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Sox Gamers/Postmortems

Crazy Eights: Sox-Jays Gamer XII

J.D. Drew, in the eight spot of tonight's Red Sox lineup, has batted eighth as a starter in a game just nine times, the last back in July 2007. You know what else happened in 2007? The Red Sox won the World Series. Turning point!

In all seriousness, the Sox are fielding perhaps their most formidable lineup (ignore that man batting ninth), particularly with David Ortiz hot again after another torturous cold spell. The Sox go for the sweep against Toronto and some momentum heading into what was once thought to be a key weekend series against the Yankees.

Comment away!


Lineup, courtesy the Globe:

1. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
2. Dustin Pedroia, 2B
3. Victor Martinez, C
4. Kevin Youkilis, 1B
5. Jason Bay, LF
6. David Ortiz, DH
7. Mike Lowell, 3B
8. J.D. Drew, RF
9. Alex Gonzalez, SS
— Jon Lester, SP

100 replies on “Crazy Eights: Sox-Jays Gamer XII”

On paper, in theory, that’s a very good offense. Not hedging bets, if that’s your lineup everyday and their healthy that can do damage.

I had high hopes for this game and Lester seems determined to snuff them out early.

That’s a fantastic lineup, and one I hope we’ll see plenty of over the next month.
Lester gets a double-play. Fantastic, we’ll take it.

had no idea that if a throw made from the dirt area of the mound enters the stands or dugout the runner only advances 1 base. opposed to anywhere else on the field where it’s 2 bases for the runner.

Nice when your 1-3-2 starters can, hopefully, win all three.
And now we send Penny to the mound. Blech.

Let’s look ahead, shall we? The Yankees are a virtual lock for the ALCS, probably facing the Tigers in the opening round. Beyond Verlander starting four games in the ALDS due to extended rainouts, that team has no chance. Going to be up to the Angels or Sox/Rangers/Rays to keep my adopted hometown from becoming utterly unbearable.

To elaborate: Drew raised his August OPS from .773 to 1.002, and his overall OPS from .815 to .844

“…with David Ortiz hot again…” mmmmm…milkshakes
i thought drew was too tired to play :)

Eh, Ath, dc did put a smiley. I think he’s just playing.
But yes, they do. I walk amongst them all day long.
It’s just that dc’s post isn’t proof of that. Oh, and just wait.

Oh, and just wait.
Do you know something we don’t, SF? Is Jeter’s name on the list of 103?!?!?!
Lester with another quick inning. 105 pitches after 8. I think I speak for everyone when I say: SEND HIM OUT FOR THE COMPLETE GAME!
He’s allowed just 2 baserunners since the first inning, and has retired 18 of the last 19 batters. Hot damn.

i’m sure that ath wasn’t talking about me sf…i mean, “asshole” is a little harsh isn’t it, even when describing me…especially when you scolded me the other night about the misunderstanding with devine about the “you guys suck” comment…call him [ath] out for real man, and don’t pussy around it…he was out of line…and i “walk amongst” sox fans every day that are like the yanks fans you’re describing… i think most of the time we’re better than that…

Son of a c*cksucking jesus, some guy named Fernando Cabrera is sent out there instead of Lester.

“The Yankees fans really do turn into assholes again when their team wins, don’t they?”
Correction: [Sports] fans really do turn into assholes again when their team wins, don’t they?
That’s better.

i think most of the time we’re better than that…
Aside from when you guys troll Sox gamers to make steroid jokes? ;-)

Holy crap that was a fantastic almost-double-play. Gonzalez is a joy to watch as a defender.

“when ‘you guys’ troll Sox gamers to make steroid jokes? ”
right, like you guys didn’t make jokes about arod…blah, blah, blah…ok, i get the gamers are sacred…you were still out of line…i’ve never been called an “asshole” except here…that usually get you admonishment…but….
i’m watching a game that matters…the little league world series… ;)

Tomorrow’s gamer is going to be interesting…sorry I’m going to miss it.
WE HAVE NO CHANCE!!! SOX ARE GOING TO SWEEP US!!!

