, of course: If you're going to put Pedroia back in the No. 2 spot in the lineup, why not put Ellsbury back at the top? The speedy center fielder was dropped in the lineup because his .335 on-base percentage wasn't cutting it -- and he's got a .379 on-base percentage since the move was made.

The answer: In that same time span, Drew has an OBP of .411.

"J.D. is a guy that's been getting on base more than driving in runs," Francona said. "To have him in a position where he's driving in runs, it just doesn't make sense to me."

And that's why it made sense to make the move -- even though the Red Sox are 18-7 in the month of June.

"That was the other thing Pedey said: He goes, 'We're winning,'" Francona said. "I said to him, 'Why didn't you tell me if it's bothering you?' He goes, '(Gosh golly gee whiz), we're winning.' That's Pedey. That's why we love him. He cares more about winning than himself."

Dustin Pedroia: Rainout Negotiator

(If this blog had sound effects, you'd hear the William Shatner/Priceline theme music playing in the background. You'll just have to imagine it.)

Postponements become problematic during interleague play.

The Florida Marlins, naturally, make only one trip to Fenway Park this season. That left both teams scrambling a little bit when rain threatened Thursday's game, the final game of the three-game series. The Marlins play in New York on Friday, and the Red Sox are scheduled to host the Atlanta Braves. There's no easy way to reschedule the game without forcing the Marlins to make a one-day trip back to Boston -- and no one wants that.

Player representatives play a critical role in rescheduling postponed games. The collective bargaining agreement guarantees players certain rights when it comes to makeup games -- especially in cases when one or both teams would have to make a one-day trip in the middle of a season: "With respect to the rescheduling of any such game ... the Club(s) shall consult with the Association concerning the actual date and time of such rescheduled game."

Jon Lester normally is the Red Sox player rep. With Lester pitching, though, union responsibilities fell to assistant player rep Dustin Pedroia. It's just coincidence that Pedroia also happens to possess the loudest voice in the clubhouse.

Pedroia, therefore, spent most of his time between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. in and out of the office of Red Sox manager Terry Francona and on the phone with, presumably, Marlins player representative Andrew Miller.

(That must have made for an interesting dynamic given that North Carolina and Arizona State -- the alma maters of Miller and Pedroia, respectively, were set to square off in the College World Series on Thursday night.)

"Pedroia gets that duty because he's second in charge, so it'll be a fiasco," Francona said with a smirk. "You can bet, by the end of the night, he's going to threaten to kick somebody's ass.

"If nothing else, it'll be amusing, the decision-making process."

Fortunately for all concerned, the game began on time.

Red Sox draft-day stories

Projected No. 1 overall pick Stephen Strasburg has announced that he will hold a press conference to discuss his selection not at home and not at San Diego State but at the headquarters of the Boras Corporation in Newport Beach, Calif.

My, how times have changed.

With the draft now just a day away, here's a look at some of the draft-day memories of some of the first- and second-round draft picks who wear the "B" on their cap these days:

1980: Terry Francona
Francona was in Omaha, Neb., where he and his University of Arizona team were about to win the College World Series. They'd lost their first game to St. John's but wouldn't lose again; they beat Michigan by an 8-0 score the day before the draft and would beat Hawaii, California and Hawaii again to win the NCAA title. Francona, in fact, hit .458 in six games in Omaha and was named the College World Series MVP.

Francona was drafted No. 22 overall by the Expos -- right in front of future Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane.

"John McHale Sr. called the room at the hotel," Francona said. "You didn't know -- and then the phone rang. That's how I knew. There wasn't a whole lot of communication. There wasn't cell phones. My dad was basically my representative."

Francona had been one of the best college players throughout his junior season and even won the Golden Spikes Award as the nation's top amateur player. But he was only asked to fill out a couple of personality questionnaires, and he wasn't subjected to anywhere near the same scrutiny to which top amateurs now are subjected.

