Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

Much More Like It

I think all of us were in just the mood this morning for a good, old-fashioned, all-day-long country ass-whupping, to be delivered unceremoniously to the Orioles in the form of Josh Beckett. I wanted him to do to them what he did to the Indians in 2007 -- walk in, spit on the ground, declare this his ballpark, and quickly restore order.

Well, that's not how it happened.

One of the reasons I'm an Eck proponent is that, as a pitching junkie, I've learned something fascinating just about every time he's called the game. Today he pointed out in the third inning that Josh was facing a series of right-handed hitters after having faced a long string of lefties, and thus was having trouble locating his fastball on the outside corner to the right-handers.

I'm not sure if, technically speaking, the motion should be the same to put the ball on the inside corner to lefties and outside corner to righties. But I can see how, even if it was, your eye would play tricks on you with the batter in the opposite box.

It's little nuggets like that which have deepened my appreciation for this sport with every game I watch, and especially every pitcher I watch. I'll never have any idea what it feels like to do what they do, but it's been enough just to try to understand how they do it. And when it comes to raw physical gifts, even on a mediocre day, Josh Beckett is continually astonishing.

Today what had me marveling at his freakish coordination wasn't even a pitch - it was the collision with Felix Pie at first base in the 5th inning. I watched the slow-mo replay a couple of times, and first let me say it was the second time I've seen another professional ballplayer collide with Beckett and wind up being helped off the field (though this time wasn't nearly as bad - Pie came back).

But more interesting to me was the fact that in a situation in which almost every other human being on the planet would probably have fallen, too, Beckett caught the full brunt of his unbalanced weight awkwardly on one leg, and then recovered. Just like the last collision, almost exactly two years ago, while the other player lay lifeless on the field, Beckett never touched the ground.

Anyone who plays baseball at the major league level is gifted. But Beckett seems to be a rarity among rarities.

All that said, especially for him, he kinda sucked today. It was not, in fact, the whuppin' we were hungry for. Instead, this time it was Boston's turn to come back.

They were down 5-1 in the top of the 9th, on the brink of the unthinkable: a dropped series to the last-place Orioles. However, like Sam Perlozzo in the Mother's Day Miracle, Dave Trembley could be counted on to replaced a cruising starter at the beginning of the ninth inning. (Though as commenter Char points out, in this case the situation was different.)

The Red Sox pounced on the new pitcher, Jim Johnson. Pedroia walked on five pitches to lead things off. Then it was time for one of our right-handers to jump all over an outside fastball -- Kevin Youkilis smashed the pitch from Johnson over the right field wall. 5-3 O's.

Time to call for the closer, George Sherrill, who'd held the Sox down last night after the Baltimore comeback. Jason Bay, 0-for-13 in the series and 0-3 in the game, struck out for the fourth time in as many at-bats. I'm giving him a pass, right now, though - he's had the team on his back most of the year. He was quickly followed by Papi, who also struck out, buckled by a nasty breaking ball on the inside corner.

Even when you watch knowing what happens, it's hard to believe that it will -- two outs in the inning and they were about to score two more runs? But Ellsbury followed Papi by blooping a single to left center. And then Sherrill just fell apart. He walked Jeff Bailey and Jason Varitek, and then gave up a game-tying, bases-loaded single to Rocco Baldelli.

Josh was first to the rail as the tying run crossed the plate, pumping his fist and grinning in that slightly deranged way that makes him look like a chipmunk.

When Tito ran Julio Lugo for Jason Varitek, that's when I know I would have been declaring the game lost if I'd been watching live. O me of little faith, as it turned out.

But I still had to see it to believe it -- if you'd told me when I woke up this morning that by the 11th inning of this game, Beckett would have a ND as Julio was about to become the hero, I'd have told you not to eat any more mushrooms you found in the woods. And yet, that's exactly what happened.

Ellsbury also helped things along with a "chalk double" (another Eckersley-ism), and then he took third base on a flyout by Jeff Bailey, so all it took was a single from Lugo to bring him home for what would be the winning run.

But first, there was some other business to attend to -- in came Jonathan Papelbon for the second game in a row with a one-run lead (though this time, no one was on base).

No strikeouts. No dominance. Very little bombast, even, especially for him. Just an economical inning, two pop-ups and a flyout and a few pounds of his fist in his glove as he yelled to Kottaras. Otherwise unremarkable, except that it capped a great comeback, and officially took the team record for career saves out of the hands of Stanley Steamer forever. Julio Lugo even caught the final out.

"The Orioles can't even fail as spectacularly as the Red Sox," harrumphed my husband, his bravado returning. "That's how much they suck."

And all is now right with the world.

"And the most miserable loss of 2009 is complete." --Don Orsillo

Let me start by confessing I did not sit and watch this game with pious discipline. I was back and forth, puttering on the computer, especially after the rain delay, kind of half paying attention as the Sox appeared to be enjoying their usual hegemony over the Orioles.

In fact, so blase were the early innings of this game that a Twitterer I follow made a comment that "Wins against the Orioles should only count as half a win in the standings."

I puttered. I wandered. I got distracted watching back episodes of Top Chef I downloaded recently. I checked back in. 10-5.

Repeat process. 10-6.

When it was 10-7, I sat up and watched. The bases were loaded, Hideki Okajima was on the mound, and there were no outs. Takashi Saito relieved Okajima. 10-8. 10-9.

I felt like Vizzini in The Princess Bride: "Incon-THEEVABLE!" Not that the O's would come back, mind you, but that after leading by eight runs after six and a third innings, the Red Sox were now having to bring on Jonathan Papelbon to face down them down. A comeback had not yet crossed my mind.

Certainly it was not the plan to trot out Papelbon after using him last night, or even twice in this series. But at first, things looked promising as he blew away Felix Pie with 94 mph "with some hump on it," to quote Eckersley. I continued cursing about why Papelbon was out there in the first place.

And then Markakis, sitting fastball, found a juicy one. The sound off the bat said "hit." It fell in for two runs. Blown save. O's on top, 11-10.

God knows I love Jonathan Papelbon. I call him "The Precious", and I do it half-seriously, for Pete's sake. And I know what happened here is far from solely his fault. But this game brought the dark thoughts I'd been having about him earlier this season back to the forefront of my mind. Nights like this, I've begun to wonder just how many bullets he has left.

