Any way you look at it.
Also a shame that Dustin Pedroia, try though he might, cannot win a game for us single-handedly.
And that our bullpen is — not to put too fine a point on it — completely and utterly useless.
(But, hey, at least Timlin is coming back!)
Wow, that was bad.
Just.....really, really bad. I don’t quite know what else to say.
Maybe we can win a game in New York? Maybe.
At this point our best bet is if Madge is in the three-hole, right in front of A-Rod.
Death threats!
Beefed-up security!
FBI protection!
Boy, a trip to the Trop sure ain’t what it used to be!
But this is why baseball is so much fun. No, not the lurking danger of creepy racist psychopaths; we got knocked out of first place yesterday. And the only way to crawl our way back up there is to go mano-a-mano with a divisional rival that, for most of its existence, has been abysmally bad.
Well, now they’re good. But we’ve got to make sure they don’t get too good. And there’s a better than average chance things could get rough out there as we undertake the task.
Good thing we’ve got our enforcer, Manhandlin’ Manny Ramirez ready to step in and throw some guys around if it should come to that.
In the mean time, all joking aside, let’s hope this is nowhere near as serious as it potentially could be. Yikes.
Here’s a little trick I’ve discovered, which works more often than you might expect.
When you’re at a Red Sox game and the team is losing — the offense is anemic, say, and/or the pitching is mediocre — simply move. Get up from your seat and relocate to another part of the park. (If standing-room is the best you can do, big deal; consider it taking one for the team.)
It’s a stratagem that’s paid off for me more than once in the past — most recently last night.
Round about the middle of the seventh, with the score frozen at 4-1, the sole offensive production having come from Pedroia’s homer in the first, my buddy Ben and I departed our sopping wet bleacher seats and headed into the bowels of Fenway. Our plan was to grab a standing-room spot along the third baseline. But as luck would have it, some box-seat swells had vacated the premises — we duly took our place not far behind home plate. As it happened, this would prove an advantageous vantage point for what was about to unfold.
(The less said about the yuppie couple in front of us, who arrived at their seats at the top of the eighth and proceeded to sip wine — red for him, white for her — and poke away at their Blackberries while generally ignoring the on-field goings-on, the better.)
The game had been pretty boring up till now, of course, and I was despairing that our fourth loss in five was on its way. But as soon as we sat down, things started getting good.
Lugo singled to right.
Ellsbury did the same.
Pedroia laced one into center, scoring Lugo.
After Drew struck out, Manny grounded to third, advancing Ellsbury and Pedroia. And then Lowell doubled to left, scoring the both of ‘em.
The crowd, I can tell you, was rather enjoying this turn of events. Even the yuppies in front of me seemed to notice that something big was going down.
Then our captain Jason Varitek — who was mired in the 1-31 doldrums, who was being mercilessly razzed by the two high-school dopes to my left, who was wondering whether he should ever try to be a switch-hitter again — stepped to the plate ... to bat as a lefty.
And then he singled to right and pushed Lowell across the plate for the lead.
Bedlam.
And so, with Yooooooooook — and his shiner — inserted defensively at first base, “Wild Thing” boomed and Papelbon walked with affected deliberation to the edge of the grass, and then onto the mound. Two Ks, a walk, and a ground-out later, a win was on the boards where a certain loss had been before.
See? It’s all a matter of Positioning Yourself for Success.
And that’s that.
There will be no post-season heroics this year. No shot at salvaging a lost season.
Just lots and lots of time to call into WEEI, blog, and develop video games.
Weird that he was just throwing off a mound less than 10 days ago, but I guess the guy’s in pain, and there’s no use chasing after something he knows isn’t gonna happen.
Can’t say I’m too surprised.
Am I disappointed? Can’t really say that either.
Luckily our general manager has seen to it that we’re well-stocked with live arms. If Masterson can keep pitching like he has, and if Colon returns from the DL with anything close to what he’s shown so far — and is smart enough to stop swinging for the fences, should we make it to the next round of interleague play in October — we’ll be fine.