"I knew there were scouts around, but it wasn't quite the same then," he said. "There's a lot more money that you're paying these guys, so there's a lot more homework -- which is probably really good."

With his bonus money, Francona said, "I bought a -- what do you call it? -- a duplex as a rental property. Bad move. And I promised my sister I'd put her through school, but there were two things: One, I didn't think she'd go, and two, I didn't think I'd get drafted that high. I got shafted there.

"I actually bought a little bit of stock that did great -- great in terms of, I bought a couple of vans, but not great, like, I'm going to buy Pepsi."

1996: Mark Kotsay
Kotsay and the rest of the USA Baseball team that would win a bronze medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics two months later was in a dorm -- "a military barracks," he said -- in Millington, Tenn., the day of the draft that year. Skip Bertman, the LSU coach who would manage in the Olympics that year, was the one fielding phone calls from big-league teams and relaying the messages to his players.

"We didn't have cell phones -- we had pagers," Kotsay said. "Nobody was following the draft online. Nobody was brought in to do TV."

Bertman was a busy guy, too. Kris Benson (Pirates), Travis Lee (Twins), Braden Looper (Cardinals) and Billy Koch (Blue Jays) were the first four selections in the draft. Seth Greisinger (Tigers) and Chad Green (Brewers) came off the board at No. 6 and No. 8, respectively, and Kotsay went to the Marlins at No. 9.

That high in the draft, there were few surprises.

"Everybody pretty much knew where they were going to get slotted in, for the most part, and what teams had advanced them," Kotsay said. "There wasn't really heckling or any joking around about it."

Kotsay would hit two home runs in a mercy-rule win over Italy in the opening round of the Olympics that year, but Team USA eventually fell to a Japanese team featuring, among others, Kosuke Fukudome and Tadahito Iguchi.

2000: Rocco Baldelli
The suspense ended quickly for Baldelli, whose Bishop Hendricken (R.I.) high school baseball team was scheduled to play in a playoff game the day of the draft. He spent the early part of the day over at a buddy's house, shooting pool and watching TV, thinking more about the playoff game than the draft. School was over and graduation was next on the horizon, so Baldelli didn't have to think about much other than baseball and hanging out with his friends.

The outfielder had gone into his senior season as a draft prospect, but he didn't expect to be drafted high enough to forgo a scholarship offer from Wake Forest and turn pro right away. As his senior season progressed, though, he became aware he'd started to climb up draft boards. By the time draft day arrived, he was well aware he'd go pretty early in the first round.

Still, though, he wasn't following along when the draft began. There wasn't any way to follow along.

"I didn't follow it at all, to be honest with you," he said. "There was definitely no TV -- the most it probably was at the time was that the top five picks probably scrolled across on the "Bottom Line" on TV. That was probably the most we were going to get."

While he was still hanging out at his buddy's house, he got a call with a hint that the Devil Rays, picking No. 6 overall, were planning to draft him if he still was available. It wasn't until he got to Bishop Hendricken for his team's game, though, that he was notified by local reporters that he'd officially been picked.

He and Bishop Hendricken then went on to win their fourth straight Rhode Island state baseball title.

2004: Dustin Pedroia
Pedroia's junior season at Arizona State had come to an abrupt end at the hands of Cal State-Fullerton two days earlier; the then-shortstop had gone 0-for-3 with a walk as the Sun Devils bowed out before even reaching the Super Regional stage. (Arizona State was the top seed in the regional and No. 7 seed overall but had to travel to Fullerton, Calif., for the regional. Don't think that didn't grate on Pedroia.)

Pedroia had hardly given any thought to the draft. He was still too upset about the defeat. Just like the year before, his Sun Devils had been beaten by Cal State-Fullerton short of the College World Series.

Unlike the players at the very top of the board, players who had a pretty good idea who might draft them, Pedroia had no idea. He'd had almost no contact with the Red Sox, and he'd done little homework on the other players with whom he was competing.

