The other thing is, Vernon Wells played well this spring, and if the guy is healthy, which he apparently was, he is someone who has hit 30 homers in multiple seasons in the past and guys like that do not grow on trees, and if you need power, you get them.
When you look at Spring stats, you have to look at them through the filter of who was the player performing against. For example, if Buchholz and Lester had thrown to 3.50 ERAs, I'd be pretty pleased, but you'd have to wonder about the competition. On the other hand, if, say, RA Dickey had a bad Spring, you might wonder if he was working on something new and didn't really care about the results. As for those two Sox pitchers, they were concerned about results coming off of last year. When you look at their Spring stats, the answer about who they were successful against, the answer is also clear: everybody.
Vernon "Take me Please" Wells hit four home runs this Spring. Who did he hit them against? The first was hit off Hiram "Who" Burgos, a minor league pitcher in the Brewers organization with 8 starts above AA. The second was off Ryan Cook, a young pitcher, now the Oakland closer, with a good track record, but a pretty awful Spring. He hit his third off Luke Hochevar, once the first overall pitcher in the draft, now one of the worst pitchers in the American League, with a career 5.39 ERA. He hit the fourth off former major leaguer, the corpse of Freddie Garcia. Needless to say, my dear friend iggy, could have taken three of these bums deep, and, according to the scouting reports, iggy's best days are long behind him. Too many curveballs, too many cheeseburgers.
