The captain and the kid

Let's see, in the three days and nine at-bats since I pronounced last rites on Jason Varitek's bat, he's homered twice, clubbed a double, driven in three runs, scored twice, and inspired his legion of followers to fill my inbox with wittily worded missives on intangibles, handling pitchers, grit, guts, toughness, square jaws, and my own genetic and physiological shortcomings.

Until now, I never knew one could write an email with a Crayola.

C'mon, you should know by now that nobody needs to remind me that I have an occasional knack for writing declarative statements that are often quickly proven . . . well, very, very wrong.

What can I say? It's my gift. For my next trick, I'll pronounce Coco Crisp useless and Manny Delcarmen gutless, all but assuring that they'll respectively be the AL Player and Pitcher of the Month for September. You can thank me at the parade.

(In a related story, I'm glad that feel-good, long-form Manny Ramirez retrospective I was working on a month ago remained unpublished in the days before the final chapter of Manny Being Insubordinate. That one would have been tough to live down.)

But while I can admit I've gulped down my share of delicious crow over the years, I'm not admitting fault on this; I'm merely temporarily wrong this time. I am certain it's game-set-match for Varitek as an adequate major league hitter, let alone a productive one. He's hitting .218 this season. He hit .225 after the break last season. This is not a slump; this is who he is.

I'm not sure if you loyal members of the Varitek Army (hat tip: reader Cap'n Dunsel) wear your blindfolds all the time or only when your rugged hero is at the plate, but I'll spell it out again slowly just in case:

He. Can't. Hit. A. Decent. Fastball.

The clueless Orioles lefty who threw him the curveball that he whacked for a double Tuesday night should have been demoted to Aberdeen before the ball returned to the infield. I hope Varitek sent him a thank-you note for the generous gift.

Anyway, this acts as something of a segue to what I really wanted to write about today: the great Dustin Pedroia. Now there's someone I misjudged.

Oh, I didn't think he'd be a stiff, or worse, a David Eckstein clone. The only traits those two have in common is that they are 1) short and 2) pasty.

But after seeing Pedroia play often at Portland in '05, I was sure he was a Jody Reed type, someone who would bat .280ish, bang 40 or so doubles in a good season, and make all of the plays within his limited defensive range.

I thought he'd be steady, popular, and utterly replaceable. Instead, he's become someone you don't want to imagine the team without.