"There's so many players, you know what I mean?" he said. "There's so many players and so many picks. You can't wrap up in, 'Oh, this guy's picking here,' and 'That guy's still out there.' There's so many players -- and you don't even know the high school players. There's a ton of them. Anything can happen in the draft, and that's why it's fun."

Still, though, he and a couple of teammates gathered in the office of Arizona State coach Pat Murphy to follow the draft. Pedroia had reasonable expectations of being drafted in the first round, but it wasn't until after the 64th pick that the phone rang. It was the Red Sox. "Like two seconds later," Pedroia said, they called his name to make it official.

2006: Daniel Bard
Bard's first draft party did not go well.

The 6-foot-4 righty was a highly touted prospect as a senior pitcher at Charlotte (N.C.) Christian High School, and he had 10 high school friends over at his house to follow the draft. Based on talent, he had a shot to be drafted in the first couple of rounds -- but his commitment to pitch at North Carolina ended up dissuading far more teams than he expected.

"I didn't go until the 20th round," he said with a chuckle, "so the party didn't last long."

Three years later, there were no worries about him sliding to the 20th round. He'd had a few conversations with teams that were drafting at the top of the first round, in fact, and he fully expected to hear his name called early. He and his family went to a restaurant in Chapel Hill, N.C., and set up a laptop on a table in a quiet corner to wait for his name to be called.

But then he started to slide again.

The online ticker and audio broadcast weren't quite synced -- "The audio was way behind the ticker," he said -- and that made the draft difficult to follow. Either way, though, the first 10 teams all passed on Bard. So, too, did the next 10 teams. All of a sudden, there was a long line of teams set to pick who'd had very little contact with Bard just because they never expected him to last beyond No. 15 or 20 overall.

The Red Sox had met in the fall with Bard and North Carolina teammate Andrew Miller -- Miller was drafted at No. 6 overall by Detroit and now pitches for the Florida Marlins -- almost as a formality. Both pitchers filled out a questionnaire, but that was it.

The first time Bard's phone rang, it was an old coach who was working as a scout for St. Louis. The Cardinals had the No. 30 pick, and the scout wanted to know if Bard would sign for "slot" -- the bonus recommended by the commissioner's office recommended for each draft pick -- if he lasted until No. 30 and the Cardinals drafted him.

"Um, man, I can't really give you a definite answer on that," Bard said.

Before Bard could even finish his sentence, though, the scout cut him off.

"Whoops, sorry -- congratulations, man," he said -- and hung up.

"Congratulations for what?" Bard said, but he already was speaking to emptiness.

"I didn't know what he was saying, 'Congratulations,' for," the rookie relief pitcher said this weekend. "I looked and they were on, like, pick 18. I didn't end up going until 28, so that's how behind our (computer) was."

Dustin Pedroia hitting leadoff?

Can you imagine it? Dustin Pedroia hitting leadoff and Jacoby Ellsbury hitting down at the bottom of the Red Sox batting order?

That's a ridiculous idea.

Oh, wait. It's not.

Franchise cornerstones

Let's say you're looking for a franchise cornerstone. If we agree that it's tough to build a franchise around a pitcher, no matter how elite -- just ask the Toronto Blue Jays -- we'll look only at position players. Here are the career statistics of two players (entering this season) for your perusal:

Player A: .313 batting, .369 on-base, .459 slugging
Player B: .313 batting, .394 on-base, .459 slugging

Both will turn 26 years old this season.

Both play premium defensive positions.

Player A struck out in 7.2 percent of his at-bats last season. Player B struck out in 7.9 percent of his at-bats last season. (The big-league average last season was 17 percent.)

So far this season, Player A is hitting .341 with a .429 on-base percentage. So far this season, Player B is hitting .429 with a .419 on-base percentage.

Player A has 15 doubles. Player B has 11 home runs.

You're probably already there.

Player B is Joe Mauer. Player A is Dustin Pedroia.