I was as tickled as the next red-blooded Red Sox fan when he tied Bob Stanley's team save record last night (and chuckled at the contrast between the two--Stanley, the grumpy middle-aged guy I watched tear apart beach balls with a rake at the ballpark as a child, and Papelbon the cocky young gunslinger). But it was a Jason Bay catch that really saved last night's game, and the ball before Bay's snare had made that same ominous sound off the bat.

Hitters are catching up to that fastball, either because it is mislocated, or because it lacks the kind of movement it once had, or because it is just slightly slower than it used to be, or some combination of the three. It's safe to say Papelbon has not been right this season, and there have been more disconcerting moments like this than I care to remember.

Young gunslingers don't last. They turn into something other than a one-trick pony, or they trade away.

Papelbon's been just so gorgeous, so gifted, with his best trick - that hopping, riding, absolutely electric fastball. And maybe I'm giving this one freakish game too much weight. But I find myself thinking more and more these days about how it can't go on forever.

Better late than never

It's been a strange time in the Boston area recently. Black clouds have literally been hanging over us for most of the last month, and tensions have run high as people were trapped indoors for weeks at a time.

And then, on Thursday, the sun came out.

That afternoon, a few posts popped up on my Google Reader in anticipation of John Smoltz's first appearance in a Red Sox uniform. The cabin fever built as a sunny workday played out. It might not have been very realistic to expect greatness from the aging Smoltz, who has pointed out that some of his other "first starts" as he transitioned between closing and starting have been equally sucky, but we were playing the Nationals. What could go wrong?

By the first inning of the game, Smoltz had been tattooed for four runs. Shortly after the Nationals sent the Sox packing to the tune of 9-3, crashing thunder erupted over the northern suburbs. I mean, epic, window-rattling, Biblical thunder.

It was as if the universe had dangled the sun and baseball excitement in front of us, and then yelled PSYCHE!

***

On Friday, the sun came back out, and Commander Kickass restored order against the same team he'd owned for 9 innings in his last start.

Speaking of which, I finally got around to uploading the rest of the photos I took at that game. A few highlights:

Full set here.

***
Today, Saturday, hot sun prevailed again, and like 90% of the rest of the state (judging by the traffic on Rte 128), I lit out for the coast for most of the afternoon. Consequently, I missed most of the frestivities in hot-'lanta, but did get to shave about five months off my life watching Jonathan Papelbon save a 1-0 game.

But, best not to look a gift horse in the mouth - he got the job done. It's hard to sweat the small stuff, anyway, on the first real weekend of summer, when you've also been seeing a lot of this:

A beautiful sign

After I wrote my post about Papi's improvement during the homestand, I ran across an article that reinforced the cautiousness I'd felt about declaring The Great Slump of Aught Nine officially over -- by Rich Levine for Comcast Sportsnet, which pointed out Papi's numbers remained pretty ugly on the road. Still another obstacle to clear for him to be completely out of the woods.

So it's not just the way he took that bat and slashed it with reassuring authority through the zone, obliterating a changeup from Craig Stammen into right center. Not just the fact that Papi, still looking like his old self, hit a towering multi-run homer and went Cadillacking around the bases for his seventh homer of the season, and sixth in the month of June.

It's that he did it on the road.

This homer was also notable regardless of the slump that's been giving everyone agita for the last two months (and really, watching him round the bases tonight, I even wondered for a moment if maybe we'd over-reacted. Then I went to look back at his monthly totals--and you can see it as you scroll down the page of dates, a desert of zeroes finally giving way to a few crooked numbers, how truly bad it has been). It also finally put Papi over 1000 RBI for his career, and he's now one homer shy of 300.

Another nice sign: Dustin Pedroia, who had been struggling in the leadoff spot, has gone 5 for 10 in this series so far, with three doubles. The idea of putting him in the leadoff spot was to "balance the lineup" according to Tito. "You have Pedey and J.D. getting on all over the place. At least that's the idea." That last part would seem the key phrase, and two games isn't enough to declare things turned around, but if he does, maybe it's just the way Pedroia is -- he takes a little while to figure things out, and then he rakes. 

Jacoby Ellsbury, meanwhile, is clearly not of this Earth. That's the only explanation.

These ladies? Awesome.

these ladies? awesome., originally uploaded by Boston Wolverine.

Jacoby Ellsbury?

Jason Bay?

NICK GREEN?!

Also awesome.

Playing the Nationals?

Wicked Fricken Awesome.

Does Big Papi have his groove back? (Updated)

"Little by little," said a guy with a thick accent behind me at Saturday's game as the aftermath of Papi's wall-ball double in the second inning died down. "Little by little, slowly but surely, he's gettin' theyah."

Yesterday, against wind and a steady drizzle, Papi hit a no-doubt shot to the opposite field to put the Red Sox on top 3-2, this time in the bottom of the first. This wasn't any half-assed homer. This was the real deal.

It started with the shot he hit June 10 against the Yankees, and then a steady simmer of doubles off the left-field wall, a sign of his power slowly returning. In at-bat after at-bat in the month of June, it's as if he's suddenly snapped into focus, standing back at the plate in that regal way he has when he knows he's gone yard, or motoring into second base with that trademark grin lighting up his face. So far this month, he's batting a cool .400, slugging .654, and his OPS is a 2007-like 1.054. 

Suddenly, he's there.

I think the wrist has had something to do with these troubles of his. I also think the fact that his father is ill goes a long way toward explaining the slump. In fact, the most notorious slumps among Sox hitters over the last five years have eventually been linked to something terrible and personal going on off the field--divorce, the illness of a child or parent. A few people in the blogosphere have jumped immediately to steroids with Ortiz, because the revelations over the last few years have left behind a general paranoia about power hitters, which I hope will be temporary.

Lest you doubt the impact a serious threat to his father's health (which is how the Boston Herald report makes it out, though it doesn't specify the illness) can have on Papi's season, he lays it out in the interview:

“It was devastating,” said Ortiz. “I lost my Mom (Angela) eight years ago and she was the love of my life; still is. They couldn’t do anything. She died in a car accident and that was it. That hurt. (When I learned about my father) I was in shock. I felt exactly the same way I felt when my Mom passed away - that cold feeling, where you don’t know what to do? I had exactly the same feeling. It hit me pretty bad.

