How’s that trade working out? (VI)

Let’s just hand him the Cy Young right now, Dan. No point in seeing how the rest of the season plays out.

Dan – your “automatic L” comment is way off base. You think Boston wouldn’t have scored 7 runs without Doug’s 0-4? You think enough passed balls would have given the Yankees 5 more runs, even though they managed just 4 hits?And Wes – although I think some of the “traitor” signs were way bush league, I agree with Jon Keller (now, THERE’s a first) that a heart-felt round of boos is a complement to Damon’s Red Sox service (as a mark of how much the fans care), and I think maybe Damon took it that way too. And the “money” on the field was hilarious.And face it, no Boston player (or Yankee for that matter) is ever going to use the word “frisson“.

Mike is absolutely eating his heart out! Hey Mike – did you see where Arroyo’s ERA is now?Boston’s poor schools strike again. Grow up and learn some simple math.It’s almost enough to make you forget Pena is slugging .529 for the season (and even higher since he started playing with some regularity) for a team that is showing a serious power outage.That, plus (sans the great Arroyo) the Sox are in first place.Sheesh.

Mike — Here’s where you keep falling down: Yes, Arroyo’s numbers this season are much better than his career average, and he’ll probably return to earth at some point. Even so, he — along with Wakefield and Wells — was among the Sox’ most reliable pitchers last year, and he obviously showed nerves of steel in the 2004 post-season as well. This is not a guy who should have been dumped in favor of a long-term project like Pena by a team looking to win this year.You keep bringing up the fact that the Red Sox are in first. Good for them! Also utterly irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Mike! Whatever starts Arroyo would have made with the Sox would have come in pretty handy, what with Wells out of the picture indefinitely, don’t you think? And Arroyo has shown he can pitch effectively out of the bullpen as well.Doesn’t the way Arroyo has pithed so far this year, especially against good lineups like the Cubs (before Lee’s injury, mind you) and the Cardinals, suggest he’d be able to contribute here?

Mike: You misunderstand me. Winning is obviously the only thing that matters. Arroyo would have contributed to more wins this year than Pena will. We won’t see much of Pena once Crisp gets back. Arroyo’s job this year would have been to provide solid middle relief and an occasional spot start.

Anon, you look at the Cubs and see guys who can hit. Short of Neifi Perez’s mother, you are the only one.Using the Cubs collective stats for a month-plus is much more valid than using 6 games of any one player. I checked BP’s equalized stat comparison and the Cubs tied for 3d from last for the entire majors. Corrected for the bandbox they play in, the Cubs are hitting a collective .246, tied with Pittsburgh, with Minnesota and San Diego one point behind. And outside of Lee, only Ramirez has proved to be a solid year-in, year-out hitter (unless you’re a fan of the .325 OBP that pretty much every other starter on that team puts up). And I can see why you brought up Pujols. For the season, Poo-holes is 1 for 5 with a homer, 2 walks (and 0 Ks) and an OPS of 1.229 against Arroyo. He’s making Arroyo look like a Little Leaguer, although the sample size is too small for any grand projections.The Cubs can’t hit. Arroyo is an average pitcher. And as the season progresses the norms will bear this all out.

