How about that David Murphy, huh?! He looks about 35 years old, but he's playing like the enthusiastic rookie he is. Since he was called up on September 1st, as part of the roster expansion, he has been playing some lovely baseball in his limited appearances. .250/.294/.500/.794 in 12 games and 16 at-bats is a very sold batting line for a player making his first major league appearances. Obviously, the sample size is way too small for it to be possible to draw any conclusions from it. Still, his at-bats look good and he appears to be just as good at pulling pitches as he was reported to be. In Pawtucket this year, he was batting .267/.355/.447/.802 before the callup. Very mediocre BA, but an excellent OBP and a solid center fielder-type OPS.
With Murphy's strong showing so far, I'm reminded of the sarcastic "This team is going to be great - in 2008" slogan, which is beginning to seem more and more true in a good way. The top tier of the farm system seems almost as loaded now as it was before this season. Scrappy Pedroia, Old Man Murphy, No Nickname Ellsbury and Patience Kottaras (DieHard got a Q&A with Kottaras that can be found here) are all projected to become very solid major leaguers. All's well on the pitching front too with Buchholz, Bowden, Cox, Martinez, Bard and Masterson.
What is my point, you ask? I don't really have one. I just felt like reiterating that we have a very strong farm system, considering the anticlimactic season that never wants to end. I never thought it possible to be as completely unthrilled about taking 3 out of 4 in Yankee stadium as I was this weekend. We need to keep reminding ourselves of the bright future to avoid resorting to heavy drug use and random acts of violence to take our minds off this season. Come to think of it, that might be my point.
[Side note: Did you watch Family Guy last night? They mocked McCarver. Just as I thought that show couldn't get any better, they pull of a thing like that ;)]