Double A and The Mayor

A lot of the talk today will be about Big Papi’s grand slam, Jed Lowrie’s first start at Fenway, or the fact that Dice-K got his AL leading fourth win of the season, despite the fact that he has been unable to get out of the sixth inning in any of his five starts.

So I’m going to talk about something else, in particular, two Red Sox players whose signings were not that big of a deal at the time, but they have both managed to make an impact on this team in the early going.

I’ll start with Sean Casey. On my old BostonNOW blog, which seems to be gone now, I noted at the time we signed him that it was a good move. I noted that, not only was Casey a good guy, which was already well known, but he was also a pretty good hitter (he’s currently sporting a .302 lifetime batting average) and that not only was he a good backup for both Kevin Youkilis and Mike Lowell, but he would also be nice insurance in case we lost one of them for any extended period of time.

Well, it didn’t take long for that to happen, as Lowell went down with the sprained thumb on April 9th, and is probably going to miss at least a couple of more weeks. No problem, Youk moved across the diamond to third and The Mayor stepped into the game at first and went 2-4 with a run scored. In 9 games since Lowell’s injury, Casey is batting .354 with an OBP of .444. He’s been on base 16 times, has scored 5 runs and driven in 6. Not only that, but he’s fun to watch. Every time they show this guy he’s got a smile on his face and his mouth is moving. He’s always talking to someone, whether it’s an umpire, an opposing player, or a teammate, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else having as much fun playing Major League baseball as Sean Casey seems to be having. We want, and need Mike Lowell back, but having The Mayor around until that happens is making it a lot easier.

For a guy who’s only 26, David Aardsma has been around. He’s already been traded 3 times, starting in San Francisco and playing for both Chicago teams. The good news is he’s got two good pitches, a mid 90’s fastball and an above average slider. The bad news is that he struggles with his control and, although he projects as a good set up man, he’s never been able to put it together, resulting in 3 teams giving up on him.

He’s still having some control problems, walking 8 and hitting a batter in 11 innings so far this year, but he’s also struck out 9 (a regular Nuke Laloosh), and although he’s gotten himself into some trouble, like last night, he’s also gotten himself out of it most of the time. Terry Francona has trusted him in a couple of key situations so far this year, and he’s responded well. It’s still early, and Aardsma started off well with the White Sox last season before completely losing it, but maybe he’s finally going to put it together and become the reliever that many scouts thought he was capable of becoming. He’ll definitely have to cut down the walks though. It would certainly be nice to have another weapon in the bullpen for this year and for the long-term, and David Aardsma could just be that guy.