“…Aside from when you guys troll Sox gamers to make steroid jokes? ;-)…”
yeah, like you guys haven’t made a ton of arod jokes…ok, the gamers are sacred, not the place for this stuff…i never expected you to be admonished for the “asshole” comment…that’s the way it goes around here…i learned something about you tonight my friend, but it’s ok…we all mess up once in awhile…
by the way, i’m watching a game that matters…the little league world series… ;)

Do we do that in the Yankees gamers, dc? I can’t remember the last time I saw an antagonistic comment in a Yankees gamer, except by maybe Hudson. And even if so it was a long time ago.
And just so I get this straight:
-Being a douchebag in a gamer: totally cool
-Calling someone out for being a douchebag in a gamer: not cool

DC, if a Sox Fan goes into a Yankees gamer and prods the YF’s in an antagonistic way, he deserves to be a called an asshole too. Are you really going to bring up the whole “OMG us poor Yankees fans never get treated fairly!” thing again? Really?

Krueg, without your crazy fatalism in the gamer it just won’t be the same. Who are we going to talk down off the ledge whenever the Yankees GIDP?

it’s all perspective. some sox fans say, “the yankees had the biggest postseason collapse in the history of sports” while others say, “the red sox had the biggest comeback in the history of postseason sports”. they’re both right.

so, i’m:
1) an asshole
2) a douchebag
3) a troll
nice….and, yes, sf, my original comment didn’t just “seem” clearly in jest…it was…thanks for the “back off” though…that’s one of the stongest responses to an ‘out of line’ sf that i’ve ever seen here…i understand the frustration…i’ve been there…and, i apologize for tainting a gamer…won’t happen again…

One-run lead for the O’s going into the bottom of the 9th.
For the record, I could have used better words in that earlier misunderstanding, dc. I take my share of the responsibility.
Doesn’t look like Texas will cough up a 4-run lead 3 days in a row as they led 9-1 last I looked.

$10 says the O’s blow it, Devine. And right as I say that Bartlett gets on base.
And holy crap, 11-1 Texas now.

me too devine…my first comment in our misunderstanding was poorly worded, i admitted that…as for ath, all i can say is “wow”…he’s one bitter dude…i hope he recovers and comes back to reality…

DC, you’re the one who breaks out the “Ohhh woah is me, poor Yankees fan always getting picked on” every chance you get. Rehashing that tired argument again and again shows that the only bitter person is you.
You even admitted that “ok, i get the gamers are sacred…”. I generally like you as far as YF’s go, but I thought you were being an asshole so I said so. Deal with it, rather than crying to the mods and turning it into another “We always get picked on!” argument.

wow
not “crying to the mods”….they pride themselves on running an orderly conversation, or at least i thought…it’s funny, if i did what you did, i’d get beat up by the mods, but all you got was a “Ath, back off. dc’s original comment seemed clearly in jest.”…sheesh, gee golly…mike brady?…if you want to call that paranoia, ok, welcome to the club…humor is usually excused [as long as you have the obligatory smiley], or at least i thought…i’m merely pointing out that name-calling is usually frowned upon, or at least i thought…you got away with one, no make that three… but that’s ok, i guess… frankly, i’m getting to the point where i don’t care anymore…by the way, the chick in the video was a sox fan…a typical sox fan… ;)

I’m venturing out for the game tomorrow Ath…going to bitch-slap some redneck Sox fans!!! ;)

Come on guys…CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG!!! :)
(unless it’s me and B-rad…JOKING!!!)

A Yankee asshole is a Yankee asshole…winning or being in first place doesn’t change that or amplify that. Same thing can be said for Boston fans. This whole once a team gets back on top thing is getting old. (Not aimed at you SF or anyone specific) if anything it’s worked quite the opposite for me…I’m very careful as to the statements I make because of how it’s going to be received. We all just need to chill out and enjoy this forum that SF AND YF give us. It’s baseball not life or death…

I see how this works:
Step 1: Make antagonistic/ambiguous comment in gamer
Step 2: Wait for opposing fans to get pissed off
Step 3: Pretend like you did nothing and complain that YF’s get unfairly treated
Step 4: ???
Step 5: PROFIT!
dc, you can say whatever you want as far as I’m concerned. Even if it’s antagonistic. But if it is ambiguous/antagonistic, at least have tough skin to take the turn-about. Don’t dish it if you can’t take it.

True enough John. I like what Rex said above:

“Correction: [Sports] fans really do turn into assholes again when their team wins, don’t they?