Hanley Ramirez, despite his defensive shortcomings, is a player around whom the Florida Marlines will build for years. David Wright, Brian McCann and Grady Sizemore all are young and talented and perennial All-Stars. Evan Longoria is playing himself into the conversation more and more every day.

But you could make an argument that there aren't two better potential franchise cornerstones in the game today than Mauer and Pedroia.

Both will turn (or have turned) 26 years old this season. Both are exceedingly popular in their respective cities. Both play a premium defensive position -- and both won a Gold Glove a season ago. Both hit for average. Both leave plenty of dents on the outfield walls. Both draw their share of walks. Both can pop their share over the fence, Pedroia's early-season drought notwithstanding. Both strike out, well, hardly at all.

Mauer is 6-foot-5. Pedroia, of course, is probably 5-foot-6.

Mauer has sideburns that drive the ladies wild. Pedroia has, well, good reason to keep his hat on most of the time.

Mauer has issues with his back that lead many to question his future as a catcher down the road. Pedroia had designs on playing 162 games at second base this season before straining his groin on a swing.

But there are more similarities between the two than you'd think -- and both represent the future of their respective franchises.

Dustin Pedroia doesn't do UZR

Old-school baseball minds have started, gradually, to embrace the concepts of statistical analysis of offense -- on-base percentage, strikeout percentage, OPS+. They've been a little slower to come around on the idea of statistical analysis of defense.

A cover story in Sports Illustrated this spring brought the idea into the mainstream a little bit, but "UZR" still might as well be the Swedish word for "amusement park" for all the credence old-school baseball minds want to give it. (UZR stands for "ultimate zone rating," a measure of how many runs a player saves on balls hit into his zone of the field.)

And it doesn't get any more old-school than Dustin Pedroia.

How do you feel like you evaluate defense?
"It’s just errors. If you make all the routine plays and don’t give the other team more outs, that’s the biggest thing. If you’re giving major-league-caliber hitters more than 27 outs, you’re not going to win many games doing that. A lot of teams are focused on making all the routine plays and getting themselves back in and hitting. That’s the most important part because it’s tough enough pitching, especially at this level."

Do you incorporate some of the new ideas about defense, the zone ratings, the plus-minus, that sort of thing?
"No. I don’t think anybody really believes in that stuff. I don’t really know how they do that. My biggest focus is, if the ball is hit to me, pick it up and throw it and get an out. You don’t need zone ratings or anything like that to tell who’s a good defensive player and who’s not. You can pretty much look out on the field and tell who can play defense and who can’t."

Do you feel like good defense -- aside from not making errors -- contributes to the success of a pitcher?
"Yeah. You’ve got to position yourself right. If a guy’s dead pull, you shouldn’t play him the other way. You’ll give him more hits. Positioning is huge, playing defense, and if you position yourself the right way, you’re going to make more plays and get more outs, so pitchers’ ERAs are going to go down."

When you look at a game like that game two weeks ago against Tampa Bay, the game where Jon Lester got burned on ground balls that found holes in the infield, does that give you more confidence in some of those pitchers who have high ERAs?

"We always have confidence in our pitchers. Sometimes you run into those days where everything finds a hole. That’s just baseball. Our thing is, we just try to prevent that. We try to prevent those days from happening. Sometimes you look up and a team has 13 or 14 hits, and eight of them are ground balls that find holes. You just try to position yourself the best way you can to get those outs."

Ping-pong tested hands and eyes

It all comes back to the ping-pong.

Dustin Pedroia swings as hard as anyone in baseball – and gets better results than anyone in baseball – because he can see the ball hit his bat as well as anyone in baseball.

“He just has unbelievable hand-eye coordination to be able to swing the way that he does and still make quality contact almost every at-bat,” shortstop Jed Lowrie said earlier this season. “His hand-eye coordination, it’s some of the best I’ve ever seen.”

And that all comes back to the ping-pong.

