Julio Lugo, in addition to spitting hot fire out of his bat since the the All-Star break, has only been caught stealing five times in 32 attempts this season and has a success rate of 84.4 percent – which is well above both the American League, the Major League average and Lugo’s own lifetime record of a 74 percent success rate.

The 84.4 percent success rate actually represents the best total of Lugo’s eight seasons in the big leagues.

The 27 stolen bases also represent the second most of Lugo’s entire career, though the energetic infielder likely won’t surpass his personal best of 39 stolen bases for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005.
Lugo’s final tally for the 2007 season will likely be the most for a Boston Red Sox player since Johnny Damon swiped 30 bags back in 2003, and he currently ranks seventh in the American League with his stolen base total.

But, as always, there is something more than the raw numbers indicate and the hyper-aggressive Lugo seems to have taken it upon himself to agitate and distract on the basepaths by dancing around after pitches are thrown and feigning as if he’s going to steal bases when a pitcher is delivering to the plate.
While Lugo’s active role in the area of baserunning can distract the opposition, it also leads to moments where Lugo is picked off – which has happened a handful of times this  season and sometimes can occur at the most inopportune times.

It’s a classic case of whether the positive aspects of Lugo’s honed baserunning skills are in any way outweighed by the occasional pick-off that could disrupt the flow of an inning.
I personally believe that an occasional pick-off is worth the success rate and combination of speed and instincts that Lugo brings to his work on the basepaths, but I’ve heard some loud complaining about Lugo’s occasional brain cramps on the bases and wanted to ask one of his former managers about it.

Here’s what current Devil Rays Manager Joe Maddon, who worked long and hard with Lugo on his throws from the shortstop position last season in an effort to curb the errors that have dogged him at times throughout his career, had to say about whether or not he’d address something like that as a manger.

It’s also interesting to note the care and thought put in by a baseball manager on something as simple as running the bases, which should clearly illustrate just how different the climate is in many baseball clubhouses during this era than it was when Billy Martin was Burning in the Bronx in the late 1970’s (love the show and John Turturro’s performance by the way):

“I never sat him down to talk to him [about getting picked off] when I was managing him. Part of the thing you have to be careful with is that when a guy is going to be aggressive he’s going to go through moments like that where bad things happen.

Part of the problem is that if you put too much in his head then you lose all of the good stuff that you’re doing as well. It’s a fine line that you have to walk.

We would talk about different things, but I would always avoid stuff like that. It might seem like the easy logical thing to do, but there are so many things going on out on the field and a high rate of speed and pace and he’s been used to doing that for many years.

It might seem like an easy concept to go out there and do, but you don’t know…the return might be so negative that you’d be better off staying where you were.

“He was always [aggressive on the bases] with us, and it’s one of those things where you really have to be careful of what you wish for. Sometimes you think you might be saying or doing the right thing, but sometimes it doesn’t go over right and it’s going to be more negative than positive.

I really try to weight that out before I go to a guy with it that’s been around for a while. And spring training is usually a better time to go to somebody with something like that anyway, and not really in the heat of mid-season. It sounds simple and it sounds correct, but you need to know that you’re right or it could blow up on you.”












Also, good times at the Trop last weekend where they had a 70's Night and did some pretty pimpin' Photoshop jobs on the Rays players and Manager Joe Maddon: Here's the link to all of the pictures for those interested http://raysblog.joesportsline.com/2007/08/19/disco-inferno.aspx