Ok, I Admit It, I Fail

Yes, I am woman enough to admit that I was wrong. This whole John Smoltz thing? It's a disaster. I figured a few bad starts, maybe a slightly elevated ERA, and then the future Hall of Famer would settle down and... I don't know... get some outs? Listen, it just didn't work out that way. I wanted it to work more than anyone I know. When everyone around me was jumping on the 'designate Smoltz' bandwagon, I stayed on the 'give him another chance' one. I think I've finally jumped off. Last night... it was one of those nail-in-the-coffin type moments for me. He can't seem to hold a lead. Ever. I don't know what it is. I do feel absolutely terrible for him because I wanted him to succeed, and I was thrilled when Theo got him. But, this only futhers my theory that I should never be a GM or a manager (not like that would ever happen) because I make decisions about the sport I love with my heart and not my head. In the same line of thinking, since Theo made the move I wanted him to make, maybe he shouldn't be a GM either.

Really, Theo? Paul Byrd AGAIN?! You have so much talent in the minor leagues (PS - where Clay Buchholz should be) and you sign Byrd? Ugh. No, you don't get it, do you? Guys like Byrd and Penny... they're not what we need. I'm not saying we need a Roy Halladay, although that would have been ultimately nice, but we don't need the five innings, 6 ER, 5 BB per outing kind of guys.

Don't mind me. I'm a little frustrated. We don't have Fetus, but we do have Gargoyle and Penny and Smoltz couldn't buy themselves wins right now. No one is scoring runs for Jon Lester, we're 3.5 games back in the division, and goddamn Longoria! You know what I mean. You all know what I mean.

Listen, we've got the Commander on the mound tonight. If he can't get us a win, I don't think I can stomach the rest of the series. He better bring his F-game with him (none of that A-game crap. I actually want to win).

Hot Stove Season is Killing Me

I can't be the only one who is jonesin' for some kind of trade or free agent signing. No giant acquisition at Thanksgiving again this year... sigh. The Red Sox FO and their tight-lipped process sort of bugs me, not because I think it's a bad practice, but because I seriously cannot be expected to quit baseball cold turkey for four months. I need something to get me through... something like a 12 step program. You don't take away an addict's drugs at the pinnacle of their addiction and say "You'll get these back in four months. See ya!"... there has to be a middle ground. There has to be some sort of process to slowly ween us off baseball. Going from exciting playoff games to nothing? Harsh.

Junichi Tazawa is nice and all, but he's not the fix I need.

They've also signed Billy Traber to a minor league contract. And they don't want Rafael Furcal. Wonderful. Could we get some real news in here, please?

So, in non-player-related news... the Red Sox will be selling bricks. If you buy a ridiculously overpriced brick, you are guaranteed an opportunity to buy tickets for '09. But of course, you have to enter a lottery to be eligible to buy a brick. What is this world coming to when you can't even buy a brick without a stupid lottery? Bad Larry Lucchino!

Sox ticket prices will remain the same this year, but it will still be just as ridiculous trying to get tickets. Luckily for me, I didn't have a hard time getting tickets last year, although my friends probably wondered what happened to me when I was stuck in assorted virtual waiting rooms and listening to assorted phone-robot voices for months on end. Listen, I got tickets, that's all that really matters in the end.

My beloved Captain and Gargoyl have been offered arbitration. Deadline is, I believe, December 7th. Some sources would have you believe that Varitek is expected to take it, but the realistic people out there should know that Scott Bora$ isn't really going to let his darling client accept anything less than 18 years, 500 billion dollars....

Hyberbole happens when I'm bored. I need me some baseball, but soon.

Josh Beckett: Your fly is down.

Beckett brought his A-game on Friday, and that's perfectly cool. I'm just wondering why no one is making a big deal of the fact that he was pitching with his fly down? Seriously, no one thought to tell him? Or perhaps he noticed when he got to the mound, but he thought to himself, "Fuck that. I aint lettin' no little zipper control ME. Bitch stays down." And then he proceeded to kick some ass. That's the most likely scenario I can come up with. Of course, he followed up his 5 innings by setting fire to his pants for disobedience. That's just the kind of fiery, crazy guy Josh Beckett is in my mind. The other option is he was doing it to psych out the Rangers... they come up to bat, and see Beckett. Fear enters their mind. Then they notice that his fly is down, and silently start to giggle to themselves. In that short time span, as they were giggling, Beckett has managed to embarrass them (preferrably on three pitches). Yes, that is also an acceptable scenario.

(photo from bostondirtdogs.com)


Wakefield was... not good. Not even close to good. Saturday was the biggest suckfest I've seen out of the Red Sox for a while. It's like Munchkin was trying to prove a point by not getting a hit. "Not MVP, huh? I'll show you fuckers how badly you lose when I aint hitting. Just you wait." And we waited. We waited for our pitchers to stop bleeding runs, and we waited for our hitters to put together a solid 10-run rally. But Pedroia stood firm, and hit not, and the team lost in an embarrassing fashion.


Luckily for us, the almighty short one decided that everyone had seen the error of their ways and went back to putting on an offensive show. Actually, Sunday was more like an offensive movie trailer, starring little Pedey himself. Just a brief glimpse of what he is capable of. Sure enough, we (and Byrd) kicked ass instead of getting our asses kicked.


A giant, happy welcome back to Mikey and Frankie! Honestly, it's not as if I minded their replacement players because they did really well during the injuries, but I love having these guys healthy again... I love watching Mikey do everything he does, and watching Frankie run is a thing of confusing beauty... exactly how DOES he make all of his limbs flail so much while he's moving so slowly? Amazing. Amazing happiness abounds.