“Sometimes there are things you see coming and you can kind of get ready for it. This wasn’t like that. But we’re dealing with the situation and things are getting better. But it’s a tough situation, because one day you’re feeling great and the next you’re not. When I see him struggle like that, it hurts me. I haven’t learned how to deal with it.”

His father’s condition weighed on him throughout the winter and into spring training and the start of the season.

“My Dad is only 55,” said Ortiz. “I know him very well. It hurts me to watch him acting like he’s OK, knowing that he’s not. I think about him all the time.

“I never like to talk about it. I’m not a guy who likes to make excuses or anything like that and I’m not saying that this might be the reason why I struggled in the beginning. But sometimes, things get in your head and it’s hard to get them out.”

Barry Bonds Derangement Syndrome has clearly gotten to some of us out here on the Interwebs. But sometimes there's a simpler explanation; if your head's not in the game at this level, it'll eat you alive.

Yet even as he slumped, Big Papi has done what I've never seen another Red Sox star be able to do: he tamed the Boston audience completely. Not once have I heard a boo out of the crowd at Fenway, even on his most atrocious night. "Let's go Papi," remains the customary chant when he's at bat.

We're clearly in a sunnier mood these days - just ask Derek Lowe. Couple of World Series will do that for you. But it's also true that Papi has also proven himself untouchable in this town, and I also believe that the crowd has given him space to work in these difficult months as an overt gesture of respect.

Still, it's not our love for him that's in doubt here. It's whether he'll completely escape the early season's mire that remains unclear, just as it's unclear from the Herald report whether his father is on his road to recovery or has just settled into a more livable routine for now.

All this mashing Papi's done over the last three weeks brings his season batting average up to, gulp, .213. His season slugging is .370, and his season OPS is now up to .680, which is the lowest it's been since 2002, when he played 10 games and it was .200. He still has a long way to go.

On Saturday, after that double, there was a groundout to first, which may have cracked the handle of his bat to get this started, or maybe Papi just broke it right then and there, walking back from the plate, but either way I watched him arrive at the dugout steps with its splinters in each hand:

Later on, after a flyout, he tore off his batting helmet as he hit the dugout, and kicked it in frustration:

That was Saturday. Then came Sunday, and that moon shot against the rain. For most of Saturday night, he'd seemed looser than ever, joking and laughing with teammates and a few of the Braves here and there. Most signs, and the numbers, seem to be trending upward. But every so often I see these lingering signs of tension, and I worry.

The Josh Beckett Experience

Every time I'm at the ballpark when Josh Beckett is pitching, I hear the same thing. "It's like it happens too fast." Blink and you'll miss it, the ball from Beckett's hand to the plate.

Actually, scratch that - watch intently, and you still may miss it. At least once a game, I hear this complaint from over my shoulder. "It's too fast."

To watch Josh Beckett pitch in person is for your eyes to receive information your brain rejects as preposterous - the image of a human being conveying a ball over 60 feet to his catcher's mitt in the same time it would take most mortals to simply place it into the glove.

Except in photos, where it sometimes appears as a white blur, the ball is virtually invisible. You can tell when it's a curveball because the batter swings from his heels and misses, instead of standing there slackjawed, like he does with the two-seamer. When you think you've finally spotted the fastball, you realize, that was a change-up. Which is the only reason, sitting there with no instant replay and no slow-motion, you saw it at all.

"Too fast" also went for the whole game, which for the first four innings was as taut a pitchers' duel as you could ask for, the most brilliantly pitched game I've seen since Schilling vs. Glavine almost exactly three years ago. The batters on both sides stood in and were returned to the bench like clockwork.

It was the eighth inning before I looked up at Josh's pitch count, and was astonished to find he had only 83. Before I could say "he could go nine," Sweet Caroline was playing.

Derek Lowe, in his first return to Fenway Park in a visitors' uniform, was cheered when he first took the field for warm-ups, and when he first took the mound for Atlanta, and was given a standing ovation as he left the field. He was only slightly less perfect, surrendering three over six, a quality start, but not enough to win with the monster on the mound for the Sox.

The Boston lineup began to chip away at Derek the second time through, manufacturing a tidy run at a time, while Beckett began to pull away on this second lap, liberally mixing a devastating mid-70's curveball in with a fastball that grew more powerful the longer the game went on.

Derek had been respectable, but the batters on his side of the scoreboard were brutally silenced. Quiet, businesslike and quick.

Not a lot of show from Josh, in his first regular-season complete-game shutout while wearing a Boston uniform.  At times he bared his teeth as he reached back for an out pitch, but otherwise his only gesture was to ask for a new baseball. He had about him the atmosphere of predatory calm we saw from him in the playoffs two years ago, that nothing-personal deadpan glare in at the plate, like a hitman with a bounty in his sights.

Filthy McNasty's*

Notes on a smackdown --

Top 1st. A cold, raw mist hangs over Boston and Fenway Park. Hard to tell if the first boos are for Mark Teixeira at bat or A-Rod, making his first appearance at Fenway this year, appearing in the on-deck circle.

Bottom 1st. Heidi Watney, in layers of wool, talks over highlights of Jacoby Ellsbury sliding into second on his right shoulder, then sliding in the outfield on his right shoulder, then with a hand on said shoulder in the dugout, raising his arm. Mark Kotsay in center tonight. The Sox leave the bases untouched in the inning.

Top 2nd. A high fastball. Jorge Posada looks physically overpowered by the pitch, rocked back on his heels as he puts an awkward swing on it and fouls it off Varitek's mask. Josh Beckett's face is downright insouciant as he looks in for the sign, as if he knows an embarrassing secret about each hitter. Posada takes strike three.

Bottom 2nd. You don't even want to believe it at first, after so many months of mighty hacks a split second after fastballs pass, fly balls that die on the warning track, and weak grounders into the shift. It feels unreal somehow, like someone has triggered a glitch in the matrix, and suddenly the Big Papi who hits bombs is standing there at the plate, in that unmistakable home run pose. And there he goes, into that Cadillacking home run trot, and only a full three seconds after it happens does the two-run bomb to straightaway center even register as 'reality'. And then there's another familiar feeling, of an earlier vintage: an insistent little butterfly of hope, which will not be deterred by your better judgment.

Between innings: The Sox topped off with two more runs after Papi's jack, aided by generous favors from A-Rod. Between innings he throws such a tantrum NESN shows a replay of it a few innings later. Really, all that's missing is mascara running down his face.

