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.