I always get a kick out of the articles we see printed on off days. This morning, we get Bob Condotta providing a bunch of excuses for Beltre's rough start in the Times, and John McGrath essentially blowing them off in the News Tribune. And hey, rather than go with stale material this time around, the P-I's John Paul Morosi profiles our shortstop, offering this to say about Valdez:
"And he's been everything they expected."
Only...well, wait, hold on, they expected a .483 OPS? Something's wrong here.
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Worth noting: After improving his overall numbers last year by hitting well against lefties, Raul Ibanez is just 6-32 against them so far this season. Don't let 2004 fool you; he doesn't hit southpaws very well, and we could benefit a great deal from having a right-handed 1B/DH type on the bench for platoon purposes. Yeah, there's Bucky, but with what we've heard in the past few weeks, it may be a while before he fully completes his rehab from death, or whatever incident proved to be so much of a setback. There's this guy in Tacoma who could help - a third baseman - but I forget his name...