Felger & Mazz: The Retirement Of Jason Varitek
To start the show, Felger and Massarotti ask whether the Red Sox are better or worse off without Jason Varitek. How will his absence affect the clubhouse? How will it affect the pitching staff?
Felger and Mazz discuss the stark difference in Sox pitchers' career statistics when throwing to Varitek and when throwing to someone else. The guys discuss what kind of effect Varitek's retirement may have on Josh Beckett and Jon Lester in particular.
Felger and Mazz also discuss Varitek as a leader in the clubhouse and how he might have fit into the Red Sox September collapse. Mazz wonders what the effect will be in terms of lost leadership, while Felger says that the effect on the locker room might be positive.
Mazz does admit that Varitek did not defend manager Terry Francona down the stretch. Mazz says Francona "bent over backwards to cover for those guys, over and over and over again and when it came time for them to cover him, they didn't."
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