Thoughts on Daniel Bard day

Daniel Bard made his Major League debut last night, pitching two scoreless innings as the Red Sox got canned by Anaheim 8-4 on the west coast last night. The fireballing rightly allowed a hit and a walk whilst punching out Mike Napoli on three straight heaters. All in all a pretty impressive debut and one that will no doubt stoke the fires of expectation going ahead; Bard obviously has the stuff to be a dominant big league reliever but I wouldn’t expect Tito to throw him to the wolves anytime soon, having learnt that lesson with Cla Meredith and Craig Hansen in past seasons.

On an unrelated matter, should Jacoby Ellsbury be hitting leadoff with a .327 on-base percentage? Sure the .295 batting average and 16 stolen bases have value atop the order but they are completely negated by Ellsbury’s apparent inability to draw walks and get on base more. Over time this skill could develop but consider that Ellsbury is now 25 years old and has a BB% of just 4.8% so far this season, with the league average sitting at 9.7% - Coco Crisp is currently walking a staggering 15.8% of the time which is somewhat fluky but impressive nonetheless.

The point is that for all Ellsbury’s flashy and exciting skills he is currently a fundamentally unsound leadoff hitter in modern baseball, where the majority of people appear to recognize that getting on base is more important than virtually any other hitting attribute, save home runs. If Ellsbury cannot improve this problem then another solution, such as dropping him in the order, needs to be considered.

There was some talk in the offseason that JD Drew might handle leadoff duties, that’s Drew of the .245/.364/.490 line so far this season in 30 games. Drew’s average may be down and he may not have convinced Red Sox Nation of his worth in his two plus years with the club but the guy knows how to take a pitch and is a weapon that could be exploited at the head of the order; perhaps its time to revisit that possibility.