Growing Up With Wakefield posted by Tony Rossi

Ever since I was little, I remember going to Fenway Park and seeing Wakefield pitch.  About five or six years ago, I remember complaining to my friends in high school about how as much as we loved the guy, it felt like he was the pitcher we always saw on the mound.  I haven’t made it to Fenway yet this year, but when I do I personally can’t wait to see him pitch. 

I remember being in elementary schooll watching him warm up in the bullpen.  He was always my favorite to watch warm up because it was so cool to see his knuckleball move.  Sure it’s neat to see it on TV, but it’s awesome standing in the bleachers by the fence and seeing the knuckleball drop the way it does. 

Tonight Wakefield will be starting for the 383rd time in a Red Sox uniform, setting an all time Red Sox record.  He’ll be passing none other than the Rocket himself, Roger Clemens.   Although I never got to see Clemens pitch (except in a Yanks uniform), I know I’m not the only one who’s happy to see such a nice guy setting this record for the Sox.  Years from now, when Wake returns to Fenway Park after being retired for however many years, we’ll be giving him loud standing ovations.  He’s a great team player and a friendly person who is more than modest.  And I couldn’t ask for anything more than to see him pitching in the All Star Game next week.  Best of luck, Timmy, and congratulations.

Keep the Faith. 

There Will Be No Homoerotic Riverdance for Papelbon This Fall posted by Colin Linneweber

The New York Yankees defeated the Seattle Mariners 8-5 Tuesday night in the Bronx to move 12 games over .500 for the first time this season.

Yankees hurler Joba Chamberlain (4-2, 3.89 ERA) yielded three runs on nine hits over 5-1/3 innings to help the Yankees notch their sixth straight victory in the no-decision.

Bombers Manager Joe Girardi said he is pleased with Chamberlain’s efforts to date and he insinuated that he is not worried his precocious ace will cower under pressure and begin to smoke meth with his estranged mother, Jacqueline Standley.

"The bottom line is we're 10-5 in his starts," said Girardi, one of the most unlikable leaders the field of athletics has seen since John Goodman’s character in Revenge of the Nerds.

"Pretty much every game he goes out, he keeps us in. The expectations are so high, I think people expect him to be 15-0 at this point, and that's not really fair."

Chamberlain, 23, is a very solid starter and when Chien-Ming Wang’s bummed hoof is entirely healed the Yankees will feature an extremely formidable staff.

Wang (1-6, 10.06 ERA) finally earned his first win since last June this past Sunday when he stifled the New York Mets bats in a 4-2 victory.

Bombers catcher Jorge Posada, who is known to drain the urine from his ball sack onto his hands to harden them, believes Wang is destined to regain the form that made him one of Major League Baseball’s most accomplished recent pitchers.

“It seems like every time he goes out there, he has more confidence,” Posada, 37, observed. “If we get this guy straight, we’re going to have a fun summer.”
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A College Student’s Perspective of Tuesday’s 11-10 Loss posted by Tony Rossi

I’ll tell you right now that it’s not better than viewing it as any other person. 

I’ll also tell you that even though it’s the summer, we still maintain some of the college atmosphere here in Salem.  A lot of us Salem Staters have off campus apartments so we get to see each other even when school is not in session. 

Personally I was looking forward to watching an entire game on Tuesday night, which is hard to do between multiple jobs and summer classes.  However, I got a text last night before the game started saying that there were going to be some cool people meeting up at Salem Beer Works that night.  I figured I’d go after the game.  So I sat in my room watching the Sox dominate the Os for the first 4 innings.  Thanks to some great offense and a much better start for Smoltz, things seemed to be going our way. 

Then the rain came.

With both the big lead and the rain, I figured I’d head down to meet my friends.  There are multiple TVs at Beer Works so I knew I’d be able to see the game if it resumed.  Maybe it would have been better if there weren’t any.  While I was enjoying the company of my friends, I couldn’t help but notice every time I turned around to look at the TV, our lead was getting slimmer and slimmer.  Everyone kept saying “Don’t worry.  We’re still up by 5.”  That soon turned into, “Don’t worry.  We’re still up by 3” and so on and so forth.  I think it was around the 8th inning when I just turned around entirely so I could watch the game.  I wasn’t happy with the results. 

All star goes down, Pedroia and Youkss fight for the starting spot posted by Christopher White

On Tuesday it was announced that all star third basemen, Mike Lowell would be placed on the Disabled List. With this being they have sent Jeff Bailey to Baltimore to finish out the rest of the series at 3rd. Mike Lowell is batting .282 with 75 hits this year and always makes great plays at the hot corner. The third baseman was treated for his right hip strain and a large amount of CeeCee's of fluid were taking out of his aling hip.

