Well Played, Sir

Very quickly, in what will be (maybe) the shortest post ever, is that tonight may have been the most emotional up and down so far this season watching the Sox. Just when I thought they were going to pack it in and I was ready to abandon all hope and watch HBO's Hard Knocks on the Kansas City Chiefs ('08 seasons tickets, here I come) the Sox pull one out of their ass and then add to it late in the game rather than coast.
It gave me some hope, despite the fact that perennial hack Julian Tavarez will start tomorrow afternoon. Back to tonight, the Sox did it with their traditional powers that be. Ortiz came through with a grand salami in the fifth, the bully line-up of All-Stars Okajima and Papelbon put the final nail in the coffin of the Angels. Hell, even Manny made a key defensive play. How often does that happen? It's a lot of fun to see the two best teams in the American League (save for the Yankees, who are playing with the best record in the last two months) slug it out and trade shots. Hopefully the Sox can score the knockout blow tomorrow before heading back out on the road next week. Talk all you want about the Central, I don't think any team other than the division champ will make the playoffs at this point. Here is an "early" post-season prediction.

Boston, New York, Detroit, LA with the dark horse being Seattle should the Sox, Angels or Yankees falter.

Oh, completely unrelated, but go see Superbad.

You're Killing Me Smalls

Looks like it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything. Work has been really busy and keeping up with all of the happenings with the Sox has been a little more difficult the past couple of weeks. However, all deadlines and extra hours aside, I’m still watching probably 4 out of 5 games from the first inning to the ninth. Since I posted last about 10 days ago, the Sox have gone 4-and-4. Going .500 isn’t anything to be ashamed of if you’re the Cincinnati Reds, but with the payroll and star-power the Sox have, and with their mid-season trade deadline experimentation, things should be going a little better than this in Boston.

It’s almost (yes, almost) safe to say that the Eric Gagne acquisition may be a bit of a problem. Gagne took the loss last night against the Angles giving up three earned in the top of the ninth. His ERA has risen to 15.00 since coming to Boston. The only saving grace is that it was against the Angels and their aggressive style to produce runs late could come against the best of relievers and closers in the majors. Despite that silver lining, the fans in Arlington may be patient, but not in Boston. The Nation has watched a train almost come off the tracks in several outings and last night is the derailing that most saw coming. Sure he did well the first half, but he’s unproven after two major surgeries since 2004 in the second half. Obviously, taking a gamble on Gagne was just that and hopefully the promise of what Gagne was earlier in his career will not outweigh what his production value is now. Sorry Theo, doesn’t look like this one is going to pan out. I know I was initially slightly tickled about the prospect of Gagne going to the pen, however, did we really need him?

The series against Baltimore was a near minor disaster, but coming off of back to back road series against Seattle and LA what else could you have expected? I penciled them in at taking 2 of 3 at best. Playing Tampa at home was like playing Tampa at home, nothing unusual there.

The offense is up and down and with Ortiz slowly deteriorating, it will be a miracle if he can help get the Sox to the division crown AND be 100% for the playoffs. I know most players are never playing at 100% at this point, but he’s a DH, not an everyday infielder. After a slow start Dustin Pedroia is making noise as a possible rookie of the year candidate, however how he finishes to make up for this slow April and May still needs to play out. He’s serving his purpose as a pesky hard-out type of hitter with admirable power for his size. His performance in the field should not be overlooked either. His fielding is at an almost veteran level at .991 with only four errors on the year.

The Sox are throwing Schilling tonight, who is yet to pick up a win since June, and Wakefield tomorrow afternoon. Wake was drilled for six runs in less than five innings last week in LA. The situation with the Yankees seems to have stabilized at least for the moment with the lead settling between four and six games the past week. If the lead should dwindle below that, expect cardio specialists in the Boston metro to be working double overtime until the beginning of October and hopefully deep into it.

Wagons East

Shitty movie title, I know but it’s late for me and I’m tired.

Tomorrow night, Boston may or may not be the first team to 70 wins this year. They’ll head back to the east coast for a three game road series this weekend with the Baltimore Orioles. They haven’t quite enjoyed the success they’ve come to know the past few years against the O’s in ’07, but by all accounts should win the series. The Sox are in the middle of a nine game, 10 day and three city road trip and are 3-3 so far. The Sox will be home next week when they play Tampa Bay then play the Angels again for a four game series at Fenway.

