Ortiz, Mueller hard-pressed for encore

Rumors: <a name="&amp;lpos=story_in" href="http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/features/rumors?addata=2009_insdr_mod_mlb_xxx_xxx">Lack of options for John Lackey
Keith Law: <a name="&amp;lpos=story_in" href="http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/hotstove09/insider/columns/story?columnist=law_keith&id=4647444&addata=2009_insdr_mod_mlb_xxx_xxx">The top 50 free agents
Olney: <a name="&amp;lpos=story_in" href="http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4681683&name=olney_buster&addata=2009_insdr_mod_mlb_xxx_xxx">Joe Mauer's unclear future
KEG: <a name="&amp;lpos=story_in" href="http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4481536&addata=2009_insdr_mod_mlb_xxx_xxx">Early 2010 look-aheads

Updated: February 16, 2004, 8:53 AM ET

Four of the eight Red Sox regulars had career years in 2003 and are bound to come back down to earth.

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By By Jim Baker
MLB Insider

The ups and downs of baseball are on the mind of Art Martone of the Providence Journal -- especially as they apply to the Boston Red Sox. Four of the eight returning Red Sox regulars had career years in 2003 and a couple of them are bound to come back down to earth. Martone looks at whom among the quartet of Bill Mueller, Jason Varitek, David Ortiz and Trot Nixon will maintain their level of quality and who will return to form.

Here are some fighting words for Red Sox fans, already bitter from having lost out on Alex Rodriguez to the rival Yankees. Adrian Wojnarowski of the Bergen (New Jersey) Record likens them to comic strip character Charlie Brown, the baseball player who never wins.

It's been a long and complicated ordeal, but Evan Grant puts into temporal context for you. The sequence of events regarding the superstar shortstop's attempt to get out of Arlington is chronicled in the Dallas Morning News.

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