Category: baseball

WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE, and it always feels this horrible. Amalie Benjamin (the shining jewel of the Boston Globe sports section, by the way) assesses the situation:

They have been in this spot before. A tight spot, and an unforgiving one. The Red Sox have been down and have made it out, as recently as last year’s American League Championship Series, when they yielded three of the first four games to the Indians, and in the 2004 ALCS, when they lost the first three games to the Yankees. At those points, it did not seem as if the Sox were on the brink of a comeback.

Nor does it seem that way today.

In other words, every time this happens, it feels completely and utterly hopeless.

So that should be comforting, right? Right?

TITO GETS HIGH PRAISE from the media, if not from the fans. First, there’s this column on ESPN.com, and then there’s this defense by Bill Simmons in his mailbag:

Q: How many more times are we going to be subjected to Tito Francona’s bonehead decisions? He is great at managing players’ egos and building relationships with them, but please get him a coach to do the X’s and O’s before he kills us. We can’t keep overcoming his major screwups, can we? I’ve said it since 2004 and it is still true … just amazing we keep winning despite him. I set the over/under of his ALCS miscues at four!
– Randy, Derry, N.H.

SG: You can read more of Randy’s work at his “Mr. Ungrateful” blog. Here’s my take on Tito: He has never been outmanaged in a playoff series; his players love him and play hard for him; he handles the media as deftly as anyone this side of Doc Rivers; and by all accounts, he’s a genuinely good person. You’re never going to find a perfect manager or coach. That person just doesn’t exist. So if you had your druthers (love that word), you’d want your manager’s biggest weakness to be, “makes some occasionally boneheaded decisions that rarely come back to haunt the team because of the horseshoe that was surgically inserted into his rear end during the ’04 playoffs.” He’s certainly the best Red Sox manager of my lifetime. And beyond that, nobody spits sunflower seeds with more grace and precision.

Meanwhile, Tony Massarotti profiles Terry Francona and offers this fun little tidbit to illustrate why he may have the toughest job in baseball:

How in god’s name can you justify that??? You are being paid millions of dollars and even my 9 year old son can do a better job than [a] sleep on the wheel manager like you.

– E-mail sent to Francona from Chembur, Mumbai (India)

IS EVERYONE’S FAVORITE DREADLOCKED GOOFBALL actually a bonafide genius? Joe Posnanski of SI.com makes the case:

The following column is dedicated to the admittedly bizarre proposition that one Manuel Aristides (Onelcida) Ramirez, sometimes known as Man-Ram or Manny Being Manny or just plain Manny, is a genius. Now, it’s not an easy case to make that a man who tries to run to third on a ground rule double, who sometimes disappeared into the Green Monster during pitching changes, who gets pulled over by police for having overly tinted car windows is a genius.

And he’s got some people who might back the theory:

Bill James, a baseball writer (and Boston Red Sox advisor) who has spent much of his life knocking down baseball myths, believes that Manny Ramirez is such a good hitter, he will purposely get into full-counts when there is a runner on first base. The reason? With a full-count, that runner will be running on the pitch and, as such, will become an RBI when Ramirez hits a double into the gap.

“I’ve seen it too many times to doubt it,” Bill says.

Allard Baird, a longtime baseball scout and executive (and Boston Red Sox advisor) believes Manny Ramirez is such a good hitter, he will sometimes swing and miss at a pitch in April so that the pitcher will throw him that same pitch in September. The idea being: He won’t miss that pitch in September.

“When it comes to hitting, the guy’s mind works on a whole other level,” Allard says.

REALLY GREAT COLLECTION OF BASEBALL PARK PICTURES from some famous graffiti artist guy I’ve never heard of.

DUSTIN PEDROIA IS A MONSTER and no one can stop him. Batting cleanup tonight (protecting Big Papi!), he went 4-for-4 with an intentional walk, scored three times, stole two bases (one with a slick headfirst slide into second) and made a bunch of crazy plays, including a giant leaping grab on a liner.

“A lot of people talk about Manny leaving,” Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen said before the game. “I wish Pedroia was leaving.”

The gamer at YFSF said it all:

Yes, a four-foot thireen-inch second baseman who weighs about a buck-thirty-five soaking wet is bringing his laser show to the four-slot for Beantown.