Along with this the All star hopefuls Pedroia and Youks are fighting for the starting spot at this year's all star game. the linkg below will reroute you to the voting page

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2009/ballot_reg.html

Stay Classy,

C.White

BoSox Bullpen Blows a 9 Run Lead!! posted by Hank Hill

Boston Red Sox Bullpen Blows a 9 Run Lead!!
So last night the 42 year old John Smoltz would get his second start of the year!!  In the last game he pitched he gave up 3 runs in the first inning, but then he was lights out. So I believe it was because it was his the first start and 1st inning jitters, so I didn't know what to expect. Well he was on point again and looked great. He only gave up 3 hits, 1 earned run and had 2 strikeout-- awesome! But the story is far from over. Meanwhile the Red Sox bats looked like they where going to explode, scoring 9 runs giving Smoltz a 9-1 lead, but that's when the rain came and this was big trouble for Smoltz and the Sox.(rain always seems to be trouble for the Sox).
After the rain came and went, a delay for about a hour and 20 minutes had gone by, Smoltz couldn't come back out, leaving a 9-1 lead up to the bullpen. At this point all of Red Sox Nation, including me, were thinking it's over, we got this in the bag and when it came to the 7th and the Sox now had a 10-1 lead I thought it's definitely over, but I was way off!! The Orioles would put our bullpen to work-- Masterson then Delcarmen and Okajima would allow 7 hits and 5 runs in the 7th making it a 10-6 game heading into the 8th!!  Okajimia would start the 8th gave up a quick 2 runs with runners on, so the Sox would bring in Saito who gave up another run making it 10-9 with men on 1st and 2nd and 1 out,  BIG trouble!!!    So of course the Sox would bring in Papelbon who is looking for the save which would set a new franchise record by moving past B. Stanley for No. 1 in saves, but after getting a strikeout and the 2nd out of the inning he would give up a double which rolled all the way to the wall allowing both runners to score giving Baltimore a 11-10 lead and the win.  This was a hard one to watch and definitely write about, well we got Beckett going today at 1:35 for a day game, so let's get a win!! Sox Nation here.
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Lester Amazing Again posted by HankHillRedsox

  J. Lester and the Sox traveled to Baltimore last night to play the Orioles in what would be the Lester show. He has been amazing in his last 6 starts he hasn't giving up no more than 3 runs and has 4 wins and 48 strikeouts, Awesome!

Last night would be no different, Lester pitched 7 scoreless innings with 8 k's and allowing only 5 hits, so was deffinitly in the works for another win just as long as his offense stepped up for him. The Sox only had scored 1 run in their previous 2 games. Not tonight, JD Drew who was moved and now hitting in the #1 spot went 3-5 leading the game off with a triple and later hitting a homer and was just a double shy of the cycle(maybe we should leave him at lead off)!! After the lead off triple, Pedroia would knock him in on a base hit and the Sox would lead 1-0 before Lester even started the bottom of the 1st.  That would be all the support he would need. Even though the Sox would add 3 more runs in the 4th with everyone in the lineup helping like Variteck who went 2-4 with a run and RBI and Ellsbury who was 1-3 with a run and 2 stolen bases-- Sweet.  The offense seems to be comming back around. 

So the Sox left the 4th up 4-0 and that would be the final and Lester's 7th win, with some help from the bullpen and Paplebon. This was Pap's 19th save of the year and his 132 save for the Sox which tied him for first with Bob Stanley for the franchise record!!!! One more Paps!!!! So the Sox move up another half game on the Yankees who had the night off and are now leading the AL east by 3 1/2 games with a 47-29 record, nice!!  So tonight the Sox go against Baltimore again with Smoltz versus Hill, so we should have another good game on our hands at 7:05, GO SOX!!!  Sox Nation!!

Lowell Goes on the DL – Dice-K Might Be There ‘til September posted by Tony Rossi

Last I updated, I mentioned Lowrie had to exit a rehab game early.  Fortunately for Lowrie, this wasn’t a setback.  However, yesterday word came out that Dice-K was going to be on the DL for longer than 15 days.  While we may have already known that, I don’t think any of us were expecting him to be on there for as long September 1st. 

According to Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, the Sox are looking as far as that for the Japanese pitcher to return.  Cafardo also mentioned that a source said Dice-K insisted that he did not need to the same strengthening program that the Red Sox pitchers were required to perform in the offseason.  There doesn’t seem to be much evidence of whether or not this is true, but I hope it’s not.  After all, RSN seems to be upset enough about Dice-K right now.  That sure won’t help plead his case.  Here’s the article written by Cafarado.  It’s mainly about Alex Cora (and also an interview with Julian Tavarez) but gives tidbits of information after.  One of these tidbits is where I got the info on Dice-K:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/articles/2009/06/28/a_p

The only other thing I wanna say on the Diceman is that this isn’t the end of the world.  We have Smoltz who will be making his second appearance in a Sox uniform tonight, while Clay Buchholz is probably praying for someone else to go on the DL so he can make it back up to Boston.  I’m not worried, but it’s not good news either. 

