There's Comedy... High Comedy...

And then there is watching Julian Tavarez at bat against the Atlanta Braves.
I must admit, I've been following the Sox faithfully this year, but because of class and a generally busy life (read: I want you to think that I'm busy but really I get bored easily. I think I have ADD. No, really, help me here. I've lost interest in writing about this...) I haven't been watching the games so much as having a vague idea of what is going on night to night.
Ok, that may be a bit of an exaggeration too... I usually have more than a vague idea, but I don't want you to think I'm a geek... well, whatever.
I digress. Julian Tavarez at bat... its like watching Peyton Manning behind center, except he's less competent but more confident (ie no Peyton Manning Face). There's more action in the batters box than Daisuke's wind-up...
Here's what I observed while watching a couple of at bats:
1) An open stance. Very open. Like, one of those, 'I'm gonna jack it out of the park, I don't need good form, I'm gonna make you pay for this pitch down the middle' stances.
2) To compliment this, he's huge. He's at least 5 feet taller than Dustin Pedroia, which makes him a good 7 feet tall. I actually think he was supposed to be a slugger but was somehow drugged into being a mediocre pitcher.
3) Just in case you didn't see him (reminder: he's huge in the batters box. twice the size of Coco Crisp...), he waggles the bat before the pitch as much as... well, I'm pretty sure he does it more than anyone I've seen. Because, you know... he's gonna crank it out of the park.
4) He has the best bunt-swing-and-a-miss swing I've ever seen. You actually believe that he's about to make contact. He's not... but you believe it.
5) He can take called 3rd strikes better than Julio Lugo... and that's saying something. Remember, if you are trying to work a pitch count, and you suck, then you have to, and I mean HAVE to take strikes. Constantly. If you aren't taking strikes, then you're swinging at the first pitch, and making a weak-ground-ball-to-short out... This is important. If you have a team of 9 crappy players, and your goal is to get past the starting pitcher-as an example, let's use the Baltimore Orioles vs. Johan Santana, you can absolutely force Johan to throw at least 81 pitches just by taking strikes. There's a very good chance that he'll get so sick of being so good, that they'll go to the 'pen where your crap-ass team hits 200% better. (.150 instead of .075). Where as if you go up and swing at the first pitch (and you suck, ie you are the 2007 Orioles), then Johan throws a minimum of only TWENTY SEVEN pitches.
Ok, so this is unlikely of course, but its an important point.
Julian Tavarez does his job at the plate. He takes his strikes. He works the count. He sees three pitches when some would only take one or two.
This may not be important now, and it may not be important ever, but it may not not be important, right? And that's what we're going for.
That being said, I have a few other thoughts on the Sox, if you can get your brain untangled:

-So Schill might be down... here's to hoping he's out as well. No, really. Let's look at the facts. He's 41 (? right?). He's a righty. He's a power pitcher. He's going to break down. He IS breaking down.
So why push it? There are three possibilities:
1) Schilling pitches himself into suckiness, slowly, throughout the year, and can't perform in the playoffs.
2) Schilling gets hurt trying to play, and is out for good (he gets Barbaroed).
3) Schilling shows signs of suckiness, not because he's hurt, but because of the reasons mentioned above, and the Sox shut him down - for now. If they don't do so, he probably falls into category #1, goes .500 or thereabouts (or worse) for the rest of the season, and can't perform in the playoffs (notice i don't say "can't play", we all know that the sox will get an acute case of Pedrosis and pitch him into the 10th in game one of the ALCS). But if they shut him down until the playoffs, the following happens:
The rotation becomes:
1a) Josh Beckett - potential Cy Young winner
1b) Daisuke - potential AL rookie of the year
1c) Jon Lester - possible come-back player of the year (if he gets called up soon)
2) Tim Wakefield
3) Julian Tavarez
So Beckett takes Shills spot, we'll assume that his arm is healthy and the blisters won't erupt, he will automatically give you better performance than Schill. Daisuke doesn't give you what Beckett does in the "2" slot, but should be good for 8 more wins. Lester replaces Daisuke, which could very well be a wash. And in all of this I'm saying that Lester will be better than Schilling's .500 record down the stretch. You get what you get from Tavarez (which right now is brilliant, but we know they won't go .850 as a team the rest of the season, and he'll probably pick up his share of losses in the second half) and Wakefield continues to be Wakefield. That's a damn good rotation.
And one that keeps its current pace and wins the division by 10+ games, without Schilling.
Is this likely to happen? No, Schilling is probably only out for 15 - 30 days, in my best estimation. But that'd be great, because you'd go into the playoffs with the following:
Game 1: Beckett
Game 2: Schilling (fully healed, rested, ready to win one last one before riding off into the sunset)
Game 3: Daisuke
Game 4: Lester
'Pen - Wakefield, Tavarez, Okajima, Pap, assorted and sundry others that make it past the trading deadline.
I'll take that rotation and 'pen versus any AL team in the divisional series - ok, the Angels are 'so hot right now' but I still like that rotation - and it means that everyone would be fresh for the LCS (how does that team not win 3 of 4?).
But wait Andrew, you must be saying to yourself, what are the chances that the Sox make the playoffs without Schilling? Well, I'd say they are about as good with him. The problems that this team has isn't with the pitching - assuming no one else gets hurt, it is deep this year - the problem is with the bats. Lots of the bats. Which leads me to my other points-
-Coco sucks. The next time I'm stuck on the train with the screaming toddler (which has become an everyday affair), I'm going to pretend that his real father is Coco Crisp, and that is why he sucks so much. Because he can't help it (although i think the real problem is the Coco-Crispies... stop giving the damn hellion so much freaking sugar!!!)
-Lugo sucks. Big, hairy, ugly donkey balls.
-JD Drew is sucktacular mainly because he's making sucktastic money to be sucktabulous.
-I know that the Sox had quite the offensive output tonight (and Crisp and Drew homered), but my above points are still valid. And if you don't agree, read this again in 8 games. They'll have regressed back to the (sucky) mean, and you'll agree completely.
-I think the next week will be interesting. San Diego this weekend, then Seattle before going home. Its a long trip and if they can come out of it with a .650 plus record (they're at .666 after the Braves series), that's a very good sign during a season of many very good signs...