UPDATE: Pedroia left a few stranded in yesterday’s game, but the romance with Guillen continued:

When Pedroia, who leads the AL in hitting at .326, made his first out of the series with a tapper back to the mound in the third inning, Guillen asked for the ball and held it out for Pedroia motioning like he wanted the All-Star second baseman’s autograph. He then gestured to Pedroia again as Pedroia took the field before putting the ball in his back pocket. Eventually, Guillen flipped the ball to a kid in the stands.

Much more on the budding love affair between Ozzie and Pedey.

A WEIRDLY HOMOEROTIC POETRY MASH-UP in which every instance of the word “love” is replaced with “Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Player Carlton Fisk” in this poem:

“And know you not,” says Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.

(Via kottke)

IN THE AFTERMATH of the Yankees’ loss in “The First Game of the Final Series Between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium Ever!!!!”, the Boston Globe rounds up the reaction in the New York media. With A-Rod going 0-5 with two strikeouts and two double play balls, including one with the bases loaded, there’s this zinger from the New York Post:

We will remember Rodriguez dallied with Boston, didn’t go there, came to the Yankees instead in 2004, and in his time here the nature of the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry has reversed to Red Sox champs, Yankees chumps. Rodriguez is the face of that historic flip-flop. He has bought into that role twice now, first when he forced his trade here, then last offseason when he accepted the largest financial package ever to return through the backdoor. He is all outsized. His greed. His lust for attention. His insecurities.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MANNY RAMIREZ, as chronicled in the Boston Globe’s blog, includes a bet between Joe Torre and Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers on whether Manny will cut his hair:

As you know, Joe Torre asked Manny Ramirez to cut his hair, but I have this hunch it will never happen.

Torre disagrees, so now one of us will be making a charitable donation.

If Ramirez returns to Dodger Stadium a week from today to open the team’s next home stand with all his hair, Torre said he would make a donation to Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.

As part of the deal, Torre agrees he will say nothing more to Ramirez about his hair, believing Ramirez heard him the first time they talked.

If Ramirez shows up to Dodger Stadium without the dreads, Page 2 will make a donation to the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation.

As part of the deal, of course, I will say nothing more to Ramirez about his hair.

But just between you and me, who is Torre kidding?

You think he’s going to bench Ramirez because the guy doesn’t get his hair cut?

You think if he fines him it will make a difference, Ramirez knowing he’s not getting paid by the Dodgers, so there’s no money to take out of his pay?

You think the Red Sox are going to take it out of his pay, and do a favor for the former Yankees manager?

IT AIN’T OVER UNTIL IT’S OVER, and then sometimes it’s not over even after that. The last two games against the Toronto Blue Jays each had do-overs. The first one featured a walkoff win, complete with dress rehearsal:

Few things are more embarrassing than premature exhilaration. That’s what the Red Sox were guilty of last night at the Fens when they came storming out of their dugout to celebrate another apparent walkoff win, only to have plate umpire Sam Holbrook stop them short when he signaled that Jed Lowrie was out at home, the left leg of Toronto catcher Rod Barajas blocking Lowrie from his destination in the bottom of the ninth.

Instead of being in the vortex of a swirling bunch of delirious teammates, Lowrie was staring at a monitor in the runway behind the Sox dugout, watching a replay of the throw from Blue Jays center fielder Vernon Wells that deprived Brandon Moss of a game-winning hit.

“I got done with my clip, and on live TV [Jason] Varitek was hitting the ball,” the Sox rookie said.

The following night was less dramatic, but just as silly:

No ninth-inning thunder last night. . . . But there were fireworks – after an apparent game-ending fly ball by Coco Crisp was nullified by second base umpire Bruce Dreckman, who called a balk on closer B.J. Ryan before he threw the pitch. The umpire ruled that Ryan had not come to a stop before throwing plateward.

“We saw it,” Sox manager Terry Francona said of Dreckman’s call. “He threw his arms up and we knew it was going to take a second.”

With the crowd already headed for the exits and the Jays lining up for postgame high-fives, Jays manager John Gibbons, who had already begun strolling onto the field to slap some hands, flew into a rage when informed of Dreckman’s call. He confronted the umpire, and was ejected.

“Their whole team was on the field,” Sox catcher Kevin Cash said. “It was kind of like us [Wednesday] night, when we all ran out and Jed [Lowrie] was thrown out at the plate.”

AND, OH YEAH, can we have more of these, please?:

The start of the game was delayed 15 minutes by rain but it lasted just two hours, 18 minutes, Boston’s shortest game of the year.

“Great pitching on both sides is what it came down to,” Toronto manager John Gibbons said.