Pedroia grew up in a house with a tiny ping-pong table – “You know the regular-sized ones? I had just a half-sized one” – and waged regular battles with his mother, a former college tennis player who’s the source of the second baseman’s well-chronicled competitiveness. It wasn’t until he was 13 or 14 years old that he beat her for the first time.

“Now I beat her all the time,” Pedroia said with a wide smile. “She gets pissed.”

Pedroia even played a little tennis himself. He was never a power player, of course, but “I can get to everything. I just make somebody mess up – that was my big thing. ‘I’m going to hit it back over until you hit it in the net or hit it long.’”

Now, though, he doesn’t worry too much about tennis – and only occasionally does he still play ping-pong.

But the hand-eye coordination that served him so well in racket sports has made him one of the most unique hitters baseball has ever seen. Every one of his 165 pounds is behind every swing he takes. He swings the bat as hard as anyone in the game.
“I’ve always swung hard,” he said. “I take the mentality of, ‘If it’s there and you can hit it, you might as well take a full swing at it.’”

That’s not an approach that works for players without his elite hand-eye coordination. The brotherhood of all-or-nothing swingers is a small one; slugger Vladmir Guerrero and former National League batting champion Freddy Sanchez are two of the few who come immediately to mind.

But for a guy who doesn’t stand 6-foot-4 like Mike Lowell or weigh 200 pounds like Jason Bay, any other approach wouldn’t cut it – and Pedroia gets all far more often than he gets nothing.

“He has an uncanny knack for finding the barrel and getting the barrel to the baseball regardless of the situation or the pitch,” Bay said. “It’s not something you’d teach most people because there’s only a handful of guys … that can do that.”
Said Lowell, “You look a guy like Vlad – he swings as hard as anyone, but he maintains his balance as well. Some guys can do it; I just think most people can’t without losing your balance or pulling your head. That’s what surprises people – that (Pedroia) can do it and stay balanced and hit tough pitches.”

As evidence: Pedroia struck out in an incredible 7.2 percent of his plate appearances a year ago, the fifth-lowest total in baseball. Lowell was second-lowest among Red Sox regulars, and he struck out 13 percent of the time. (The league average was 17 percent.)

So far this season, Pedroia is striking out exactly 7.8 percent of the time – still well under half the league average.

He’s also poised to do something only eight other players in baseball history have done – hit 50 doubles in back-to-back seasons. He hit 54 doubles a season ago; as recently as Thursday, he was on pace for 50-plus this season.

Despite the effort behind his swing, he’s always hit more doubles than home runs. He holds the single-season Pac-10 record for doubles in a season (34 in fewer than 300 at-bats at Arizona State in 2003) but hit just 14 home runs in his three-year college career; he hit 39 doubles and just 10 home runs in 627 at-bats at Triple-A Pawtucket.

That, again, is a byproduct of his size. He’s not a power hitter; as far as he can remember, he’s never hit an opposite-field home run in his life. When he squares up on a hanging breaking ball away and hits it as hard as he can to right field, it sometimes barely gets to the warning track.

But if it gets up the gap and one-hops the fence, he’ll usually end up standing on second base.

“It’s not necessarily that I try to do that,” he said. “I try to drive the ball, and my power is doubles. I’m never going to hit 30 home runs. I’m probably never going to hit 25. Hitting doubles, that’s part of my game.”

His game earned him Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player honors in back-to-back seasons. So far this season, he’s hitting .336 with nine doubles and an Opening Day home run.

His swing isn’t conventional. It’s not something that would work for everybody. There’s a reason that it took a lifetime of ping-pong to develop the hand-eye coordination to make it work.

But it’s as productive as any swing in the major leagues right now.

“It’s not going to end up on a poster, and it’s not like, ‘Hey, teach your kids that this is what you want to do,’” Bay said. “But, ultimately, as I was told when I first got in this game: If you can stand on your head and … hit .300, go ahead. Nobody cares as long as the results are there.”