But we could be seeing the end of a brilliant career here. And that’s a little sad, no matter how you slice it. Luckily, the guy seems to be taking it in stride.
The game was here for well over a hundred years before I came along, and will be for that and more after I am gone, it owes Curt Schilling absolutely nothing, it gave me far more than I ever gave it.
Good luck, Gehrig38. And thanks for what you’ve given us.
I spent the morning at the preview for "Baseball As America," the traveling Hall of Fame exhibit on display at the Museum of Science from June 15 through September 1.
And I cannot recommend it enough. Go see it this weekend.
Aiming to show how baseball serves “as both a public reflection of, and catalyst for, the evolution of American culture and society,” the exhibit comprises 500 or so artifacts — about two percent of Cooperstown’s total collection.
Among the highlights: one of Babe Ruth’s bats, Jackie Robinson’s jersey, Schilling’s bloody sock, a baseball recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center, a scorecard from the 1903 World Series, the bat Ted Williams swung to hit his 521st and final home run, the final out ball from the 2004 Series — and more recent additions, like the cap Buchholz wore during his no-hitter and the tar-caked helmet Manny was wearing when he hit his 500th homer.
Six Hall of Famers were on hand to celebrate: Bobby Doerr, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Wade Boggs, Dennis Eckersley, and Eddie Murray. Lemme tell you: it’s really something to walk into a room and see those living legends just milling about and chatting.
Before things got underway, I noticed that Pudge seemed to take special interest in a couple of the museum’s science exhibits. Indeed science, as one would expect, does play a role in “Baseball As America.” There are exhibits showing dissected baseballs, and stations where visitors can judge their reaction time, measure their pitching speed, and try out their accuracy from 60 feet, six inches. There’s also a cage where one can put one’s face where the catcher’s would be, and stare down a machine-launched fastball, flying forward at 95 mph. It is ... terrifying.
In keeping with the theme, Dr. James Sherwood, director of the Baseball Research Center at UMass Lowell, offered a few words, remembering the time Sandy Alderson came to him and said, “Jim, people are concerned the ball is being juiced. We want you to use your expertise and let us know. If there’s a problem, we’ll address it. But we don’t think there’s a problem.” They spent months doing exhaustive research. The verdict? “It wasn’t the ball being juiced,” said Sherwood to much laughter. “I suggested [MLB] might want to look in another direction.”
(Sherwood also spoke of studies examining the differences between ash bats and maple, his take: there’s “no difference.” But, of course, “Dumbo put the feather in his trunk and thought he could fly; if you think you can hit the baseball better with a maple bat, you can hit the baseball better with a maple bat.”)
The best speech came from Peter Gammons. He doesn’t have a lot of souvenirs from his decades living the game, he said, but one of his favorite, framed in his house on the Cape, is “a long, impassioned, reasoned and statistically oriented letter” from Tip O’Neill arguing that Smokey Joe Wood deserved to be in the Hall of Fame.
Gammons asked O’Neill why he wrote it. O’Neill replied that “the Hall of Fame, maybe more than any museum in this country, is the museum that counts. It’s not only the museum that binds generations of people together, fathers and sons and grandsons, it is, without question, the museum of the social history of the United States. And I think you know better than anyone that it’s the museum that shows that greatness is not accidental.”
And so Gammons offered plaudits to the game’s greats arrayed before him.
He’d never had the pleasure of covering Doerr, but “his picture was in my parents’ kitchen, and I was always told that that was the man I should emulate for the rest of my life.”
(I spoke with Doerr, briefly, and at 90, his handshake is still firm and strong. He says Jon Lester’s “a good-looking player.” He’s pleased that the team is still playing well and keeping head above water in the absence of guys like Ortiz and Matsuzaka. He loves watching Jacoby Ellsbury — who’s from his neck of the woods — run the base paths. He says the fishing in Oregon hasn’t been too good lately.)
