Red Sox breaks up old guard with Youkilis trade to Chicago
Only David Ortiz remains from Boston’s curse-ending 2004 World Series winners, as well as six from the 2007 championship team.
When Bobby Valentine stepped back into the tunnel behind the Boston Red Sox dugout during the seventh inning Sunday, general manager Ben Cherington told him, “There is a situation brewing.”
That situation — of which the latest manifestation was Sunday’s trade of Kevin Youkilis to the Chicago White Sox — has been brewing for a while. Not just since the rumors became rampant over the past several days that a Youkilis deal was imminent.
Not just since Valentine suggested in April that Youkilis didn’t seem like the player he’d been for eight seasons, two World Series championships, three All-Star selections, a Gold Glove and the blue-collar efforts that earned him Sunday’s standing ovations as he left the field.
This is another step in a culture change being orchestrated by the two men who briefly huddled in the cramped Fenway Park hallway with Youkilis two batters away from an at-bat against the Atlanta Braves.
Cherington and Valentine have enough understanding of the culture of this franchise and its fans to give Youkilis the proper exit — if he hadn’t tripled so Valentine could send in Nick Punto as a pinch-runner, Youkilis would have taken his position at third base the next inning and been replaced then.
Either way, it was hugs, handshakes and an emotional curtain call before anyone involved knew for sure what was happening. And it was enough of a head start for Youkilis’ locker to be empty, the nameplate removed by the time the clubhouse opened after the game.
But the situation is far more than Youkilis, whose career-worst .233 batting average pales in contrast to rookie Will Middlebrooks’.326 average and an on base-plus-slugging percentage nearly 300 points superior to Youkilis’ OPS.
It even goes beyond the clubhouse culture questions that attract- ed much of the blame for last season’s September collapse and led to Valentine bringing more sandpaper to Terry Francona’s old manager’s seat.
What Valentine and Cherington — replacing Chicago Cubs-bound Theo Epstein — inherited was a team they felt needed to get younger.
By the time Youkilis, 33, packed his bags Sunday, he was the secondoldest player in the regular lineup.
Only DH David Ortiz remains from Boston’s curse-ending 2004 World Series winners; only six others — Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz and Daisuke Matsuzaka — remain from the 2007 champions.
It’s not a total reversal. It’s a process more than a purge.
Youkilis likely doesn’t qualify as done; he’ll get regular duty to prove it on a team leading the American League Central. But he’s at a point where the Red Sox got back a pitching prospect and utility player — and will eat most of Youkilis’ salary.
Nor is Middlebrooks a certainty — it was mere months ago that his breakout 23-homer 2011 over three minor league levels was being weighed against a troubling 26-114 walk-strikeout ratio.
But if the Red Sox are going to guess wrong, they’re going to err on the side of youth. If major league pitchers begin to find and exploit any of Middlebrooks’ weaknesses, he’s 23 and has time to get it. Right now, Youkilis is trying to find it.
And the real bottom line in a Red Sox season steeped in drama if not turmoil is that more than half the games remain.
Boston was a season-best four games over .500 after Sunday’s victory, within two games of a playoff spot. The Red Sox have won nine of 11 and averaged 6.3 runs a game doing it. That’s nearly a run and a half better than they were averaging before the current streak.
And they expect to get Beckett, Ellsbury and Carl Crawford off the disabled list soon.
So, as usual, there’s something brewing in Boston.