Yo Ped Lu Lo Va?

On Saturday the thermometer in my kitchen read 55 degrees, and the sun was shining. It seemed that spring was in the air as my mom and I headed outdoors to work on my fielding for softball on the muddy ground, still covered with patches of snow. After a few minutes of warm-up tosses, my mom started rolling me hard grounders. On one of them, I charged the ball well and quickly got rid of it. Hearing the smack of my well-placed throw in her glove, my mom said happily, "Yay, Mike Lowell." The next grounder I scooped up and, in a failing effort to make an even quicker throw, I airmailed it over my mom's head. "Yay, Julio Lugo," I cracked.
I love Lugo's energy, speed, hitting, and attitude towards the game. I'm happy we got him and I think his hitting is certainly an upgrade to Gonzo's. Terry Francona shares my excitement that "He has a lot of energy, a lot of good energy. When he is sitting on the bench, it can get a little bit infectious, which is good.” But I'm still feeling a bit of postpartum depression after letting the Reds claim our human vaccuum. I loved having the Major League's best defense last year and I loved the confidence it gave our pitchers. The spectacular Mike Lowell will still patrol third base, the athletic Youk will remain the ball-picker at first, and Pedroia in his short stint in the bigs has shown some solid defense as well. It's no understatement to call Lugo the weak link, and when shortstop is the position that gets the most balls, that's kind of a problem. Not that I don't think Lugo's offense can make up for it, but I just miss watching the phenominal athletics of Gonzalez on a daily basis.
The good news is that Lugo's working hard at improvement. The bad news is that it's going to take a loooong time for the changes to become instinct. His inconsistencies can be partially attributed to his lack of balance while throwing. Lugo acknowledges that "It’s got to be where I’m automatic, where I just react, but it’s going to take me a little while . . . It takes a little time because I’ve been throwing a different way my whole career."
Well, however long it takes, I guess.

On another note, aren't these just the cutest pictures of Ortiz' son D'Angelo playing with his dad and Youk?