As for the guys Gammons has been covering for the past 40 years or so, he offered a salient memory for each:
-For Fisk, he remembered him rehabbing his knee in 1974, on his own, in the days before physical trainers were commonplace, eight hours a day, in the Manchester, New Hampshire YMCA. People thought his career might be over. He returned to the game and caught more games than anyone in history.
-Eckersley, he said, embodied accountability. Specifically, he remembered the game, during the 1978 Sox-Yanks pennant race, in which a dropped pop fly — missed by five Red Sox players, including fill-in second-baseman Frank Duffy, led to a five-run inning and eventual 7-1 loss. As reporters swamped Duffy, post-game, Eck emerged from the trainer’s room and let them have it. “Leave him alone,” he yelled. “Frank Duffy didn’t put the three guys on base before that popup, I did. Frank Duffy didn’t hang the 0-2 slider that Bucky Dent hit for two more runs... The L goes next to my name.” It was, says Gammons, “the greatest moment of accountability I’ve ever experienced.”
-Boggs was lauded for his tenacity. After “his sixth consecutive year of hitting .300 in the minors and still not on a major league roster,” Gammons visited Pawtucket to talk to him and was struck by his “unflappable will to make it.” (He took ground balls like a man possessed, said Gammons — and it paid off. “To be a two-time gold glove winner is in some ways a greater thing than 3,000 hits and all the rest, because people always told you couldn’t field.”)
-“I don’t think Eddie Murray ever realized how much I used to watch him take batting practice,” Gammons said, noting he’d heard someone say Murray “was the only person who practiced winning.” Instead of putting on a show, with homers to all fields, Murray would “dump the ball inside third, or to left field. All those great two-out RBIs that were the hallmark of his career were not accidental.”
-As for Yaz, Gammons simply looked at the Captain with a smile and said, “Carl, all the work you put in. All those hours of hitting.... I think Yaz might be the toughest man I’ve ever known."
(Apologies for the crappiness of these images. I am not a photographer by trade.)
[???]
I realize it’s annoying to complain incessantly about one’s fantasy team, but mine is tanking fast. Currently sitting next-to-last out of 12, my squad shows little promise of turning it around.
And I’m quite sure you don’t care.
But I mention it because lately my stats have seemed to be rising and falling with the performances of the Red Sox on my roster.
Some guys have been stepping it up in a big way lately. It’s looking, at last, like my J.D. Drew gamble might be starting to pay off in spades (and his brother's been more than serviceable at SS, so far). Meanwhile, Pedroia may just be turning a corner after an extended spell in the doldrums. But I’ve also been dragged down lately by some other dudes.
Okajima. Tomodachi. Your ERA was 81.00 last night. Your WHIP was 12.00. Doesn’t exactly off-set the one strikeout you gave me. The recent struggles with inherited runners I can kinda-sorta understand, but what happened on that diamond was a mess of your own making.
And Beckett? What’s going on, man? I’m almost starting to feel like it’s ’06 again. Four runs by the second inning? Just 3 Ks? A season ERA of 4.22? No homers last night (or the start before that) but six of ‘em in your four games prior. Is it an It’s June and you’ve got 11 — already as many as you had by August 29 last year. I really wish they would stop.
Get your act together, guys! If not for Red Sox Nation then for do it for me!
Oh well.
At least Manny is a man of his word.
And at least we have stories like this to keep us entertained.
STARTING TIMES OF RED SOX-ORIOLES GAMES MOVED TO 6:05 P.M.
ON TUESDAY AND THURSDAY
BOSTON, MA—The Boston Red Sox today announced that the starting times of the Tuesday, June 10 and the Thursday, June 12 games with the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park have been moved from 7:05 p.m. to 6:05 p.m.Go Green! Beat L.A.!
"After that, people were trying to pull my hair like little girls. Instead of throwing some real punches or something like that.” — Coco “Boom Boom” Crisp
It was fun while it lasted.
And that dodge and weave was a wonder to behold.
But I sorta wish it didn’t happen.
