You have mixed emotions. You are a diehard Red Sox fan and you are mourning the loss of All-Star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra.

No more NOMAAAHHH.

You knew he was probably going to leave to sign with the highest bidder at the end of the year but you still held out hope he’d re-sign with the Sox.

I’m sure the proposed off-season deal for Alex Rodriguez hurt his feelings but, so what?

Nomar turned down a lucrative deal to re-sign with them two years ago.

Nomar has driven in 100 or more runs four times. He has also committed 20 or more errors in a season four times.

The Red Sox certainly didn’t want to lose him to free agency without getting anything in return.

Yes, there will be a void in the lineup. Nomar is a career .323 hitter with 178 homers and 691 runs batted in. But he had just one RBI in 12 playoff games last year and he wasn’t reported to be much of a locker room guy, either.

Teams with good chemistry almost always live up to expectations or exceed them. Teams without it tend to underachieve.

A couple of Boston writers have told me in the past he wasn’t easy to deal with.

On the field, he was a great competitor. He ran out [hard] every ground ball and, sadly, that is rare these days.

It should be the rule, not the exception.

So the new-look Sox now have a Gold-Glove winning shortstop in Orlando Cabrera, who is a career .266 hitter but has had only one season with 20 or more errors.

Cabrera has been involved in 28 more double plays than Garciaparra in their last two full seasons and his career fielding percentage of .977 is eight points better than Garciaparra.

The other newcomers, first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz and outfielder Dave Roberts, also bring some impressive statistics.

Mientkiewicz has made just 20 errors in 635 career games. Roberts has stolen 118 bases over the last two and a half seasons.

The Red Sox have allowed 76 unearned runs. Derek Lowe has been victimized by 23 of them. A sinkerball pitcher like Lowe has to have a good infield behind him. Now he does. And there will be much more range in the infield and outfield.

Boston’s future will boil down to manager Terry Francona’s ability to juggle his lineup and expand his offensive philosophy. He now has players who can play small ball (bunt, hit-and-run, steal) and manufacture runs.

I’m not a Francona fan yet. How can you be when he uses a guy who has struck out 117 times in 375 at-bats (Mark Bellhorn) in the second spot in the order? That’s one of the prime contact-hitting positions in the lineup.

Billy Swift explains ‘cutter’

Are you tired of hearing about a “cutter” or “cut fastball” and not knowing exactly what it means?

“You hold it off-center, on the horseshoe of the two seams,” explained former major league pitcher and University of Maine All-American Billy Swift. “You [righthanders] throw it just like a fastball and it runs in on lefties and away from righties.”

It is a few miles an hour slower than a fastball, he explained.

Swift teaches it to his high school pitchers in Arizona. He said it doesn’t tax the arm and is a good lead-in to the slider, which has the same break but has a last-second dip the cut fastball doesn’t have.

Larry Mahoney can be reached at 990-8231, 1-800-310-8600 or by email at lmahoney@bangordailynews.net.