Um…I just checked the weather up in BAAAAAAA-sten tomorrow and it looks like rain, rain, rain, rain. Can some of you do some sort of anti-rain dance? Maybe bury some jerseys in your yards or something?
If I get to the bar and it’s rained out…heaven help Memphis.

Not sure if people become worse when their team is impressing them or when it’s disappointing them. Or both. Regardless, we should definitely dispense with the pretense that one of our fanbases is more obnoxious than the other. They both can be pretty bad, even while regulars here try to set a different tone and standard.
And SF, I would like nothing more than for you to despise your surroundings come October. Of course, I mean that with all respect and with full confidence that the feeling is very mutual. After all, I thought this all fell somewhere between a game and life and death…

“Pretend like you did nothing”…i didn’t…i clearly made a joke…go back to my original comment…sf recognized it to his credit, but the humor was obviously too sophisticated for you…so, you took it down a notch by calling me a “troll”, an “asshole”, and a “douchebag”…the imbalance [see step 3] you speak of is actually expected, funny, while frustrating, and helps make this place more of a challenge…sort of…yep, in your whiney, bitchy, little sox fantasy world to you i’m an asshole…i hope you find that cathartic in some way…

we sort of cross-posted there IH….i’ve generally refrained from rubbing it in to sox fans when we’ve [yanks] had the upper hand…doesn’t mean that i haven’t made my share of posting mistakes, which i usually own up to…but, clearly ath over-reacted to my original comment from 9:26 pm…i’m not backing down this time…i wasn’t obnoxious, and i wasn’t out of line…he was…nobody wants to call him on it…fine

dc, for what it’s worth I found your initial milkshake post pretty harmless and funny though I understand that an SF might not take it that way, just as I might not in a Yankee gamer. I made a joke-comment in last night’s Sox gamer about Buchholz’s looks that in hindsight may have been read by SFs as trying to goad a fight when I was just trying to be silly.
Regardless, I think Ath’s “a-hole” response was totally over-the-line inappropriate and – even if your initial post had been meant as more antagonistic than I read it – sort of the equivalent of responding to a beebee gun with a howitzer. Had I been around at the time I would have commented accordingly along these lines. Having said all that, Atheose has been here for years and I literally can’t remember a time that he went antagonistic. In fact, if I’m honest with myself, I’d say I’ve probably been more antagonistic at times than he ever had been. So while I would have stated my view on what transpired above, I think I would have suggested some forgive-and-forget in it all, whereas there are some here (SFs and YFs) who I wouldn’t feel that way about because they don’t have that same track record.
Anyway, this is all starting to feel like way too much to type about something that has nothing to do with an actual baseball game, but that’s my personal take…again, for what it’s worth.

fair enough IH…as i pointed out, i have on occasion, made comments to get a reaction…i forgot that a gamer isn’t the best place to do that, even jokingly, and i conceded that point…in retrospect, to sf’s credit, he did attempt to get ath to reconsider his point of view at least 3 times…what was troubling about this is that i have a lot of respect for ath and his usual commentary…this one blind-sided me, so i found it disappointing really…he calls it being “thin-skinned”, though he’s the one brandishing the howitzer, and when the response to an obvious joke about a couple of players is as harsh and personal as it was, that’s supposed to be out of bounds, which you point out, so for what my humble opinion is worth, you did what i’d expect mods to do…you’ve never heard me call a sox fan an “asshole”, “douchebag”, or a “troll” for making fun of jeter, arod, sheffield/giambi [when they were with the yanks], or for any reason for that matter, but i will defend myself …i was bored last night, but in the future i will probably avoid sox gamers altogether…
i’m confident that ath and i will get back on track again…

I did overreact, and apologize for that. I get crap from lots of O’s fans at work about Ortiz/Manny, so by the time I get home and enjoy the game/gamer the last thing I want to hear are more Ortiz steroid references.
Like I said dc, you’re one of the YF’s I like. At the time I thought your comment was assholish, but that really changes very little about how I feel about you as a person, because it was just one comment. Hopefully my one comment (well, my initial comment) won’t suddenly make you think I’m a “bitter, paranoid, whiny bitchy Sox fan” either.
And IH, I’m going to have to disagree with you… back in 2007 when the Yankees lost to the Indians I did in fact make an antagonistic comment on here that I’m not proud of!

