Monday, July 31

Trade Deadline Approaches

As expected the Yankees made a nice deal heading into the trade deadline. They managed to pick up Abreau and a pitcher from the Phillies for 4 minor league players? How do they do that? How did they get two quality players from the majors in exchange for 4 guys who have never played in the majors? How does that work? Ohh well. The deadline is at 4pm today so hopefully between know and then the Sox will make some kind of move. Another good starting pitcher wouldn't be bad and neither would some bullpen help. Ship Tavarez and Seanez away for the love of god.
In game action the team took two out of three from the A's in Oakland. I wish I could tell you more about these games but they were on past my bed time (yes I'm an old man). We did put up 13 runs in the Tuesday game. That's always nice.
Over the weekend the boys were back in Fenway. Friday night was a tough loss 8-3. Things were close until the 6th inning and then it got out of hand. The highlight of the game was definitely Papi scoring from 1st base on a Manny double. His slide into home plate was more like a complete collapse. It was funny stuff. He's a funny dude. Saturday was a great win. Sadly it was not on TV here in the DC area. They elected for the 4:05 nats and dodgers game on the west coast. Ick. We we're down 6-3 going into the 8th. With the help of Manny and Papi we tied it up and sent it to extra innings. Papi came up in the 11th with 2 on. The Angels had the Papi shift on with most of the team in right field. Papi sent a little shot into left field and the game was over. Well done.
Last night was not pretty. It was the first game I actually had a chance to sit down and watch in quite a while. If only it had been a better game to watch. Schilling was not himself and things got ugly. He gave up three HR's in the 3rd and was just plain getting shelled. We managed to have a little rally to bring the score to 6-4 but then the tag team of Van Buren and Tavarez gave them 4 more runs to make it 10-4. I gave up at that point. Bummer.
On a total side note I would like to say what a crime I think the price of gas is these days. How can they charge us the highest gas prices ever and make a 10 billion dollar profit in three months? How does that work? Exxon makes $1300 something dollars a second. That is profit! How can they justify gas at $3+ a gallon when they are making that kind of money. Ohh wait, I know. Since GW is sucking all their dicks it is A-ok. Fucking cock sucker.
That is all. Hopefully we'll make a nice pick up today. The next three days are suppoused to be like living on the surface of the sun. what fun.

Sunday, July 23

Life is a roller coaster, and I'm gonna ride it all night long

I have to learn not to get some upset by a loss here and a loss there. There is a lot of baseball left in this here season and I have to understand that one loss, while sad, will not be the end of us.
After a crappy series with the A's we were blessed with a visit by the Royals. For a while it looked like we were going to have a hard time with them. When it looked like we were about to lose the first game of the series good old Tek walked up and hit a grand slam that sealed the deal on that game. Way to go Tek. The next two games ended up being real thrillers that we one 1-0 and 1-0. Thank god our pitchers showed up that day since our offense seemed to miss the bus. Beckett was one of those who did a fine job. He and paperboy combined for a one hitter on Tuesday.
After our nice sweep of the Royals we had a one game make up series with the Rangers. Schilling got the W in a nice victory.
After that it was off to the west coast. If any of you were reading this blog last year, which I kinda doubt, you will remember that I really don't like it when the Sox go out west. It makes it really fricking hard to watch the games when they don't start until 10 local time. I'm an old man who works pretty hard and I just can't stay up that late. The west coast is a bummer. There is also the fact that when they go out there they tend to play a couple of series out there. Bummer.
Anyway. At the moment we are hanging out in Seattle. I really would like to live there. I think that and Boston are highest on the list of places I would like to live one day. Our three game set with the M's featured our dream pitching line up: Synder, some guy from Pawtucket, and Lester. Oyy. Lester really doesn't deserve my grief though, he has been playing well.
Synder got the win night one, night two did not go so hot, and night three was really interesting. I missed all of game 1 and 2 but did get to see parts of game three. The game was tied in the bottom of the 8th when the M's managed to take the lead on a in the park HR, yes, an inside the park HR. Bummer. Coco miss played the ball, Manny had a tough time handling it, and next thing you know the M's were up 8-7. Tek came up in the top of the ninth and cranked a very big HR to tie the game. Sadly Timlin could not hold on and the M's got a homer in the bottom of the ninth for the win. Thankfully the Yankees have been having a hard time in Toronto so we're still holding a 2.5 game lead on them. The Jay's are lurking not to far behind.
Next up is another series on the silly west coast. More games late at night, this time with the A's.