Top 3rd. Jeter manages to look even more foolish than Posada did, with an alligator-armed swing at that impossible Beckett two-seamer that fouls the ball directly off his right instep. He literally looks like a marionette with its strings tangled.

Bottom 3rd. Mike Lowell misses a sign (it's theorized), is forced to carry out the abortive steal, belly-flopping into the dirt directly into the tag of Jeter. Eck: "Who do you think missed the sign?" DO: "Varitek." Eck: "Thank you." Tek works a respectable walk. New theory: a top-secret scientific experiment that went horribly awry before Opening Day, resulting in Varitek and Papi accidentally switching bodies, has finally been successfully reversed.

Top 4th.You'd never know Josh had been sitting in the clammy cold for 20 minutes. "Ya gotta be careful with Johnny down and in like that," says Eck of Damon, "that's his happy zone that he one arms ya sometimes, to that short porch, that ball's too far inside. He's got some power down and in." I think we're pretty much all in agreement here - if we can't have the Rem-Dawg, the Eck is the next best thing. 

Beckett barks at the ump over an iffy pitch a bit inside. Unleashes the two-seamer with a look like he's pretending Varitek's glove is the umpire's face. Called strike three. "He could patent this ball right here," is how the Eck describes it. Next victim.

A walk to Teixeira, but then he smacks down A-Rod on three straight curveballs. The first two A-Rod takes, and on the third one he goes down swinging. Catcalls follow him back to the dugout.

Dustin Pedroia hurls himself, sternum first as usual, onto the ground, smothering a grounder from Robinson Cano. He bungles the exchange, then chases the ball into right field while the runner reaches. 

Mid 4th. Dustin Pedroia does not pitch a fit in the dugout.

Bottom 4th. It's still only the bottom of the fourth freakin' inning. How long has it been now, six hours?

Top 5th. Beckett's curveball is possessed. He's just busting it over the corners, rapid fire, daring them over and over to hit it. "Piece of cheese," Eck gushes. "Paintball."

Mid-5th. In booth shot, it would seem Eckersley has been spoken to about the chi-space issue.

Bottom 5th. Posada manages to muff a throw back to the pitcher. That's about all that happens.

Top 6th. Beckett carves up Teixeira, who tries to argue he checked his swing as Beckett swaggers off the field. Whether he swung was a moot point. 96 on the inside corner for his 8th and,it would turn out, final strikeout of the night.

Bottom 6th. Beckett argues with Tito in the dugout. He's looked brilliant, but he's been up and down a lot and seemed to be grimacing as he walked off the field. Or maybe that was an evil grin. Sometimes it's kind of hard to tell.

Tito finally pats Beckett on the chest, his usual sign for, "That's nice, son, now give me the ball."

6IP. 1H.  0ER.

Top 7th. Kotsay makes an adventurous backpedaling catch in center field. Afterwards, he looks vaguely nauseous.

Bottom 7th. Nick Green tacks on a Monster shot for good measure.

 

Nuf ced.

*A real pub in Edinburgh. And Fenway Park tonight, under the proprietorship of Josh Beckett.

Flirting with Perfection

Let's hope the last week is a sign of things to come for the Red Sox this year. Since catching fire last Sunday, the starting pitching staff has rocked steady through the last five games, giving us:

• A more-than-quality start from Jon Lester on Sunday, accompanied by an offensive barrage to salvage the series in Toronto. I say just not being swept by them on the road after having swept them at home is doing all right.
• Something approaching a quality start from Daisuke Matsuzaka to open the series in Detroit on Tuesday. It was a win, anyway. I'll take it. Bonus: the squirrel.
• 6.2 innings of no-hit ball from Josh Beckett on Wednesday. Yes, the no-hit bid was lost, but I would be shocked to see Beckett ever pitch a no-hitter or perfect game. He's generally dominant, but his MO most starts is to scatter hits. Sometimes lots of hits. I'm amazed he got as far as he did in this game without giving one up. Also, if someone had to spoil it for Beckett, it couldn't have been a nicer guy than Curtis Granderson. Bonus: rare Mike Lowell freak-out and ejection in the eighth.
• A sweep in Detroit on Thursday, led by a solid start from Wakefield, and a Sox offense that surged to 6-3 after beginning the game down 3-0. The rally was sparked by Jason Bay. I know I have defended Manny in the past, but I will say it is an undeniable relief to have a right-handed hitter in our lineup who is regularly delivering what my friend Ryan calls "jack jobs", while simultaneously adhering to a strict diet of shut the hell up.
• What I'm going to call a hard-luck loss for Brad Penny Friday night, who threw a bad pitch to Ian Kinsler after four innings and change of solid pitching to dig the Sox a hole they couldn't pull themselves out of. But before the homer, in that inning, Marlon Byrd had been allowed to reach in what arguably should have been an out (I have Eckersley to back me up on this). Saltalamacchia arguably should've been the final out, putting Kinsler up with the bases empty to start the sixth. And who allowed Marlon Byrd to reach in the top fo the fifth inning? Why, none other than Julio Lugo! I rest my case.
• A complete-game, one-run, two-hit masterpiece from Jon Lester tonight, beginning with six and one-third innings of pure perfection. The first 19 batters in a row retired. 70 percent of a minimal number of pitches thrown for strikes. Eleven strikeouts, one less than his last start. Dennis Eckersley opened the third inning saying it was best not to get too hyped up about Lester too early. A few pitches later, he commenced a two-inning stretch of gushing all over Jon Lester. But it was deserved, as was the round of applause Lester got when Michael Young broke things up in the seventh. Lester further destroyed the perfect-game effort with a walk that inning, but coasted to a win on 8 runs from the offense. Bonus: Big Papi's second home run, and a chance to see Tito dragging Papi up to the top of the steps for a curtain call by his shirt collar like an overgrown kid.

After beginning the season with malaise, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester seem to have rounded into top form in the last month. This past week, they have been unquestionably the crown jewels of this rotation, a pair of aces if ever there was one. If they can keep it up...

The best thing of all about this pair is the way they also seem to be merging into a single Phiten-necklace-and-silk-screened-T-shirt-wearing, squinty-eyed, ambidextrous, flame-throwing beast. What should we call it? Josh Bester? Jon Leckett?