Krueg, you just ruined my day. Looking at the forecast there’s no way baseball gets played today. Doubleheader for Sunday? They can’t do it tomorrow since the game is at 4:00, which leaves no time for the game before or afterward.
And kudos for getting the South Park reference!

Oh and IH, I thought your comment about Buchholz was funny… I just couldn’t think of anything funny to say in return!

ath, you and i are fine now…like i said, i have a lot of respect for you and what you say, so i was caught off guard…i didn’t mean for the comment to sound assholish, but i can understand why you thought it might be…i was bored, trying to have fun, and picked the wrong time and place…after that i was just venting, so you can ignore my return fire about the “”bitter, paranoid, whiny bitchy Sox fan” …you’re none of that…we both let it get a little out of control, but let’s shake hands [virtually], and move on from here…

In closing, I think we can all agree that Pittsburgh Pirates fans are BY FAR the most obnoxious fans EVER!!! God, if I hear one more 1960 “Maz” or 1979 “We are family” taunt from a yellow and black clad Pirate fan (that you see EVERYWHERE!), I’m going to lose it…
p.s. I’m super pissed about tonight. Just my luck. Planning to go out for two weeks, stupid hurricane cruising through the Atlantic traps a huge front right over Beantown and now we’re all screwed!!! My bad boys…

it’s raining somewhere, somewhere else it’s snowing. I would also anticipate the sun being out in many places…
I suspect a line of thunderstorms will pass through, but the game will be played.

You think the game will be played? Weather.com says the thunderstorms will start at 7pm, but the chance of precipitation is only 30%.
Well crap, I expected the game to be rained out so I’ll be seeing Inglorious Basterds instead. Hearing Brad Pitt say “Gnat-zees” will be far more entertaining than watching Penny give up 7ER in 2+ innings.

Ruh roh… apparently Jim Rice, whilst talking to Little Leaguers to day said guys like Manny, A-Rod, and Jeter were nothing compared to they guys he played with. I predict a mini-riot over this…

“Hearing Brad Pitt say ‘Gnat-zees’ will be far more entertaining than watching Penny give up 7ER in 2+ innings.”
I beg to differ.
Nice job on the reconciliation you two – now we can all go back to being nice to each other while privately praying for each other’s team to fall in a ditch somewhere.

I’d love to see the context of that quote rbf and whether he went on to explain it any further.
Regardless, I think it’s clear that Jim Rice and most of his generation were nothing compared to Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig…JOKING (sort of)

now we can all go back to being nice to each other while privately praying for each other’s team to fall in a ditch somewhere.
The Sabathia rocket ship to Neptune will be ready in 3 weeks.

OK, at least Swisher said something dopey too – he said his favorite park was Camden Yards because it’s been there so long and there’s so much history attached to it. Since 1992? Can anyone tell I’m so desperate for the game to start that I’m trawling the web for any baseball news at all?

That might be one of the smarter things Swisher has said in years.
Actually I like Swisher – and I like the vast majority of his quotable quotes. Strikes me as a guy who is not going to let himself get cheated out of a minute of realizing just how lucky he is to play a game he loves for a living – and helps to remind those around him of the same. And the team he joined needed exactly that kind of reminder in my view.
But yeah, Camden Yards + “history” don’t go together.

I’m getting ansy!!!! 1 hours till I get to the bar! Wish me luck boys!!!
p.s. Jeter and Rice should not even by mentioned in the same breath…CRAP, I JUST DID!!! ;)

Three weeks, Ath? What in @#$!%^( is taking so long?
I think you’re underestimating the amount of energy required to force Sabathia’s body to exit earth’s gravity. We’ve had to double our funding since Sabathia discovered the Tribeca Grill!

I just read the espn.com story about Rice’s comments to the little leaguers. It’s worse than I thought. He references baggy pants, dreadlocks, PED’s, and an over-emphasis on the pursuit of individual goals/stats to characterize today’s players as unworthy compared to his era’s. He then names A-Rod, Manny, and Jeter as his cases-in-point.
Without even getting into the junk that went on in his era, what possible justification could he have for including Jeter in this?? Unless it was mis-reported or I misread it, the only interpretations possible are that A) he’s a moron or B) he’s just having a bad day and will therefore hopefully regret speaking so stupidly. Either way, there are any number of measures by which he doesn’t compare to Jeter – today the clearest one it would seem is that of class.

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