NESN.com Reports Jed Lowrie Exits Rehab Game With Soreness posted by Tony Rossi

I was just looking up news trying to find out if anyone knew how Lowrie was doing and this is what I found out.  Apparently Lowrie had to leave in the fifth inning due to soreness in his knee.   This scared me a bit until I remembered that Lowrie is on the DL for a wrist injury – not a knee injury.  What happened was on Tuesday Lowrie was hit by a pitch in the knee.  It seems as if the eager shortstop might have been pushing a little too hard on the knee, which forced him to leave the game early.  Poor guy.  Hope he gets better soon.  I’m sure he was more than frustrated after leaving the game, but at least the soreness has nothing to do with his wrist. 

In the same article I learned that Jonathan Van Every will be out for the remainder of the Paw Sox season after injuring his left knee as well (that’s ironic).  As much as I feel bad for Lowrie, I feel more bad for Van Every right now.  This guy is 29 years old and still has yet to play more than seven games in the big leagues.  Any injury that keeps you off the field for a year is frustrating, but when you’re fighting to make it to the big leagues and you have to stop because of an injury – well that’s more frustrating.  I’m sure Lowrie feels his frustration, however, seeing as Lowrie has yet to play a full season in the big leagues himself.  It just sucks that Van Every has to be even more patient than he’s already been. 

Here’s the article, written by John Beattie from nesn.com.  Apparently Beattie is a college grad who used to do reporting for the New York Jets.  Good stuff, Beattie!

Take a Look at the Standings posted by Tony Rossi

I already knew that the Red Sox were in first, and that the Yanks were in second.  I also knew that whenever I looked at the standings, Toronto was not far behind New York.  What I didn’t know was that Tampa Bay is currently only a game behind Toronto. 

Everyone once in a while I hear a player say on TV that their division is the toughest in baseball.  I never really know who to believe because it seems to change every year.  Right now in 2009, I’m picking AL East as the toughest division in baseball.  Take a look:

AL East                  W           L              Games behind

Boston               45           26           --

New York           41           32           4.0

Toronto              41           34           5.0

Tampa Bay         40           35           6.0

Don’t Worry About Smoltz….Yet posted by Tony Rossi

Last night I saw a funny production of Neil Simon’s play “Rumors” at Salem State College.  When I got out, I was hoping to catch the end of the game.  As it turned out, the game was over, and it was no laughing matter.  Smoltz had given up four runs alone in the first inning.  The Red Sox bullpen was very shaky.  And Jordan Zimmermann from the Nationals absolutely dominated the Red Sox through seven innings of work. 

In those seven innings, Zimmermann gave up only 5 hits, a run, a walk, and 6 strikeouts.  This guy is only 23 years old.  I’m impressed and plan on following up on this guy, I hope he keeps doing this well (just not against the Sox). 

Meanwhile, Red Sox pitching was just the opposite.  After Smoltz was taken out of the game, Bard came in for an inning and gave up 2 hits, 2 runs, and a walk.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Bard should go back down to AAA for a month or two.  I want to see him back in Boston in September, but right now I don’t think he’s ready.  Following Bard was Saito, who also gave up 2 runs and 2 hits, one of which was a homer.  But before any of this happened, Smoltz had gone 5 innings while allowing 7 hits, 5 runs, a walk, and striking out 5.   

I’d be lying if I said I was content with how Smoltz did last night.  At the same time I’m not worried.  Not yet.  According to Ian Browne on mlb.com, Smoltz did not pitch well in 2002 as his first outing as a closer (0.2 IP, 6 H, 8 R), nor did he have a good outing his first time back in the rotation three years later.  Maybe the hype is too much for him on the mound.  I say we see how he does his next couple of starts before making a decision on whether or not we want to keep him in the rotation.  I’m not giving up on Smoltz yet.  And if we have to, there’s always Buchholz waiting in AAA.

Struggling Dice-K to skip turn in rotation

Struggling Boston Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka (DICE-kay MAH-tsoo-ZAH-ka) will skip his next turn in the rotation.Red Sox manager Terry Francona said Saturday that Matsuzaka will have a medical exam to see if there is anything physically wrong with him.Matsuzaka's next turn in the rotation would have been Thursday, but that's the day John Smoltz is scheduled to make his return from rehab.Matsuzaka is 1-5 with an 8. [read full article]

From FOXSports.com News for MLB

Red Sox reign ended by Chicago

Chicago White Sox take a 3-0 series lead to end Boston Red Sox's reign as world champions. [read full article]

From BBC Sport