With the Economy the Way it is, You're Lucky You Get Soup.

Earlier today, Brad Penny cleared waivers and is in the process of joining the Giants in their effort to keep hold of the NL wild card.

Au Revoir Mon Penny.

When they first brought on Brad Penny, I wasn't overly impressed with the move. But the longer he was around the more he grew on me. Asking to be released was probably a pride--You can't fire me, I quit--thing but I think that I'm going to miss him. He had a good couple of months in there. He has a ready laugh. More importantly, nobody (as far as I know) asked him how he thought his buddy was going to do on Dancing with the Stars. And that mess of a last start wasn't completely his fault, the bullpen did him no favors. (But I can't be mad a Michael Bowden. He has the cutest little accent-those flat "a"s kill me.) Best of luck to Penny with whatever he ends up doing.

Had A Bad Day.

As a player I think Kevin Youkilis is great. As a person? Not so much. I don't actively dislike him. He just manages to annoy me sometimes. So I made a pact to do my best to ignore everything about him that isn't directly related to baseball so that we could get along. And since it's been working, I won't dwell on this too much.

But...if you've just come from an emotional funeral and you're not really in a fabulous mood, then it might not be the best idea to complain about the negativity of the media to it's queen bee, Dan Shaughnessy. Just a thought.

Secret Weapon.

I may not be skilled at predicting the outcome of baseball games that have yet to be played but it would seem that the same doesn't hold true for Terry Francona.

Case in point: In the wee hours of yesterday morning, Victor Martinez was bugging Francona to let him play in last night's game. Annoyed? Tired? Francona slipped and revealed a little too much:

"I finally wrote back and I said, 'Leave me alone. You'll come in, pitch hit, and get the game winning hit. He said, 'OK. Goodnight.' "

It does raise the question of why he doesn't win more games, though. If he knows that somebody is going to go 0 for 5, shouldn't he bench them that night? It must be that he can see how the game will turn out but is unable to do anything to change the outcome. It would explain how he remains mostly calm, throughout.

Josh and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Game.

I know that in some circles Josh Beckett is somewhat of a sacred cow but that was bad. Really bad. Really, really bad. Five home runs? Two bad starts in a row?

Josh, kitten, if you were going to have such an awful game, couldn't you have had the decency to not do it during an ESPN game? When the Sox fail on NESN, Don sounds disappointed. When they fail on ESPN, Joe Morgan is positvely beside himself with joy. Blech.

How's That Curse I Cursed You With, Curse-ty?

I may have found the problem with tonight's game. It lay not with the pitching but rather with a pitcher and a broadcaster. And not the pitcher you're thinking of.

Before the game Jonathan Papelbon gave an interview in which he said:

(Re: the Yankees) "I think all of baseball is seeing how well their playing and hopefully we can stifle that while they're here."

and

(Re: Jerry Remy) "I'll tell you what: Remdawg's back. He might be that missing link.You know, he might get us on that roll that we need."

So there you have it. Blame it on Papelbon.

A Happier Note.

Big congrats to Jacoby Ellsbury on tying the Red Sox record for stolen bases tonight. Plus, unlike a certain opposing third baseman who has a knack for accomplishing feats when they don't have an effect the outcome of the game it was an important run at the time. Before things fell apart.

Bad Penny.

I said: Win it for Remy. Not: Completely forget how to pitch for Remy.

That was ugly. The last time that they played the Yankees they couldn't get a hit to save their lives and this time around they could hit but they couldn't pitch.

But you know what? I'm surprisingly okay tonight. It used to be that losses to the Yankees were soul-crushing, tortuous affairs that resulted in the rending of clothing, the throwing of things at the television, the pulling of hair, and hiding in a corner wishing that it would just be over. And other sorts of general distress. Tonight? Meh. Whatever. The chances of them winning the division were pretty slim to begin with. The focus should be on winning two out of every three and getting their ninety-six wins that that would result in.

Fun With Captions.

You know that I don't like to poke fun at JD Drew. I always feel bad afterward and yet I continue to do it. The photo caption from Reuters says: Boston Red Sox batter J.D.Drew smiles in the dugout after being replaced by a pinch runner during the eighth inning of their MLB American League baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays in Toronto August 20, 2009.


He's like a little kid who has been told that he can't leave the dinner table until he's eaten four more bites of his broccoli. There. Four hits. Is that enough? Can I pleeeeease sit down now?




The Nick Green photo is from a couple of days ago and it's more semantics but again from Reuters: Boston Red Sox Nick Green leaps for the ball as Toronto Blue Jays Randy Ruiz steals second on a past ball during the sixth inning of their MLB American League baseball game in Toronto, August 18, 2009.

If it's a past ball, what is it now? Also, Green looks like a prairie dog. Or a whack-a-mole.