Sunday, July 16

Don't Look Now...

But after we drop the game with A's today we will be tied with the Yankees for first. Damn that was fast.
Our poor performance against the A's over the last 4 days hasn't helped our cuase. The first game was lost in extra innings. Loretta made a big error in the 7th which let the A's tie the game. Mr Tavarez gave up 2 runs in the 11th and we couldn't make up the difference. Not the best way to start things off after the break.
Friday night it got much worse. We lost 15-3. The score pretty much says it all. Plain and simple-UGLY. Beckett gave up 7 runs before he got booted and the bullpen did the rest of the work.
IN the funny sport that baseball is we came back on Saturday night and won 7-0. How can a team score 15 one night and turn around the next and score none? That's wacky.
Today we are losing 8-1 in the bottom of the ninth. It will take a really big inning by Papi to save this one.
We've got to do something about the 4 and 5 pitching slots. Lester looked OK on Friday but he throws a lot of pitches and can't seem to make it late in the game. Our big pick up from the Royals, Synder, is looking like he is going to get the loss today. No good.
Meanwhile the Yankees swept the White Sox and pretty much beat the crap out of them all weekend.
Thank god the Royals are coming to town tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 11

At the Break and a damn fine DMB show

Well the Sox have hit the All Star break with a nice record of 53-33 and 3 games up on the Yanks. We have definitely had our moments in the first half of the season but we played pretty damn well for the last 2 months. I like the 20 games over .500 part but I sure wish that number between us and the Yankees was higher. Ohh well. I think we have to keep doing what we are doing for the rest of the season. We need to shore up the starting lineup and get more consistency there. We need a solid #4 and #5 pitcher. Hopefully Clement will come back and play well but I've lost hope in Wells for the year. The bullpen could use some help in the middle. For god's sake, send Seanez down the single A, he sucks. We have to keep up the great D and keep scoring those runs. I think we'll win the AL East as long as we don't choke.
We managed to avoid the sweep against the D-Rays by scoring a pile of runs in the top of the ninth including a Papi grand slam. Then we went to Chicago and won two out of three. It looked like we were going to get the sweep in game 3 but it turned into a 19 inning loss with a few blown chances. Guess who got the loss? You guesssseeed it...Seanez. Oyyy.
Papi couldn't make it out of the second round in the HR derby. Tonight is the All Star game. I hope we win but other then that I am not that interested.
On a unrelated front last week was my journey to fenway to see Dave Matthews. It was an awful shame I couldn't see a baseball game but the concert was AMAZING! I've seen quite a few shows over the last 12 years but this was one of the best. It made it even better that I was standing in center field watching it all. Here's a few photo's:


Looking towards home from CF


DMB on the scoreboard


Damn do I not take good pictures. Me near the Monster.


Dave


Dave and the Boys rock out


Did I mention that jamming out in CF of Fenway and enjoying some damn good music was pretty amazing?


Me right near third base. Mr Lowell has made a few damn good plays right where I was standing. Nice.

Thursday, July 6

Up and Down..Up and Down

Well the Sox finished off their tour through the NL is a very nice fashion. We swept the Mets at Fenway including Pedro getting rocked. He is a wacky dude that Pedro. For some reason I don't feel nearly the resentment towards him that I do towards Damon. He actually got rocked in the game and went out in something like the third inning. That's not so cool. It would have been nice to see him pitch a good game but still lose.
We finished off inter-leauge action by takine 2 out of 3 from the Marlins. For some reason I couldn't get any of these games on Extra Innings not to mention it was a crazy birthday weekend so I'm not really sure what happened. I'm an old man at 30 now.
So we are now back into AL action and have managed to drop 3 in a row to the D-Rays to get it going. Baseball is such a wacky sport in that way. We were unbeatable for two weeks and now we can't be the D-Rays. Look at how the yankees lost by 18 one night then won by 12 or something the next. It's just wacky that way.
Hopefully we can pull the game out tonight so we don't get swept. Then it's off to Chicago for a tough weekend series before the break.
I'm headed to Fenway this weekend to see DMB. Should be fun.