The Sox make 2 of ESPN Page 2’s “top 10 moves of 2004”, including #1 - a Sox grab bag of everything, which makes sense in a season where everything Theo, Tito, and the Sox brass did turned to gold. But it’s a nice spot to rehash yet another good Francona quote, on not replacing Bellhorn with Pokey in the ALCS:
No. Why? He drove in 80 runs. That’s a lot of runs. That’s a lot of RBIs. We’ll do it like we usually do it … Bellhorn is a very underrated, very underappreciated player. We have more confidence in him than you guys [reporters] do. He’s a pretty good player.
Talk about knowing that sometimes a mini-slump is just a mini-slump. And boy did Bellhorn bust out. I love Manny, but Bellhorn or Foulke should’ve been the WS MVP.