Mike Lowell is not a distraction

Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald tweeted this a couple of hours ago:

For any doubters about the Mike Lowell situation being a distraction, I’ve got two words for you: Already is.

Then he links the story he (apparently) wrote about Lowell in camp today. If you can find anything that constitutes a “distraction” in these quotes you’re a closer reader than I am:

“I think I’m pretty intelligent in the sense that there’s no real playing time for me here, basically, barring a major injury, and I’m not really in the business of hoping someone gets hurt just so I get at-bats. For me, I feel like I’m more prepared and ready for a full season than I was last year, so why shouldn’t I play more than I did last year? Whether it’s here or somewhere else, I can’t control that.

“I have to separate two things. There’s the baseball aspect of it and the real-life aspect of it. I’m very comfortable where I am in my real life. I feel like I’m in a tremendously privileged situation. No one needs to feel sorry for me in life. Is my baseball situation not ideal? Yeah, it’s not ideal, and I don’t want to diminish the baseball fact, but you never know what can happen.

“If I was on the trading block before, I can’t imagine that all of a sudden I’m not now. I think my health is something obviously need to show not only the Red Sox, but every other team. If that opens a door to something else, I’ll go wherever I go or stay wherever I stay.”

Distraction? Seems to me like Mike Lowell has a pretty realistic view of things and that the only one making a big deal out of this is Mike Silverman.

Of course, the use of the word “distraction” should have tipped us all off anyway. Whenever a baseball writer uses that term it rarely means that there’s a real controversy afoot. Rather, it almost always means “I’m going to keep beating this dead horse until I can elicit a juicy quote out of someone and then say ‘AH HA!!’ look at that big, big distraction!”