With Boston playing Baltimore and the New York Yankees playing in Cleveland, ending their run of playing the worst teams in the AL, Boston should be able to put at least one more game between themselves and the Yanks. Speaking of the Yanks, after playing a three game series with the Toronto Blue Jays this week that saw A-Rod almost get cut down from the knees, they took the day off along with the Sox. To retaliate the previous games' transgressions, Yankee’s starting pitcher Roger Clemens nailed Jays SS Alex Rios in the middle of his back yesterday. Clemens never ceases to amaze me on what an incredible asshole he can be. Players policing the game themselves, fine, but that should have been taken care of the day it happened. So what happened? Players and managers from both sides were reprimanded, with Clemens facing the stiffest end of the penalty and being suspended for five games. This basically equals dick in that he’ll only miss one start, if he doesn’t appeal. God, I fucking hate the Yankees. It’s not like this doesn’t happen to other teams, but when the Yanks pull it off it just makes me hate them even more.

The series in Anaheim left me with a good feeling that the Sox aren’t just going to fold when a team like the Angels are battling them and are being aggressive. Sure, they avoided the sweep last night and lost the series, but they still played well. Teams that save face and avoid sweeps more often than not do a better job of impressing me. Of course, this week also reaffirmed that I really, really hate reliever Julian Tavarez. In the past three appearances he’s pitched three innings, gave up three earned runs, five hits, three walks and one strike out. This pans out to an ERA of 9.00 with a WHIP of 2.67. I hate you, Tavarez.

Hopefully this weekend they won’t have to turn to him in a close run situation with Dice-K, Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling pitching. One pitcher that needs mention is the newly acquired Eric Gagne. Watching Gagne pitch is like watching a train that’s about to derail every at bat. I almost woke my neighbor up last night so I had someone to slap as I watched him blunder through the 8^th inning as he brought the tying run to the plate. However, just when you thought he was going to piss the game away, bam, brilliant pitching. I don’t know how much of that I can take, especially with August fully underway. All-Stars (man, this never gets old) Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon were brilliant as always with Okajima having to come in and relieve Mike Timlin who had to relieve the Sox from Tavarez in the 5^th.

Ok, so completely unrelated to the Sox here, but not unrelated to baseball. Last night I had the best tickets I’ve ever had to a baseball game, ever. My friend and I sat five rows behind home plate, practically dead center. It was the Royals versus the Twins and it never ceases to amaze me how many people make the trek down I-35 from Minnesota to watch their team. If I were a Royals fan I’d probably be really pissed, because there are almost more Twins fans than Royals fans with their gay “Circle Me” signs. I couldn’t tell if I was at a baseball game, or on the set of WWE Monday Night Raw. I almost missed the hot dog race on the video board. Assholes. I’d be more pissed because I’d be willing to bet more than half of the fans that were there couldn’t name more than two starters from 1997 ten years ago when they sucked like the Royals are sucking now.

Watching Johan Santana was awesome and he didn’t let me down by pitching a brilliant game. The Twins lineup also decided to make contact with the baseball and racked up 19 hits and 11 runs on the seemingly hapless Royals so that was fun to watch too. Of course, those same Royals would pick up their 50^th win and take the series against the Twinkies this afternoon.

I just got done watching Baseball Tonight and did not know that Royals have only won eight less games than the Twins. Could the Royals be turning it around? I sure hope so. This town is just waiting on the edge of their seat for their hometown boys to get back to respectability. I’m still amazed how on the weekends fans show up en masse (relative to sub .500 teams) at Kauffman Stadium (and sometimes during the week) despite the Royals having back-to-back-to-back 100+ loss seasons. You look around the league with the other shitty teams and see less than 10,000 on some days. That never happens here. People want their team back, because in the 70’s and 80’s this team was it. You couldn’t buy a ticket to see the Royals and I think that would really be great if they got that back. Having your hometown team competing and playing meaningful baseball at the end of the season is something I’d really like to experience. On Sundays during the NFL season this city of a little over 2 million completely closes down. It’s really weird. On top of that, if you badmouth the Chiefs down here, you’re likely to get your ass kicked. Last fall, I went and watched my 49ers get whooped at Arrowhead 579-0 last fall and I still got shit the.entire.game. I wish I were kidding. Wearing my Ronnie Lott jersey probably didn’t help. Anyway, I’d like to see that sort of passion for the Royals again. Except for the whole ass kicking thing, beings I’m a Sox fan and all. Below is a really shitty video from my equally shitty cell phone from my seat at last night's game with Royals CF David DeJesus leading off against Santana.