Rob Bradford, the man with the laptop and fishing net, had it first: Julio Lugo is done in Boston.

The Lugo signing turned out to be a costly error for the Red Sox

After two-and-a-half disappointing seasons for the Red Sox, Lugo has been designated for assignment amidst a flurry of moves that include re-activating Mike Lowell and Jed Lowrie and calling up Clay Buchholz for tonight’s start.

Though he seemingly never had a strong fan base in Boston, LEEInks feels that Lugo at least deserves to have his Red Sox career glossed over one last time:

- Lugo put pen to paper with the Sox in December of 2006 on a four-year deal, hardly thrilling Red Sox fans.

-The shortstop didn’t exactly turn nay-sayers into believers out of the gate in the ‘07 season, as he was hitting a dreadful .198 on July 2 and was viewed by baseball minds all over as the weakest link on a team that would eventually win the World Series.

This man could get on base at a better clip than Lugo

- On that day, the lowest point of Lugo’s season, Houston pitcher Mike Hampton was statistically a better leadoff man than Lugo, as Hampton’s .370 on-base percentage put Lugo’s .260 mark to shame.

- The 2008 season saw more bashing from fans, including this cleverly-titled blog. 

- Lugo had seemingly lost his starting job to Jed Lowrie entering the season but was able to split playing time with Nick Green thanks to left wrist surgery that Lowrie required.

- Lugo’s lack of defensive prowess has long been (one of) his Achiles’ heel(s). Brad Penny didn’t appreciate it last month against the Rangers.

- In 268 games with the Red Sox, Lugo hit just .251 and committed 42 errors.

- This may be the greatest stat I’ve ever found in my entire life, and I once spent a day on this. Want to know how loved Lugo was? A google search of “Julio Lugo sucks” yields 11,800 results! For a point of reference, that’s about equidistant between “Rick Moranis sucks” and “John Allen Muhammad (the beltway sniper) sucks.”

Wow. Lugo will catch on somewhere else before the season’s over, but that’s just devastating.

And so, as the Red Sox prepare to absorb a hefty portion of the money due to him (even if they can find a trade partner, they’ll have to pay the vast majority of the deal for someone to take him off their hands), we at LEEInks wish Julio Lugo the best of luck down the road. Let’s hope those google results go down.

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