Bloody sock redux? (...and lineup musings)

With Drew (shock horror) and Coco struggling, will we see Jacoby Ellsbury starting for the first time in the post season in the outfield for the Red Sox tonight? I for one would love to see if he can continue his regular season performance. Not only being an above average defender, he also batted .353 in 33 regular season games since his call up with 11 extrabase hits including 3 home runs in 41 hits. Clearly the boy also has wheels, as indicated by his 9 stolen bases without getting caught once.

The question would be, who would he replace? Drew or Coco? JD, for all of his maligned regular season is batting .259 in the postseason after going on a tear and batting .371 in his last ten regular season games, while poor Coco, who finished the season batting .219 in his last 10 regular season games (.268 reg season avg) and has gone downhill, batting 5-for-31 (.161) in the post season. Thus, as even Tito has acknowledged, Coco's struggling, so Jacoby might get his first start. (Also, he's never played RF in the Majors, although I must admit I haven't looked up if he's done so in the minors - still RF at Fenway takes some adjusting to, so perhaps not the best game to do so in)

Question is where would he bat?

The most common line-up recently has been:

Pedroia
Youk
Big Papi
Manny
Lowell
Drew
Varitek
Crisp
Lugo

A straight swap would see him bat 8th, but perhaps Tito has some balls to change it around, and Ellsbury's .394 OBP would indicate he could be a great table setter, with power at the top of the order.

I would like to see

1. Pedroia
2. Ellsbury
3. Big Papi
4. Manny
5. Lowell
6. Youk
7. Drew
8. Tek
9. Lugo

If Jacoby can bat like he has in regular season (and he actually has a 10 point higher average against lefties, as Carmona's on the mound tonight), with Pedroia finding his groove again in game 5, that's a very strong 1-6 lineup, with potential from 7 as well.

Gehrig38

So, it's game 6 of the ALCS again, bloody sock redux, and the intimidation factor of Schilling and Fenway returns. Can you imagine what would go through the heads of the Tribe if the Red Sox actually pull out a win tonight? Will they be the lame ducks in game 7 that the Yankees were in 2004? So many intriguing threads, so many, many stories to follow. Dane is perhaps right, there is only one Actober.

...although, despite being a Dane Cook fan I must admit the SNL parody is pretty fun too...

All fun and games, now to stick with the vow of not staying up until 6am to watch it...