Either way, let's hope our visit from this firebreathing chimera lasts for a while. And that the Yankees keep losing.

Deciding the NFL team of the decade

One ring to rule them all, originally uploaded by ConfessionalPoet.

Brad Gagnon at The Score put out an interesting challenge on his blog last week, calling on football fans to answer, Who's the team of the decade?

My answer is obvious, but not just for the reasons you might think.Continue reading at MVN------>

Bend it like Beckett

Once again, Josh Beckett was a creature of nasty majesty during yesterday's day game with the Twins. He's now put together back-to-back starts of the take-no-prisoners quality we've needed at the top of our rotation, but that he hasn't quite been able to deliver before now.

Yesterday also saw the return of "Ornery Bastard" Josh Beckett. He has generally toned down his fist-pumping, screaming and swearing since first putting on a Boston uniform, but yesterday some questionable ball / strike calls on the outside pitch had him boiling by the bottom of the seventh inning. When he's on, he needs to paint the corners, and he was getting the inside paint all night. But outside was a different story - at best, the calls seemed inconsistent. I didn't see any strong evidence that Beckett's opponent was getting preferential treatment there, but I'm not sure that was even a factor in Beckett's mind.

Meanwhile, yesterday's home plate umpire, Todd Tichenor, who has called 81 games since his MLB debut in 2007 - and just 17 behind the plate - was coming into that bottom of the seventh fresh from a traumatic run-in with Twins catcher Mike Redmond. Tichenor had called Jeff Bailey safe on a bang-bang play at home; it was a play close enough that, even from slow-motion replays, which call you'll make really depends on which team you're rooting for. I can see how it could be construed that Bailey got his hand on the plate ahead of the tag, but if so, it was a split-second before the tag and not something I'd swear to in court.

Redmond, meanwhile, had a strong dissenting opinon after Tichenor's verdict, and immediately tore off his mask, hunkered down into Tichenor's face and began to scream, his face growing red. In how many other jobs is having a nearly six-foot, 200-pound major league athlete screaming into your face an occupational hazard? The young umpire was clearly rattled long before Josh Beckett decided to give him another ration of grief.

So when Beckett threw a borderline pitch on the outside corner to Brendan Harris, and Tichenor didn't call it, lit match met tinder in the form of a hollered curse from Beckett on the mound. The echoey Metrodome amplified the sounds of the field - from what I could make out on TiVo, it seemed like a GD from Beckett, rather than his more typical MF. He gloved the return throw from Varitek with a furious snap of his glove, but overall, it wasn't quite as obscene a display as it could've been.

But like I said, Tichenor was rattled to begin with. It was even harder to make out what Tichenor said back, if anything, to Beckett, but his body language immediately stiffened as he looked in Beckett's direction, and that's when Varitek jumped up, the better to fall on the grenade. Varitek, speaking directly into the wild-eyed umpire's face, appeared to be pointing at something, but it's hard to tell at what. The umpire tossed Varitek just before Francona could get there, hobbling along at full speed on his creaky knees, to try to intervene.

What followed was a strangely comical scene in which Tichenor whirled a full 360 degrees in ejecting Francona, and the older manager stood several feet away and just watched the grandiose gesture, nonplussed. Tichenor seemed surprised not to find Francona in his face when he turned around, and stood there awkwardly for a moment, while Francona just sized him up with a withering once-over and a clearly lip-readable "What the f is wrong with you!?" Well-played by Tito. 

And that was that. Beckett admitted it was his fault after the game. Having watched the highlights and postgame interviews and the seventh inning in slow motion, I think it's safe to say that Varitek made a split-second decision that it would be better for him to be run from the game than Beckett, and then took the ejection for the team.

Varitek's work had already been done for the day anyway - who would have thought, ever, that we'd see the day where Varitek hits back-to-back bombs and David Ortiz coming to the plate is an automatic 'inning over'?

Varitek's resurgence this year is nothing short of remarkable - for example, he hasn't hit two home runs in a game right-handed since 2004. In part this has been credited to a change in his hitting approach, but I also think not being bedridden with a severe illness followed immediately by getting divorced may also be helping.

We're not supposed to acknowledge those 'excuses', and usually this is where someone points out how much money ballplayers make, as if that's capable of making them something other than human. Also, predictably, this is usually when someone raises the specter of PEDs, apparently because if it involves any hitter changing in any way, then it must be because because he's either juicing now, or because he's now off the juice. Either way, any change in success at the plate = juice as far as some people seem to be concerned, these days.

In any event, as valuable as Varitek was yesterday, he was probably right in his choice of whose ejection could better be tolerated by the team at that moment. The Red Sox have been starved for pitching performances like Beckett's last two outings - it was crucial that he stay in and get the win this time.

And get it he did, in breathtaking fashion. He had the curveball and that twisting two-seam fastball in spades. Particularly the latter, with its bending, sidewinding motion, which combined with Beckett's impeccable control over location, made him virtually unhittable last night. Even if his ten-cent head sometimes makes things more complicated than they strictly have to be, if you can reduce him to just those innately fluid pitching skills, his million-dollar arm can be well worth the price of admission.

Half Empty / Half Full

Half Empty or Half Full?, originally uploaded by Bonnie Matthews.

Half Empty - Here's a true fact: according to the spreadsheets at BaseballReference.com, the only pitching statistic in which the Red Sox lead the American League so far this year is in HBP. They have 27 to the second-place Yankees' 25.

Half Full - They are second in average age by 0.3 years. Second in number of wins, second in losses, second in won-lost percentage, somewhere in the middle of the list for runs per game, ERA, innings pitched, hits, earned runs, home runs...you get the picture.

Half Empty- They have been okay. Even very good. But the starting pitchers have also often been...meh. Especially the power guys at the top of the rotation - while Tim Wakefield has quietly put in an unbelievable season so far, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester have been somehow off all year. Brad Penny and Daisuke have been inconsistent at best.

Half Full - From Big Papi's first homer, to the return of the newly healed Youkbacca (tm Surviving Grady), to a resurgent top of the rotation, this week has seen a few comebacks. Lester ground out a much-needed win to seal the sweep of the first-place holder in the AL East, finally surrendering just one run when a Toronto Blue Jay crossed the plate after he was no longer on the mound. Beckett seems to be improving with each start, but had yet to pull out a full-metal, fist-pumping masterpiece...until tonight.

