Bobby Valentine is seeing what the rest of us see: the Red Sox bullpen is a mess. No one has stepped up to give fans a warm and fuzzy feeling about innings 6 through 9. To his credit, Valentine is telling like it is—without the ponderous "company man-speak" we've been used over the last several years. In his own quirky way, he's refreshing. Of course, that could fade very quickly with a slow start this April. Of the 'pen, Bobby V. speaks:"Confusion is filtering [down] and everyone is something other than settled....We need to start making it look like something other than a bunch of pitchers getting their work in."
And, on the specific performance of so-called set-up guy Mark Melancon (1 IP, 3 R, 3H yesterday):
"I thought he backed up the bases really well. He had that down."
Nice.