I guess it's a good thing I've been too busy the last couple of weeks to pay much attention to baseball. Never has a four-game lead in one direction looked so large and a three-game lead in the other looked so small.
There's always next year, right?
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37 replies on “Yuck.”
The pitching matchups for the upcoming Sox-Rays series look pretty daunting for Boston. The offense will need to mash. As for the Yanks, I’m really not sure how much longer Girardi can put off choosing his front 5 starters. They’re not making it easy on him by each alternating great outings with horrible outings, butt there’s not a ton of time left to tinker…
He already knows IH. He’s using the 6-man deal to rest people I think.
Yes, there is always next year.
But first, there is *this* year.
Something for you New York people: http://todayspictures.slate.com/20110913/
Chill, the offense has got this.
AJ too.
Yuck.
Congrats, Wake, on your 200th win. That should probably be it for you, though with Andrew Miller and John Lackey your inferiors this year, it won’t surprise me if they go for a 1-year contract and try to squeeze a tiny bit more out of you.
Congratulations to Wakefield. This has gott to mean a ton to him.
As for AJ, absolutely typical night. All over the freaking place making Martin dive every other pitch to block the ball. Loads the bases and looks certain to fully implode in the 3d only to come back to strikeout the next 5 batters he faces. Still plenty of time for him to implode. He now has 24 wild pitches on the year – 10 more than anyone else. He is Nuke Laloosh.
I may be a Red Sox fan, but I lived in NYC for 18 years, and am a New Yorker at heart, so I **LOVE** those old pictures, too. Thanks!
Russell Martin must lose at least 2 weeks off his life-expectancy with every AJ start. AJ survives 6.0 IP with only 2 ER an a season-high 11Ks. An average offense would probably have scored a good 5 or 6 off him in the first 3 innings. Assume – and hope – he’s done and it goes to Robertson/Soriano/Rivera now…
A very hairy inning for Robertson there loading the bases with the one-run lead but he gets the K, and on they go. Likelihood of Mo getting his first shot at # 600 very high now.
Cano is just raking right now. But on the DP the Yanks go down.
IN COMES MO FOR # 600 !
Both teams standing on the dugout top steps as Mo deals PH Willy Month Pena. And he K’s him! 1 away…
Ichiro now…dinks an opposite-field single. Tying run on now with speed. Up comes Seager.
Just missing…2-1 to Seager. Ichiro still at 1st.
K’s him on the high heat! One more to go!!!
Ha!!! Ichiro caught stealing!! 600 saves. 2 more to become the all-team saves leader.
Mo gets 600 saves and Wake gets 200 wins in the same night? Pretty crazy for those two milestones to happen on the same night.
So Lackey pitches tonight, and after that the probable pitchers (according to mlb.com) are:
Thursday: TBD
Friday: Beckett
Saturday: TBD
Sunday: TBD
Lester should go Saturday, Wake should go Sunday. No idea who would go tomorrow, though it seems like Miller and Weiland are our only options.
Boy I hope Bedard is healthy enough for October. Lester/Beckett is a nice 1-2, but we’re awful after that.
When I posted above that the pitching matchups for the Tampa series look tough for Boston I still understood that Beckett was out. Him coming back is huge of course. Those 4 games should be great drama.
Yanks barely eked out last night vs. Seattle. It won’t show up in any stats, but Russell Martin’s non-stop jujitsu performance behind homeplate to save multiple wild pitches was at least one of the top 3 reasons they ultimately won. I believe he blocked no fewer than 4 would-be wild pitches with runners on 3rd, in addition to countless others with men on 1st and/or 2nd. He’s probably still sitting in the ice-bath thanks to AJ.
So it takes Lackey 103 pitches to get through 5…but he has a one-run lead, having given up 2. Wonder if they’ll try to get one more inning. Considering how much the bullpen has had to work recently (except Papelbon), I’d throw him out there for the 6th and yank him after a baserunner. Romero’s at 65 pitches after four…hopefully they make him work a little bit at some point here…
Watching Lackey pitch (on Gameday) is like getting your teeth drilled without a shot. It needs to be done and it might not turn out that bad once it’s done, but it’s an ordeal.
case in point, he beans the leadoff batter. Time to go.
Morales in, 1 out, runner on 3rd
wow. Nailed the runner at home on a grounder and picked off the new runner at 1st. Well done, Franklin.
WTF is up with Bard lately?
Bard in all sorts of trouble – 2 walks, throwing error, 1 run in.
Wow. Just, wow.
Bard coughs up 3 and we’re looking at a very, very bad loss looming.
To those who might be afraid of the Red Sox, you are all cowards.
9 earned runs in 4 innings for Bard in September. 3 blown saves. That’s, uhm, not good.
O’s are our friends anyway…until they’re our enemies again.
4 hits in 12 inninngs for the Yanks in Seattle. Offense stymied and ANOTHER 1-run/extra inning loss. There’ve been a lot of those this past week. Best news was Nova’s 7.1 IP gem giving up only 1 run and that on a wild pitch. Of course, this is Seattle so it’s not like he shut down an offensive powerhouse, but nevertheless it continues tto indicate that at least the top 2 rotation spots are firmly set. Good riddance tto the West cooast for the ’11 Yanks and onto Toronto tomorrow.
This Sox team, clearly, isn’t the team I was afraid of. If they get healthy (thank god for PED testing) there’s a chance they could be scary again. But there’s also a chance that they are old and decrepit.
The killers to me are Bard and Buchholz. If those guys are contributing like they can, this team, other injuries and all, is coasting into the division lead. Instead, it’s the Yankees with their young pitching (Nova, Robertson) overcoming their own injuries, old, and decrepit selves.
Any team with Miller, Weiland, Wakefield, and Lackey as 4/5 of their rotation is in f***ing serious trouble. Beckett and Bedard need to be healthy for any kind of serious playoff run…I say they take 3 of 4 from TB ’cause I’m feeling brave, but even splitting the series would be great. Then there are 10 games left. TB has 7 with the Yanks (who the Sox aren’t catching), Sox have 7 with the O’s. Odds are still decent for us…now just watch out for the possible sneak attack from the Angels…
I will say though that the collapse is being overhyped. The Sox have the advantage in home games and, as Devine Brown notes, also opponents.
Ah well…f*ck baseball anyway.