As with Papi's homer, whether this week counts as a turning point or a fluke depends on the next time around, and the time after that...and for the record, Papi's gone right back to looking dismal since breaking out the other night. But also just like that homer the other night, watching Beckett scream praise toward Nick Green at shortstop and storm off the field hollering triumphantly did my heart a world of good. And that final pitch to Ramon Martinez in the seventh was a filthy thing of disgusting beauty.

Whether a fleeting flash of brilliance or the start of another monstrous streak, for tonight? I'll take it.

Half Empty - Papelbon seemed to be cruising with two scintillating strikeouts to David Wright and Jeremy Reed before surrendering the go-ahead run on a Monster shot by Omir Santos. The devastation of this was compounded by the extended length of time it took the umpires to retire into the dugout to review a replay before declaring the save blown, and the sublime Beckett effort a ND. The first time since the home opener that Beckett's been truly brilliant, and it's the one night Papelbon picks to blow it.

This series against the Mets is lost. That much is for certain. Beyond that, I'm really not sure right now.

Big Papi, Where Art Thou?

I would rather urinate upon an American flag, in front of my war veteran grandfather, than give up on Papi. -- commenter "ZG" on Chad Finn's Touching all the Bases

As I write this, Fenway Park is still reverberating with the aftermath of the first home run by David Ortiz this season. 

"David Ortiz to deep center field!" Don Orsillo bellowed, nearly choking on the words after Papi connected. The ball floated over straightaway center, dropping just over the wall in front of the cameras in center field. "Has he done it? HE HAS!"

Papi's teammates could barely give him the silent treatment when he came back to the dugout - it lasted all of three seconds before they swarmed him.

"Everybody and their brother was blowing on that ball to get out of here," said the Eck as Papi popped his head up over the dugout roof for a curtain call.

In the sweet aftermath of that moment, the relief was overwhelming. Relief for Tito, who smacked Papi on the ass with all his might, grinning and hollering in delight. Relief, of course, for Papi, whose face has been more and more uncharacteristically grief-stricken with every at-bat. Relief for myself and the rest of the fans who have cheered him all along.

Just before Jason Bay cranked the third home run of the inning, the cameras showed Papi approach Tim Wakefield at his post on one of the dugout steps, and nestle himself under Wake's right arm. Wake patted him on the shoulder and they bowed their heads together, deep in excited conversation. My heart melted into a puddle of liquid goo.

But it was Josh Beckett, a few seats down from Wakefield, who pointed out the cloud within this admittedly delicious silver lining. As Mike Lowell returned from tattoing another monster shot off the 22-year old Toronto Blue Jays rookie on the mound, if I read his lips correctly, Beckett said, "this kid fuckin' sucks."

And it's true. Brett Cecil was the definition of "lit up" tonight, gulping and gasping like Buccholz during one of last year's panic attacks between hanging meatballs. If you'd told me two years ago that we'd be so overjoyed after Papi barely cleared the wall off a pitcher like this, I'd have told you to shut your mouth.

Even if he'd hit it onto Lansdowne Street off of an ace in his prime, one home run doesn't mean that Papi is cured. I hope, and hope very hard, that this is the beginning of his turnaround. But that will depend on his next at-bat, and the next one after that...

This was a joyous reprieve from the worry about Ortiz that's been hanging over Boston like a looming thunderhead, split by lightning flashes of the news about Papi's former compadre the West Coast and growing darker with every 0-fer effort this year. Regardless of what happens from here, the issue of steroids will still linger over our iconic slugger, maybe forever.

It feels like it has become necessary to pick a stance on this, and there seem to be two camps to choose from. Those who are presuming already that he took steroids, at least up until baseball stepped up its testing program in 2005, maybe for a time after that (presumably the better to hit 50 homers in 2006), and is now struggling without them.

Then there's the second camp, the one that acknowledges the realities of the Steroid Era, but for now is hesitant to come to any conclusion on the issue without further evidence. To some, that's denial. To others, that's loyalty. 

Are last year and the last six weeks for David Ortiz the result of a wrist injury from which he will now begin to recover? The inevitable sharp decline of a natural power hitter? Or the evidence that he juiced? We may never conclusively know.

And so right now, it's about what you want to believe. Papi has gotten smaller over the last couple of seasons. Is this because he has been trying to lose weight and be in better shape? Or because he stopped taking steroids?

His current slump could still be attributable to the lagging effects of his wrist injury, for which he had surgery in the off-season, and which at least one expert witness has testified could still realistically be affecting him. To which anyone convinced of steroid use could reply, but steroids can cause the same tissue changes as tendon injuries.

For the people in the first camp, if he gets better this year, that proves he's back on the juice. If he doesn't, it's proof that he definitely was before.

This is the biggest turnoff about all the pearl-clutching over steroids in recent years for me - the tendency for people to try and make players prove a negative. It simply can't be done.

So, for now, as long as it comes down to what I want to believe, I'm going to believe that which causes me to feel the least psychic agony.I realize that to talk about agony over steroids might seem contradictory after I said just a little while ago that the Manny revelation doesn't change how I view 2004. But there are differences when it comes to Papi.

For one thing, he still wears our uniform and most likely will for the rest of his career. With Manny playing for another team, we dodged the bullet of how to respond to this situation with one of our own. In Papi's case, it's more likely we could be confronted with the choice between knowingly supporting a juicer just because we like him so much, or turning our backs on principle to the one player I can't imagine giving up on.

Even if Manny still played for us, Papi would still be different. He's personal. I know the platitudes about rooting for the laundry, but David Ortiz singlehandedly taught us to believe in 2004. He noticed fans crying in the stands, and said so. Then, he went out and sealed the walkoff wins in games 4 and 5 that year. It felt like he was making a personal gesture, sending a personal message, to comfort us. In those moments, he became the face of a miracle. I know the platitudes about athletes not being role models, but Papi feels different.

Right now, there are times things don't look good. Times it feels like we're back in the middle of one of those five-hour October epics, but instead of the game's most dominating closer, Papi's up against the game's deepest problem. What it comes down to for me is that until and unless it's proven to be true, I'm going to keep chanting "Let's go, Papi." I'm going to keep hoping against hope that he'll be the one who teaches us to believe all over again.

If there's ever been a player who deserves that from me--from all of us-- it is David Ortiz.

