Zo & Bertrand: Was Farrell's Meeting An 'Intervention' For Hanley Ramirez?
BOSTON (CBS) -- On Tuesday morning, The Boston Globe's Peter Abraham called in to 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher and Rich to discuss a recent meeting called by Red Sox manager John Farrell with five of his veteran players.
Farrell called a meeting with Mike Napoli, David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, Hanley Ramirez, and Pablo Sandoval over the weekend in Texas, a meeting Abraham said was "clearly focused" on Hanley Ramirez. After a hot start, Ramirez is in a slump at the plate, and he's struggled with his transition to left field since the beginning of the season.
"The reason that meeting was held was to try to get Hanley Ramirez going, and they didn't want to make it look like they were picking on Hanley by bringing him in all by himself and telling him to start laying better. It was under the guise of, 'Hey, you guys are the team leaders and we're all counting on you,'" Abraham told Toucher & Rich. "To have a meeting and suggest guys have to play harder, that's not Dustin Pedroia or Mike Napoli. Sandoval isn't a guy anyone thinks is a dog. That was clearly focused on Hanley Ramirez, but by having in the group with those other guys, guys who are respected and nobody questions, they were trying to say to him, 'This is how we consider you and you need to step up,' but not making it look like Farrell was picking him out and blaming him for anything."
With Dan Shaughnessy in studio, Abraham's comment got Zolak and Betrand thinking.
"This wasn't a team meeting; it was a faux team meeting. A Hanley intervention," said Bertrand. "It's Manny [Ramirez] 2.0."
"How sad is that? You have to construct a faux leadership-type meeting because you don't have the ability to sit the singular player down one on one and have a face to face with him," said Zolak.
Shaughnessy added that former Red Sox manager Terry Francona used to go to other players to see what they wanted him to do with Manny.
"They would always say, 'Keep putting him out there. We want him in the lineup and we'll tolerate it,'" Shaughnessy recalled.
"It's OK if you're winning and you have one guy like that; it's a problem if your team is losing," said Beetle.
"All that stuff comes out when you're losing," noted Shaughnessy.