Cavalcade of Color Men.

Jerry Remy's return fills us all with great joy but it is only as a part time gig. (I assume this means he'll just be doing home games.) And so we take this opportunity to review the steady stream of replacement color men NESN has trotted out in the hopes of filling his shoes. (Or as many of them as I can remember.) Why? Because I can.

Dennis Eckersley: I thought that I really enjoyed the days the Eck was in the studio with Tom Caron. He was excitable and brutally honest. He always seemed ready to throw trash cans around the studio or get in his car, drive to the park, and slap somebody for a boneheaded play. It turns out that that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the magic of Dennis Eckersley. He's completely unfiltered, he just goes ahead and says what he thinks. The pitching insights are fascinating. He's a homer. He's amusing. His rapport with Don is fabulous. And yeah, he does use some goofy slang and a lot of it. It might be wise for him to invest in a thesaurus. But he's done a wonderful job.

Dave Roberts: Look, I can't say anything bad about Roberts. He either doesn't particularly like the Red Sox (with the exception of Ellsbury) or tries his very best to stay neutral. His commentary does tend to be just recapping the play and he laughs at his own jokes a lot. If he could just get away from telling me that this, that, or the other was a "big league this, that, or the other" he would be all right.

Desperately hungry Sean Casey: He wasn't much luck. He talked way too much and way too fast. But he was fun and when you could figure out what he was saying, it was usually pretty interesting.

Can't remember his name: He did the first set in Tampa after Jerry left, does games for TBS, says David OR-tiz. I said it then and I'll say it as often as needed: Whatever-his-name-is is not the answer.

Newspaper men: Useless. Every last one of them. I will say this about Tony Massarotti though: While he may look like Peter Jacobson (the guy who plays Dr. Taub on House), with that voice the man shouldn't be let close enough to television to watch it, let alone appear on it. Besides which, he's an idiot.

Frank Viola: Viola has a really strange laugh. That's pretty much all I can say about him--I've gotten really good at muting the television.

Rance Mulliniks: He wasn't particularly memorable but he did get in a jab at Eckersley which was kind of fun. It was after Eck had read Youkilis's lips after being hit by a pitch and then flubbed Masterson's name. Mulliniks claimed to have spent the whole night working on the correct pronunciation of Masterson.

Jim Kaat: Probably because he had the most experience, Kaat was the best they brought in. We will forgive him his Yankee sympathies because he really was interesting.

I'm sure there was a whole slew of other guys but that's all I've got.

Oh, Happy Day.

Jerry Remy's friend John seems like he would not be a good candidate for a best friend and like he would be bad at Christmas (or whichever gift-giving holidays he participates in). He may be unable to keep a secret. For the past couple of days he has been hinting (via Twitter) that Remy's return was imminent. And while not a surprise (and even though I've grown hugely fond of Dennis Eckersley) the news of Remy's return is welcome. I don't know if I'll be able to make it past "Buenas Noches, Amigos", though.

D.P. II

Dustin Pedroia left Toronto earlier today to attend the birth of his son, Dylan Pedroia. That baby was bound and determined to make his appearance and happily things turned out smoothly. Congratulations to all three participants.

Prepare Ye.

Gentlemen: There are forty-five baseball games left in the regular season. If you win two-thirds of them, then you'll win the thirty games that would put you in a good spot to make the post season. But because you're August has been crap so far, you've left yourself very little wiggle room.

While it's a long shot, the post season is not a completely lost cause. It seems as if you played .600 ball for most of the season. If you just go back to doing that, then you'll be in good shape. There's no time left for dilly-dallying or shilly-shallying. It's time to buckle down and do what you're supposed to do. (Or as my father is fond of saying "It's time to make the donuts.") And while you could do it in fits and spurts, it seems that the best course of action would be to meticulously take down each opponent as they come, series by series. But if you want to sweep the rest of the Yankee games, that'd be fine with me.

Oops.

Looks at score. Dusts off crystal ball. Hangs head in shame. I may have to retire from prognostication.

Prophecy.

I have consulted the local oracle, tapped into my inner soothsayer, used the magic eight ball, tasseographed my morning brew, and divined the following about the Red Sox performance today:



Let it be so.

But the World Goes 'Round.

I'll spare you the actual song but the relevant lyric: Somebody loses and somebody wins/ One day it's kicks, then it's kicks in the shins.

That was less fun.

For most of yesterday's game I sat here and for the first time this season thought: They've run into a team that's better than they are. They weren't playing poorly (as they are sometimes wont to do) they were just being outplayed. Then they had their ninth inning and everyone was happy and I could stop contemplating jumping ship for Yankee Universe. (It's a much easier group to be a part of: You don't have to know a damn thing about baseball. You don't have to care about the team. You don't even have to know who's on the roster. All that matters is winning and being as loud and obnoxious as you can be. I could root for Alex Rodriguez or *shudder* Derek Jeter--Stop laughing. I swear I could.)