On a happier note...

New Sox-Rays photos from Friday night -

Full set here.

The Obligatory "Manny Did Steroids" Post

Yeah, I've been avoiding it. Just as a player accused of doing steroids will never truly prove his innocence, no fan who wades into this mire can avoid being the target of someone else's criticism. But here goes.

It's not that I don't care or that I think steroids are okay. Not only should they be banned because of the unfair advantage, but because the league has a responsibility to try and prevent its players from destroying themselves with harmful substances.

That said, I'm not going to think differently about baseball or the Red Sox because of what happened with Manny.

There are some who'd say that makes me part of the problem, continuing to support a league which harbors steroid abusers. I might agree if it wasn't for the Mitchell Report, the perjury charges against Barry Bonds, the public disgrace of Roger Clemens, and now, Manny Ramirez, the first major player to be caught and suspended in-season - at great expense to his franchise, no less. Even belatedly, imperfectly, the league and the culture at large are treating this as the serious problem it is. Efforts are being made to clean up. Otherwise, how would we even know about Manny in the first place?

But the problem doesn't end there, apparently. There have still been plenty of shrill declarations since this news broke, and the suggestion that Red Sox fans are answerable for Manny's transgression has been a recurring theme. Specifically, some citizens of the Interwebs believe Red Sox fans should disown the championships in 2004 and 2007, on the assumption that Manny was probably using steroids then, too.

Some say that for Sox fans to do anything less would make them hypocrites for having questioned other PED users' continued employment in baseball and continued popularity among many fans. 

And I say, bullshit.

For one thing, the timing does make a difference. It's one thing to have a player on your team alleged to have used PEDs, be caught using them, or admit to having used them, and continue to embrace that player. It's another thing entirely to suggest that fans of a team should retroactively declare a championship null and void because a player flunks a drug test years afterwards while playing with another team.

And what about the fact that he plays for another team? Was that an accident? Does anyone actually believe that Boston blindly supported Manny the whole time he was here? Does his exorcism from the clubhouse last summer not count as a rebuke of Manny Being Manny, and all that stood for, from the Red Sox and most of their fans?

Okay, let's say it isn't. Let's say we were willing to claim responsibility for a former Red Sox player's assumed prior PED use. In that case, I'd like to know two things:

1. What would our Manny penance look like? Should we hold a ritualistic bonfire of all 2004 and 2007 memorabilia in Government Center? Immediately give away any game tickets currently in our possession, if we rooted for the Sox during Manny's tenure? Make Manny voodoo dolls (those of us who haven't done so already)? Apologize to everyone we meet for having been happy the Red Sox won those World Series?
2. What exactly would it accomplish? Would it stop highly competitive but poorly educated rich men from trying to boost or prolong their athletic careers? Would it help scientists develop new and better detection tests?

Or would it just make a few people with disordered priorities, a grudge against the Red Sox, and / or a joyless attitude toward sports feel vindicated? 

I'm not saying the Sox have purged themselves of everyone who probably used PEDs. I'm also not saying that Red Sox fans wouldn't embrace a player in the face of ongoing steroid allegations. But it hasn't happened yet, and until it does, recriminations about Sox fans' tacit approval of cheating--and accusations of hypocrisy--are completely jumping the gun.

Maybe self-righteous rage is the point of sports for some people. Maybe there are some people who  believe that, through some magical transference, the abilities and, ideally, unimpeachable sportsmanship of athletes reflect on the people who buy a ticket to watch them play.

If that's your cup of tea, so be it. But I don't think there's any point in sucking whatever joy's left out of the game that way. As Joe Posnanski wrote about the Manny mess - 

Some tell me that all this is because I’m naive … and I’m OK with pleading guilty to that. I suspect I am naive about sports. I think that sports are fun, games are diversion...a college coach cheating to recruit a player is not on the level of a investment banker cheating retirees out of their pensions and a player who is a jerk to teammates and media members is not on the level of the person who commit violent crimes. There are serious moments in sports, hateful moments, heroic moments. Most of the time, we’re talking about games here.

To that I would add something further - that the real importance, the real contribution sports make to the world, is in the community they create. What makes the game important, what makes the game real, is us. The "interior stadium" referred to by Roger Angell, constructed in our own minds. The way we use it to strengthen our friendships, solidify bonds with family, and create a sense of place and identity in an increasingly disconnected world.

That the actors on the field are imperfect behind the scenes, that all may not be as it seems, is almost entirely beside the point. It is, at the very least, not really news.

War of Attrition

With the Rays, the fights are like road rage. One thing leads to another, and the next thing you know you're locked in mortal combat with some schmuck who meant nothing to you five seconds ago.

With the Yankees, the fights are more like sibling rivalry. Sometimes it seems as though you're actually getting along, but spend too much time together, and annoyance turns into irascibility. Somebody's touching somebody else. A shove. A punch. Endless, petty bickering. Long memories of past slights. Admittedly assholish behavior, sometimes on both sides. All accompanied by the strangely comforting knowledge that the score will always be even in the end.

Tonight, though, Joba hogged the asshole spotlight with a plunking of Jason Bay that set Eckersley off, drenching the NESN booth in spittle. Until then, following a run-scoring jamboree for the Sox in the first, both pitchers settled into a businesslike duel, and everyone was well behaved. In fact, just before the plunking, I had started thinking, you know, things aren't nearly as contentious around here as they used to be.

The new Stadium contributed to that feeling, I think. I have never been to the old Yankee Stadium, but the particular tenor of its crowd on TV is a sound that's been burned into my cerebral cortex, and these games have sounded different. The Eck theorized that the sound in the new Stadium is different because of the shallower slopes of the upper decks compared to the old place. It might also be because this new Stadium was half-empty for most of these games, all but the die-hards (like Spike Lee) chased out of the stands by rain.

Josh Beckett put in a workmanlike six innings and change, but it still wasn't the dominating redemption we've all been looking for. The most notable thing about this outing, really, was the lengthy delay in the sixth inning while the grounds crew resurfaced the mound for him. He put the tying run on in the seventh, and then turned his back in disgust on Tito approaching from the dugout. His walk off the field was slow and stone-faced, showered in boos and rain.

In the dugout he thunked a batting helmet down on the bench, but for Josh, as Eck put it, "that's a minor snap." It was halfhearted at best.

