It's official: Mike Lowell needs to be shut down

Mike Lowell winced his way through two ground outs, a fly out and a strike out last night. Lowell's been telling us that he feels fine in the batters box and said he felt good after fielding grounders before last night game, but after watching him flop around on check swings and hobble down the first base after hitting groundballs, it's clear that he is going to do more harm than good if he remains in the starting lineup.

Due to a glitch in the Matrix... see Mike's post-game interview at NESN.com - by clicking HERE.

Everyone one of these games has the chance to be a 1-0 squeaker and it's only a matter of time before Lowell's inability to run results in an inning ending or rally killing double play or ground out. I'm also shocked that Chone Figgins didn't test Mike Lowell once last night with a bunt... We saw what happened the last time Lowell tried to field a ground on the run. Figgins went o for 5 on the night, so don't be surprised to see the speed Figgins try it against Dice-K and start wreaking havoc on the bases.

The argument has been that our best defensive lineup has Youk at first, Lowell at third and Lowrie at short, but we're not talking about a Gold Glove winning Mike Lowell - we're talking about no lateral movement Mike Lowell.

Bottom Line: Sean Casey may not be Wally West out of the box, but he's more capable of breaking up the double play and probably has a little more pop in the bat right now than Mikey does.

I know we're up 1-0, but this is another example of Tito's undying loyalty to his veterans and it may bite him in the ass before this series is over...

All that said, he did make this play - which was huge: