Point of Know Return

After a tough weekend in Philly, the Bucs need to dig in with 56 games remaining in their season. With their record currently standing at 54-52 and 4.5 games out of first place, the Bucs have 7 games against the lowly Cubs and Padres. I think it would be an understatement to say that each of these series needs to be won for the Bucs to stay serious. Luckily, as we sit here right now, the Bucs are a better team than they were yesterday. Are they a far better team? Maybe not. Are they suddenly going to start scoring 5 runs a night? Not likely. But the additions of Derrek Lee and Ryan Ludwick instantly make the Bucs a better offensive team. Even though it isn't 2008 Derrek Lee and 2008 Ryan Ludwick, neither are strangers to the Central Division and both add some pop to the lineup.

As it currently stands, Ludwick would be tied for the team lead in RBI wiht 64 and Lee is coming off a July that saw him produce a .805 OPS. Lee is also known to be a good producer in the late months of the season as well as a defensive stalwart. Ludwick's career OPS ion August is .791 and .800 in September. The Bucs gave up little to get these 2 guys, but hopefully the return is that of 2 proven middle of the lineup MLB bats.

With a lot of baseball left to be played, the Bucs have a chance right now to pick up some much needed W's and a fair amount of momentum heading into a tough road trip including SF followed by The House of Horrors.  After going 5-8 in the tough 13 game stretch against NL contenders and top teams, losing 7 of their last 10, the Bucs have to rally together and get back in the win column tonight.

I am not going to bother recapping the Weekend series in Pihlly. Amazing, both Kdro and Overpaid homer in the same weekend. Sadly, that was Alvarez's lone hit in 12 at-bats for the series, striking out 4 times and dropping his season average to a depressing .195. Can you say OUCH? That is a 13 point drop since the man who was supposed to resurrect the offense returned from the DL. His 55 K's in 43 games equals to about 207 K's over 162 games. That is just plain ugly. Overpaid's HR was also his only hit of the series, in 7 at bats. His season average is .227 and his fielding has been subpar as well.

Cutch went 1 for 10 in Philly, putting a cap on a disappointing July in which he hit .255, but only .183 after the break. Walker hit .366 in July but only knocked in 13 runs and scored only 11. The Bucs pitching was still stellar for most of July, despite getting knocked around by the highest payroll in NL history over the weekend.

All-in-all, the Bucs are far from out of anything just now. It may seem unlikely to some that this team can still make a legitimate run at the Central Division title. But it probably seemed unlikely that 2011 would be the season that is has been so far. Although I certainly would have liked to see a big risk/big reward type trade made at the deadline, it's too late now. That was never going to happen in the first place. Once again, the Bucs are a better team today than they were 24 hours ago. Are they good enough to compete? That is up to the players right now.