Amazin'

I'm sure tomorrow's NY tabloids will have some awesome headlines about the Mets. I just can't figure out what they might be. Any ideas?

AL East Champs and Now The Playoffs...

Ok, so the LAA come to Boston next week for the playoffs. I am guessing:

Beckett v Lackey
Daisuke v Santana
Schilling v Escobar

Does that sound about right?

I am also guessing the lineup goes back to something like:

Ellsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Ortiz DH
Manny LF
Drew RF
Lowell 3b
Tek C
Youk 1B
Lugo SS

Of course, Youk might move back to the top, but Francona loves the left/right/left/right thing...and Youk hasn't gotten back to form quite yet. And I think the Sox send Ellsbury and Lugo a lot to keep the pressure on.

Without sounding too confident, I fully expect the Sox to get to the ALCS where I would rather face Cleveland, even if Cleveland has the home field...

But back to this series...The Sox are coming in healthier than the Angels. The Angels are sub-500 on the road. Vlad and Matthews are hurting. And the Sox tend to knock the Angels ace (Lackey) around. One caveat for the Sox is that if the series goes 5, I think that the Angels take it. I think the same team seeing Daisuke twice in a short span will be more likely to get to him the second game.

Also, if you are Francona, how do you manage these next two games? Do you rest Papi or let him keep getting his swings? Do you pitch Wake for five today and then let Snyder pitch a few innings regardless of how he's throwing the ball? Then Schill and Tavarez the same plan on Sunday?

Lessons still being learned????

I was coming to post - "Hey Dice K has pitched 6 great innings - why does Tito not get him out of there and have him finish the regular season on a positive not?"

And then Mourneau hits a lead off HR. Damnit. I hope he gets out of this inning with no more damage.

Disturbing A-Rod picture of the day

From the NY Daily News:

Sort of Random Thoughts

3 is the magic number...The Sox are up by 3.

The Yankees are 8-8 versus the D-Rays. 35-32 versus the AL East.

The playoffs lineup in the Yankees favor as of today. They haven't lost to Cleveland this year, but are 3-6 against the Angels. The Wild Card gets Cleveland at this point.

Drew is on a tear and, hopefully, it carries through the playoffs. With the return of Youk and Manny, and Drew and Lowell still hitting, this becomes a dangerous lineup.

The Mets are struggling over in the NL East. If the Phillies catch them, the Mets are likely not to make the playoffs.

I am rooting for the Royals to overtake the White Sox in the AL Central.

I am glad the World Series is in an American League ballpark.

Santana is pitching for the Twins today. That means he won't pitch in Fenway. Probably good news for the Sox in terms of winning the division.

Ellsbury is the CF next year. No doubt. I am guessing Coco is gone.

With Ellsbury, Pedroia, Youk, Papelbon, Lester, Buchholz, and possibly Bowdoin at cheap money, and on the roster next year one has to give credit to the scouts for finding so much talent...Secondly, do they run at a big free agent? A-Rod at SS? That won't happen, but that is the only place I could see an upgrade...Unless they cut Lowell loose and run at A-Rod for 3b...

Of course, they could package a few players to Texas if they are willing to part with Saltalamacchia...but, I doubt they would...

Lastly, Francona has done a great job in a strange situation. Deciding on whether or not to play for the division, while having to rest guys...He seems to be making all the right decisions, right now...

Good news

Today's lineup. Check out who's batting second.

AL East

Obviously anything can happen, but I think it is pretty safe to say that if the Yankees lose today, the Sox should win the division. If they win today, due to the tiebreaker, I imagine they are going to make it very hard for the Sox. Let's hope Burnett pitches as well against them as he did against the Sox. Make it an even 2 games with six left. If the Sox go 4-2 at home (and I think not having to face Johan), then NY has to go undefeated. Of course, the Sox could go 2-4 and in that case, they'll probably lose the division no matter what happens today.

Home field advantage

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't really feel too strongly about whether the Sox take the Wild Card vs. the AL East. Obviously, winning the division would be awesome, but the Yankees are in a 63-33 run, which is pretty damn hard to compete with, and losing serious ground to a team like that does not constitute a choke. Check out this piece of ridiculousness comparing the Sox 2007 season to 1978. Note that the words "wild" and "card", which are kind of important when discussing the playoffs, don't appear until about 3/4 of the way down.

Just about the only argument that makes any sense why the Sox "need" to win the division is the home field advantage that comes with it. So: does it matter? The Sox offense is way better at home (AL rank in parentheses):

HOME: .295 BA (4th), .378 OBP (2nd), .459 SLG (3rd), .838 OPS (2nd), 71 HR
AWAY: .263 BA (10th), .344 OBP (3rd), 419 SLG (6th), .763 OPS (6th), 80 HR

But check out their pitching stats:

HOME: 4.18 ERA (6th), 2.50 K/BB (4th), .261 BAA (5th), .726 OPSA (5th)
AWAY: 3.57 ERA (1st, by a lot), 2.20 K/BB (3rd), .233 BAA (1st, by a lot), .684 OPSA (1st, by a lot)

I have no idea what this means; and I don't have time to look these numbers up for only August-September. But it would seem to suggest that either (1) with the exception of HR, Fenway is still very much a hitter's park, or (2) we have the right hitters but the wrong pitchers for Fenway.

Either way, given these differences I'd expect not too much of a road-home split in wins. But it's huge: they're 47-28 at home, 43-35 away.

Brilliant analysis

Jerry Crasnick, saying that the trade for Eric Gagne had a negative impact on the Sox:

"To make matters worse, Gagne's problems have been contagious. Okajima has a 7.04 ERA since Gagne's arrival."

I really hope that was a joke, but I don't think it was. Yes, Gagne's been awful. But does anyone really think he's made Okajima worse? We were all confused (happily so) about why the Sox picked up another setup man. Now we know why they did: there was some concern about Okajima's durability over the entire season. Had Gagne not arrived, Okajima probably would've gone on the DL in late August.

Not to say the trade was a good idea, but it's pretty damn stupid to blame Okajima's troubles on it.

Just Make The Playoffs?

The Sox have the unfortunate injuries to Ramirez and Youkilis happen late in the season. The Yankees had their injuries all early on...Obviously, the Yankees are playing extremely well. They've won 11 of their last 13, and if they keep up that pace, the division is theirs...

So, looking at the injuries above, do you rush back Ramirez and Youk to try to maintain the division championship, or do you try to get healthy for the post-season? All Sox fans have been frustrated by the recent slumping, and the inability to put away the Yankees. But, with the magic number of "4" sitting in front of the Sox and the post-season (any combo of Detroit losses and Sox wins), do you push for the division title? Yes, it means gloating by the Yankees fans. But, does it matter?

Well, let's remember a few things. The Sox went in to the '05 post-season with their rotation all out of order. I won't remind anyone of how that went. Last year, they don't even make the playoffs. And, the most important one of all...They went in to the '04 playoffs as a Wild Card and healthy...

Look, the Sox will win 4 more games before the season is over. Heck, if the Sox go 6-4 the rest of the way, the Yankees must go 9-2 to win the division (they win the tiebreaker). If that happens, the Yankees deserve the division.

I'd like to have rested and healthy Manny and Youkilis, and a lined up starting rotation heading into the post-season. It would be nice to celebrate the division crown. I will feel the pain of not holding on to a huge lead, if they don't follow through. No doubt about it. But, I would rather see a shot at a World Series. And resting the injured guys, as opposed to rushing them back to just win the division doesn't seem like the right thing to do at this point.

And, just sit Gagne and you win the division (the last part was a joke, sort of...)

I hope some lessons have been learned

By Francona. It seems like about 5 times in the last month, he has left one of his vet pitchers in a game far too long. In a tie game or with the Sox only one or two behind, he has a tendency to leave Schill, Beckett, even dice K, in the game. And the results have not been good. Sure Schilling was pitching well last night. But by the time Jeter hit the HR, Schill was struggling. The most pitches of any inning. Plus he had left a few balls up. I hope in the playoffs, Terry now knows to go get the guy out of the game. I'm sure he has less confidence in the pen than he did a month ago, but I still would rather see Delcarmen's first pitch against Jeter than Schilling's 90th.

middle of the 1st

Oof, this is going to be a loooooonnnngggg game. Three outs, 1 error and 1 hit batsman.

...Nope, make that 2 errors.

...Anyone online?

NO HEART

This team sickens me. Where are the come-from-behind victories? Really, does anyone really think this team is any good? Sheesh.

Seriously, am I the only one who feels that, if they can fix their god-awful bullpen, the Devil Rays could actually be sort of...you know, good? Their offense has a ton of potential - if these guys stay healthy, and stick around for a couple years, the lineup would actually be sort of scary. That's a weird thing to say, given they're the Devil Rays.

Meanwhile, this whole Patriots thing really confuses me. They're arguable the best team in football, and so the whole thing makes no sense. One upside: one of the people complaining about the Pats cheating is Shawn Merriman, which is awesome.

Hey, Dino...

ROBOT UMPIRES!!!!

Wow, revisited

Okay, so this sort of...sucks. So much for happy baseball stories. I'd like to think the story's not true, but it's pretty big on specifics; and maybe it doesn't matter in the big picture, but it still seriously detracts from the utter awesomeness of it all.

Oh well.

On the upside, I think a 9th inning infield single, steal, and RBI single to win the game counts as "heart". Next complaint: the Red Sox have no "stomach". Who's with me? Eric? Dan?

Two Questions

One - without looking up the internet... what mlb pitcher has allowed the most HRs this year.

Two - Matt, please respond to this.

Have you ever...

...not wanted to post anything, for fear of jinxing things? I just feel if I were to say anything positive, the season would come crashing down instantly...

Clay should thank me

For going nowhere near my computer.

Nice job. He looked great. Excellent command of the curve and change.

We should learn something today

The sox dugout should be full today, with the additions of Bucholz and Corey to the pitching staff and Moss, Elsbury, and Clayton.

We'll see what Bucholz learned from his brief time in the bigs (hopefully to trust his stuff).

We'll see what the lineup is, with the new injuries now coming daily.

we'll also see how the Sox respond knowing that the Yanks have already won.

So lots to learn in the next 5-6 hours.