Tonight, though? Not so much. Brad Penny wasn't too, too awful. The outfield defense was somewhat lacking tonight. And he would have been greatly helped by a catcher who could throw people out. And I may have to go back to threatening Ramon Ramirez with deportation back to KC.

The gauntlet has been thrown fellas. I certainly hope that they're up for the challenge.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig.

Man, did I miss all of the good stuff. A little bit of offensive production (nicely done boyos). The premiere of Junichi Tazawa. A brawl. A rain delay--which seems like a strange thing to want to happen but during the last epic delay I came up with a fabulous idea directly related to a rain delay and I've been waiting to unleash it on the world since then. But most importantly the, albeit brief, return of Mr. Gerald Remy to the NESN booth. Instead I get to watch an extremely condescending interview with Heidi Watney.

Tip for Ms. Watney: Jerry Remy knows scads more about baseball than you do and he is not six-years-old. You don't have to patronize him. Thank you.

Congratulations.

Yay for wins! Hopefully, you can muster thirty-five or so more before the first week of October. I've really got nothing else to add other than I'm ready to head home and sunstroke is not a good idea.

The Winning Starts Today.

It's really easy to not care about the losing when you're not far away but perhaps a little mojo changing music is in order for today. Win today boys.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things.

I really don't know what to say boyos. I go away on a nice little (well-deserved, I think) vacation and at the request of my traveling companion "Give the baseball a rest" and everything goes to hell.

It's raining. My traveling companion is asleep. I'm flipping through the channels and stop on Fox to see a terrible play out in left and think: What the hell was that? Then they zoom in (and play it over and over again from various angles) and Youkilis is gamely trying to play out there. Again: What the hell?

So, Smoltz was DFA'd. Lowrie is now on the DL. They've picked up Chris Woodward. Apparently last night's game was fifteen innings long. And most annoyingly, they've lost the first two games of the series to the Yankees. Blah.

Homing Pigeon.

After the past couple of games I had come to the conclusion that Theo Epstein might know more than I do about running a baseball team. And I had been working up the courage to publicly admit that I was wrong. (It's a big step.) Clearly, when taken away from the soft, gooey center that is the Baltimore pitching staff the offense has once again hit a snag and the bat of Victor Martinez has proved to be useful.

I wasn't totally ignored, though. I said that his starting pitching staff was a little bit weak on the back end and that he should have done something to address the situation. [Note: I was not wrong on this point. And I may have to demote Buchholz to 3/7 of a pitcher.] Obviously due to my fabulous insight, Theo Epstein has addressed the situation by re-hiring Paul Byrd.

It's not quite the move I was hoping for. I spent most of his starts for the Sox last season with my fingers crossed, mumbling "Please don't suck. Please don't suck. Please don't suck."

Meanwhile, Epstein's 'pen mostly worked wonders last night. It was quite impressive. And the less said about the rest of it, the better.

A Heads Up.

I don't watch ESPN very often but I may have a date with my television Monday night, August 10. Back in April, ESPN bought the rights to air the Luis Tiant documentary 'The Lost Son of Havana' with the intention of airing it in August. Keeping their word, the program will be shown on August 10 at 10pm. If you happen to get ESPN Deportes and understand Spanish, you can watch it earlier and at a more convenient time as they will be showing it on Sunday August 9 at 6 pm, right before the Red Sox v. Yankees game.

Movin' Right Along.

Since Theo Epstein seems determined to ignore my advice on how he should run his baseball team, we'll just have to swallow the pill that he's got two and a half pitchers (if you include Buchholz) and hope that it works out.

It's August boyos. The season is no longer young. There's no more time for screwing around. Wins and lots of them. Thank you.

Victor.

Cleveland Indian Victor Martinez traded to Boston

As we bid adieu to Happy, I suppose I should welcome Victor Martinez, a switch-hitting catcher/first baseman who's not too awful defensively at either first or catcher but has a very nice bat. Sadly, he can't throw anyone out either.

So what do we know about Victor? He's Venezuelan. He was sad to leave Cleveland (I don't begrudge him that fact, it's the only place he's ever known). The reporters in Cleveland seemed to really like him. He was willing to give catching Wake a shot at the all-star game. And he wears very expensive t-shirts.

Happy/Sad.

I'm going to miss Justin Masterson. Yeah, Happy could be a little preachy but, overall, he was ten kinds of adorable. And possibly the sweetest, happiest kid ever, witness: his final blog entry. Maybe the hair is to blame.

Best of luck to Happy Masterson in Cleveland. And poor Don Orsillo--no more cookies.