On a day when the good news story of the new Red Sox GM finally became official, Ben Cherington also addressed the John Lackey situation; and it’s good news and bad news all in one.
Lackey will miss the entire 2012 season due to the big right hander having Tommy John Surgery this offseason. So while we won’t have to watch Lackey pout and sulk on the mound after he gets lit up in his starts next season, the bad news comes on two fronts.
The first is that Lackey now belongs to the Red Sox for the remainder of his contract. Early last week, there were rumors that the San Diego Padres were possibly interested in acquiring Lackey if the Red Sox would eat most of his contract. Now with the surgery, Lackey isn’t going anywhere except the 0perating room. Any chance of buying out Lackey will now have to wait until 2013, but likely won’t happen until Lackey proves that he can’t recover from the surgery.
The second bit of bad news around the Lackey announcement is that Lackey will be back pitching in 2013 and it will be for the Red Sox. So enjoy the next year of baseball knowing we don’t have to watch Big John throw fat pitches over the plate and then get mad at his teammates when they don’t make a play. For one year we won’t have to watch Lackey stare down his manager when he’s taken out of a game.
The loss of a starting pitcher means there will be even more importance on newly named GM Ben Cherington to upgrade this depeted starting rotation. As it stands now the opening day rotation would look like this: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, Andrew Miller and possibly Alfredo Aceves or Daniel Bard? Oh my Ben, you’ve suddenly had a mole hill turn into a moutain.
The year of No-Lackey is now upon us and it will fly by, so enjoy it while it lasts Red Sox fans.
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