Tuesday, Yahoo!'s Jeff Passan published a long story about a late-July meeting in which a number of Red Sox players complained to management about (among other things, perhaps) manager Bobby Valentine. As you might imagine, the players were asked about Passan's piece and Dustin Pedroia was particularly outspoken:
Pedroia: “I Don’t Think Bobby Should Be Fired.”
"I don’t think Bobby should be fired," Pedroia said Tuesday night after the Red Sox flat-lined yet again, 7-1, against the Orioles in the opener of a three-game series at Camden Yards. "Listen, we haven’t played well. That’s the bottom line. I’m not going to blame anything on Bobby...
--snip--
... I’ll go out there and play for him every day of the week. It’s unfortunate that all this stuff comes out. I know we lost last year and we had big, huge signings and all that stuff, but we’re trying to play the game the right way and have an organization that does things right and play winning baseball. It’s tough when all this stuff comes out that everyone’s trying to get the manager fired. That’s not the case, man."
Of course we don't have any way of knowing how Pedroia really feels, though our easiest course of action is to take him at his word, and figure that he really is smart enough to know the Red Sox's losing record can't be blamed solely on the manager.
For all of that, though, one can’t deny that Valentine has been in the headlines more times in the last five months than Terry Francona was in his last five years. Well, before 2011’s Great Beer & Chicken Affair, anyway. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But usually managers who are in the news this often aren’t worth the hassle, long term.
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