Now we’ve got to worry every time we face those douchenozzles that they’re gonna come at us again. As was noted on SoSH last night:
“I really have no desire to get into another series of brawls with this team. Not when they have guys like Kazmir and Jackson who can throw 95+ with intent.” “We'll see who's laughing when Kazmir breaks Manny's wrist next month.”
Oh, wait. Never mind. Why would they throw at Manny? He doesn’t get involved in this sorta thing.
(Err, make that 501.)
Courtesy of my sister, who had some primo seats at Camden Yards on Saturday, some photos of the wondrous event.
First at-bat. Not quite yet.
Before the fourth at-bat.
Warming up.
Chad Bradford is dejected.
Rounding second.
Back at the dugout.
Apologies for the lack of posting in recent days, but in truth, I haven't watched a ton of baseball lately.
To hear tell, that may be a good thing.
How bad has our offense been? Plenty bad. But you probably already know that.
Masochists may gaze upon the unpleasant details in this here handy tally of utter suckitude.
Tom Hallion is as excited about Bartolo Colon’s promising outing as we are.
Either that, or he’s just watched The Naked Gun.
We'll be seeing this guy again soon.
And we'll see what this guy can do tonight.
Feeling pretty good about this team right now. You?
Now if only Manny can get the job done here before we head back out on the road.
Maybe the return of "¡Pega Luna, Manny!" will help?
Download it for free here.
OK, so this is how it went down.
Get home, sit down, and, as is my wont, start flipping between the game and Olbermann.
I’m paying only sporadic attention as I eat dinner and read a magazine, but certainly noticing that Jon boy is chugging right along.
Around the middle sixth, I see the Royals still haven’t plated a run. “Nice outing so far for Lester,” I remark to the Sox Blogette.
At this moment, I still have not processed quite what’s transpiring.
A bit later, she and I head out for a quick errand. On WEEI, Castiglione says something about the crowd just wanting to get through the bottom of the eighth and get on with things.
I’m so thick, I figured he was talking about the cold weather at Fenway.
Only then did it penetrate my muddled mind like a bolt from the proverbial blue.
HOLYSHITHESTHROWINGAFUCKINGNOHITTER
I’d watched Buchholz do his thing up in Maine last September, but this is the first time an event of such import was communicated to me via the AM dial.
Breath was held. Fingers were crossed. Radio static swathed the next four at-bats with the gauzy feel of the timeless.
A walk to start the inning.
Then a strike swinging and Pena quickly ground-out to third
A ball, a foul, a ball, a strike swinging, and DeJesus ground to first.
And then noodle-bat Alberto Callaspo stepped in as a pinch-hitter.
“These are the kinds of guys who ruin stuff like this,” I said.
But not this time.
Still not quite sure what to say, except the blindingly obvious. It’s been better said many times over already...
* He’s come a such a long way.
* He’s an inspiration to everyone.
* He keeps gilding his resume with stuff most guys, many much older than him, only dream of.
* He’s got the manager he deserves.
* To say nothing of the center fielder.
* And, of course, the catcher. (Four! Imagine if it was five?)
Three of the last five no-no’s in baseball have come courtesy of Red Sox prospects. (We’re making the Yanks’ much-vaunted youth infusion look piddling by comparison.)
And if Schilling hadn’t shaken off his captain last June, we’d be looking at three no-hitters in the span of 151 games. Pretty remarkable.
We are living in glorious times. What can one say? Not much else, except to echo one of Jon Lester’s teammates, as picked up last night by NESN’s camera: “Un-fucking-believable.”
(And no, I don't think that's grammatically correct, either.)
Bye, Joolz. At least we'll always have that time I saw you chowing down at the Boylston Street Burger King, mere hours before an important spot start against the Yankees.
You were so much more than a rubber arm with a servicable ERA. You were a friend to foreigners. You were a cold-blooded enforcer. You were helpful to your teammates. You were a dugout pet. You were a heckuva bowler.
And you will be missed.
Best line so far from the SoSH appreciation thread:
"He seemed like a good guy to have around. Couldn't they have DFAed Lopez instead? Tavarez could come in and walk a lefty just as well as Lopez can."