(Devil) Rays are coming to town, and if we could just keep up with the pattern of sweeping them at the Fens, we should be OK, and in first place when they crawl back out of Boston. Oh please let the boys keep up the pattern, if only for this week (please let them only keep it up for this week!)...


In news from other sports... Tom Brady-gone for the season. I know I don't know very much about football, but I know this hurts the Pats. I also kind of see it as football karma. He didn't practice at all this off season, and he comes back and gets hurt before halftime of the first game. The football gods are not happy with your choices Tom. Maybe next year you can appease them better. Good luck, Matt Cassel, you're going to need it.

It's Monday. I'm tired. Today can't possibly move fast enough.

Toronto: What A Beautiful Town

The votes are in. Toronto is favored over Montreal 1-0. I hated Montreal, but Toronto.... wow, what a nice little city. Except for the few Jays fans that booed me and my family members after the terrible Saturday game, I found people in Toronto to be just a little bit happier than the people I usually encounter in Boston. Ah, I love being a tourist and getting to see the best of everyone. I'm sure I'll have pictures uploaded within the next year or so.

Yes, Binky was terrible on Saturday. Dice wasn't nearly as bad, but he also wasn't his sharpest. Manny Delcarmen makes me cringe, guaranteed every time. Lowrider and Grumpy saved the Sunday game, CRW took a wall to the face and the Jays fans in attendance (not ALL of them... the ones sitting next to me were very quiet) booed him for being hurt. I was a little surprised about that. I was also surprised when Gaston took BJ Ryan out of the game after one inning and something like 2 and a half pitches. We swung at everything he threw. It was a very quick inning. But then they brought in this League kid who served up Lowrider's mini-bomb. Good ending. Me, and all the Sox fans around me, left the Rogers Centre happy. By the way, that is one cool ballpark. It rained for a while on Sunday, but halfway through the game, they opened the dome back up. I wish we had one of those...

Wakey was not as shaky as I expected him to be coming off the DL. Glassman is on the DL, Aardvark's on the DL, POS MIGHT not play for the rest of the season, we MIGHT be getting Mark Kotsay, the Commander MIGHT have pissed me off by suddenly being ok but not being ok enough to pitch the damn game I went to, the Pawsox are in the playoffs, Yaz is out of the hospital and is doing good, We're only 3.5 games behind the (Devil) Rays, and 2.5 ahead of the Twins, and Steroid Monkey is still an ugly cheater. Oh, and Elephant-Man Pettite got the loss. Yay. Good few days of baseball over all.

Speaking of baseball (aren't I always?)... the baseball HOF in Cooperstown is pretty damn cool. I took a picture with Ted Williams, saw the no-hitter baseballs, went through the 2007 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox display, walked the hall of plaques, and snapped a picture of Barry Bonds' record home run ball, proudly marked and displayed with the giant asterisk it deserves!

Gargoyle is going tonight against Sidney Ponson. Hope for good results. The stupid Rays are surely not going to keep losing, so we need to keep winning. Oh, and apparently this is like the last Red Sox/Yankees series in this incarnation of Yankee stadium, but since it's not even the original stadium, and they're just moving right across the street, I honestly don't see why everyone is making a big deal out of it. Burn the place down already!

Charlie Zink: Starring In A Debut to Remember

Ok, Zink wasn't really good last night. I'll chalk that up to him being a knuckleballer, and the knuckleball dancing in magical and mysterious ways that no one really understands. I don't think a demotion was warranted... especially since it means Paul Byrd is being added to the roster.

As if I needed any more reasons to wish Theo Epstein would spontaneously combust. Really? Paul Byrd? Are you f*&^ing kidding me? He's an HGH junkie! Theo, you idiot! Why do we need this guy on our team? You really think he's going to be any better than Dahmer? I shudder to think about the direction this team is going, since Theo doesn't seem to mind picking up drug abusers. Nice job, you useless moron. Why don't you just sign Barry Bonds to replace Mike Lowell. That seems just as logical to me*.

*Disclaimer... I don't think anything Theo does is logical. Sometimes, my distaste for Theo makes me say stupid things.

Again. We need bullpen help, and Theo gets us a drug-addict starter who I affectionately refer to as Gargoyle. Ugh..

If ever there was proof that we needed bullpen help (and maybe that Delcarmen needs to find an apartment in Pawtucket), there was last night's game. Charlie Zink allowed 8 runs, and the bullpen allowed 9 more. 9 runs from our bullpen. Charlie has an excuse... this was his first-ever major league start, and he was facing one of the best offenses in baseball. The rest of the bullpen didn't have an excuse. Thank God 2007 Okajima came to visit yesterday.

On a night where we allow 17 runs, one would assume that we lost the game. But no, thanks to some spectacular offense on our side, we ended up winning. Then again, one would assume if we scored ten runs in the first inning like we did last night, the game would have been a piece of cake. Also not true (see: Bullpen bitching, above). We ended up with 17 hits, 19 runs, 10 BB's, and 6 K's. Munchkin went 5-6. Ortiz hit 2 three-run HR's (in the first!) and a double. Asshat went 2-5, with both of his hits being HR's. It was an offensive explosion. Hopefully they saved some runs for Binky tonight. All in all, it could have gone worse for Zink, but I do think he showed enough promise to maybe get another chance some time this year.

Injury report: Mikey Lowell strained an oblique (an injury that screams Trot Nixon to me)... he's going for an MRI today, and chances are good that he's going to be placed on the DL. Sigh. Get well soon, Mikey!

In other news: Manny was tardy for his game yesterday, and he still hasn't cut his hair.
-The (Devil) Rays lost, so we gained a game on them. Hopefully, we can keep doing that whole gaining games thing....
-Julio Lugo is STILL NOT PLAYING! Thank God for small miracles!

Have a delightful Wednesday, everyone.