I am not sure what does this mike have with Bronson??We get it. This 5-0 2.00-or-so ERA start is uncharacteristic and he was annoying when he was here with his sideshow stuff, but he is still a nice kid and very serviceable fairly reliable, productive in the past pitcher that will have been more precious in the Sox rotation than Pena will in the line up , a couple of weeks from now, after you’ve seen a couple more crummy Wells and Clement starts.One sidebar here, listening to cocky but good guy Greg Dickerson the other day, he said something like “…now a lot of people piled on him for his performing and music and promoting his band…”Huhhhh??? Isn’t FSNE SPorts Tonight the main culprit in pushing the crap in our face? Wasn’t that program Greg co-hosts with Gary the most frequent venue for Arroyo’s boring performances??? Now he is distancing himself from all that. What an idiot!One advice for you, Greg. STICK to sports and stop going offscript with all that extra-curricular crap, like the gimmicky and forced Friendly’s BS. Millar’s appearences were growing extremely uncomfortable towards the end of his last season when he was taking in so much beating and criticism all day long in print and radio, but then he’d come on Greg’s show and they’d masquerade and lionize the guy.Totally duplicitous boring crap. Talk about sports, stop poking fun at others and your idiotic jokes, flipflops and “that’s not what I said.” Better yet, maybe the “hardworking” that he is should enjoy some more time off with his wife in favor of the more honest and informative Felger. (It’s only time before he and Ryen have their own show on TV.)- I am glad the Sox did not get wrapped up in pride and moved quickly to undo Dougie’s banishment. It turned out to be a bust: they ended up giving young prospects and cash for an aging Loretta who is going to be here max for one or two seasons.Theo is probably kicking himself that Bronson is having such a great start already, making him indispensable to the Indians. Otherwise, I bet he’d try to bring him back here too after his Bellichickian moves backfired on him big time.Larry, get your leash out and don’t let any such hasty moves happen for this season at least. Contend. Forget about rebuilding for now. That’s on track fine. Beat the Yankees and pile up Pennants while they are weak.If anything, Mirabelli’s presence was a big psychological boost to Wake who seemed more in his comfortable element.One more point on Theo’s growing bad moves column.- With the recent focus on immigration issues all across idiot media that has proven wrong on about every single other issue, it is worth directing people’s attention to John Molori’s recent column about the two bafoons on Weei morning drive radio. The pride of fascist enablers Julie and Jason.They were literally kissing them for the “good ratings” instead of pushing for better quality radio programming. Good ratings by default since there is not even decent competion out there and Howard is long gone.http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/blitz/No sane person would describe WEEI/WRKO as great radio, even if they espoused their views. But hey, they can bill the heck out of it for now, so let them cash in before the party is over next year.How would you like to be Jason or Julie now with locking in the Big O for a big fat contract when the Sox are jumping ship next year? Or wasting money on the Celtics contract?I’d like to see how they do and how strong is their billing when the Sox set up shop on FM.Too bad an insecure Ivy league snob is not capitalizing at the helm of the newest sports station. No major talent has joined ESPN and no major programming change and most importantly, stll a crappy signal. Felger is great but if they don’t redress ship, they will tang down.But imagine if the Sox set up shop on FM and pried Neumy, Ryen, Michael Smith, Ryan or even Pete Shepard away for a local lineup. They could have a radio version of Hazel Mae that will have 95% of the Mass Male population swooning over the phone lines ( a good portion of the female one too probably…ha ) For football, they could lure Smerlas with his own shtick and would love the independence and frequent (well-paid) appearences.How about a Bruschi after he retires in a year or two due to his weakened health condition. Or Ted Johnson. (Ted needs more pizzazz or a couple of drinks to liven him up a bit more) Butch Stearns. Steve Burton (great pick)Or how about Wendy Nix; shed be a major hit. she is sharp and likebale over the airwaves, grounded and a great draw for women listeners.Or how about the great Ted Serandis to cover the many New England college sports teams.Then we’d see how WEEEI survives on crap like D&C, pseudo-politics as the Mikes like to say. Already Carr’s show has been unlistenable lately with his angry, crass, biased (for a kind word), inaccurate rants and insults, EVERYDAY. He even signaled he will be scaling down. I bet his listeners and advertisers have let him know how fed up they are with this crap.So we’ll see how this Molori column raises awareness of this Entercom garbage. Depetro, Feinburg, the two media blog clowns…I mean enough is enough. To be sure, Hispanics and their detractors both have blame to go around, but come on…there are other things to talk about and enough radio personalities substituting insults and propaganda and smears for programming.N.

Uh, N, Arroyo is a Red, not an Indian. Although to some people that’s the same thing (hahahahaha!). Not me, though.

Mike, yes, I have watched all of Arroyo’s starts, as archived broadcasts on MLB.com. Subscription for the whole season is only about 80 bucks, and I enjoy keeping up with players I like. You should see how hard Nomar is hitting the ball these days – even the outs are loud.And if you go look at Arroyo’s starts, you’ll notice he is locating all his pitches really well and changing speeds.