In the end, Joba and his band of merry men never could drag themselves out of the hole that had been dug in the top of the first. Against the Bombers' mediocre bullpen, the Sox tacked on three more runs as the Stadium emptied, then sent in our Backup Closer™ for mop-up duty. The Elf added an exclamation point at the end with a ranging putout from shortstop territory for the final, soggy out.

Beginning with Beckett's minimal tantrum, the rest of the game was totally anticlimactic. The simmering tensions that followed the Bay drilling were also dampened by the evening showers. But I'm sure there are a few people with that whole incident tucked in their back pocket, for when it eventually comes score-evening time.

Meanwhile, this game carried a body count of another kind. Jorge Posada and Kevin Youkilis were scratches before the festivities began, the former with a hammy and the latter with a sore lower back brought on by an awkward swing. Finally, Jacoby Ellsbury added to the attrition by tweaking his leg somehow in a futile dive for the ball in the third inning.

Papelbon In Bloom?

jonathan papelbon, originally uploaded by Paul Keleher.

Finally, I can exhale a little bit.

I love all my Red Sox, but like any fan, some are more equal than others to me. Probably the player I'm most binkyish about would be Jonathan Papelbon (not a news flash for anyone who's been reading this blog longer than 10 minutes). And for most of this season, watching him has bothered me almost as much as watching Big Papi.

Papelbon's mechanics have not looked right and his pitches have not looked the same. He's gotten the job done, for the most part, but since Spring Training, his velocity had been down and that hopping, zipping movement has been missing from his fastball. Having heard him talk before about working on being "Less like a merry-go-round and more like a Ferris wheel" with his motion, I noticed him becoming steadily more merry-go-round this year, often falling off dramatically at the end of his delivery and missing his spots. In short, his command and control have been what Curt Schilling once famously described as "horseshit."

He then gave some alarming quotes indeed about how he was tinkering with his delivery. I was, to quote a SoSHer, in the "concerned category." JoS quantified what I'd been sensing all along - the rate at which hitters were swinging and missing at Papelbon's pitches has been in decline this season. We especially saw this in the Angels series a couple weeks back, when Howie Kendrick fouled off eleventy balls before Paps could finally finish him off. That wasn't the only time this year that happened, either.

It's hard for me to tell whether Papelbon is growing more comfortable now in his adjusted mechanics or if he has abandoned them and gone back to the old way, but last night he was more effective. He came on in the eighth inning in relief of Ramon Ramirez, who had just surrendered his first homer of the season to Mark Teixeira, the sought-after first baseman's second "ba-boomba" of the game, to use last night's Eckersleyism. Paps' first batter was the formidable Hideki Matsui, who I swear is always up in these situations. I knew things were looking promising when Matsui struck out swinging.

Miguel Cabrera followed with a sharp single to right, setting my brows back to "furrowed". Then Jose Molina popped out to end the threat with runners at first and third. Results inconclusive.

The next inning would solidify the assessment - by now also being made by the pitching conossieur Eckersley - that the ball was moving much better for Papelbon. But not at first. Paps set my alarm bells jangling again by giving up an infield single and then plunking Derek Jeter to put two on right away in the bottom of the ninth.

It was Teixeira's at bat in the next few minutes, following a flyout for Johnny Damon, that changed the complexion of Paps' night for me. Suddenly the "extra few feet" on his fastball had returned. He was locating at 95 mph. And Teixeira, looking for another gopher ball, swung and missed three times.

It was a beautiful AB, at least as far as Boston was concerned. Even better was the commentary from Eckersley, who used the word "cheese" about 10 times in five minutes, as in "low cheese," and "high cheese," at times substituting "high hair." DAVE ROBERTS! chimed in after a devastating knee-high heater to Teixeira with "Hot! Hot!" Eckersley joined him, and for a moment both former players were just giggling and hissing, "Hot! Hot!" together.

Like I said last night, if we can't have the Rem-Dawg, this is the next best thing.

The next batter representing the winning run, Nick Swisher, stopped my heart for a few seconds with a towering, rocketing fly ball to right that thankfully fell foul. Then he walked. If I ever have to have Botox on my forehead later in life, I'm sending the Red Sox the bill.

It all came down to brass tacks with Robinson Cano at the plate, bases loaded, two outs. I was standing in my living room, hands in prayer position in front of my face, hyperventilating. It was one o'clock in the morning. Cano, too, would strike out swinging, and Papelbon would fall off the mound toward Varitek immediately afterward, fist-pumping with a vigor we haven't seen yet this season.

It was still shakier than I'd like; not a dominating performance. But it was definitely much more like the Paps I know and love.

Three-Man Booth

Dennis Eckersley, originally uploaded by queenv918.

It's a rainy third inning in the Bronx, and Don Orsillo is joined by DAVE ROBERTS! and The Eck.

According to the Eck, Phil Hughes has a good fastball tonight, but "he's just not gettin' it done." I think he should maybe cut him some slack considering it's raining enough that everybody's glistening like Kevin Youkilis running the bases on a hot day in August. But what do I know.

JD Drew scores a businesslike third run after Mike Lowell drops a flare down the right field line. "Pitchers just can't get a break," quoth the Eck, quickly adding, "not that he doesn't deserve to be in this position."

Man. He is merciless.

DAVE ROBERTS!, meanwhile, is a bit of a Sox homer so far (picking up that slack for the Rem-Dawg, no doubt). At times it's been clear he's new at this -- earlier tonight he gave a gulping, Chris-Farley-like interview to Jacoby Ellsbury during the rain delay.

But now, in the booth with Orsillo, he relaxes. He says he likes to get back out to the East Coast--can't imagine why. I'm sure he hasn't paid for a drink or a meal around here yet, and I hope he never does.

As Jason Varitek comes to the plate, Roberts jumps in to the conversation with a brief soliloquy breaking down the pitchers' strategy against 'Tek. "That's the book on Jason, just try to crowd him, because he's so strong that if he gets his hands extended, he can do some damage." Yankees fans chant what sounds like "Asshole" at the Captain before he grounds out to end the half-inning.

If we can't have the Rem-Dawg, this is the next best thing.

Finally finished Sox-Yankees photos

Just in time to be on my way to another game this coming Friday...

Full set here.

Mayday Weekend

I hate seeing what is happening to David Ortiz. Last night as the Sox got their hittin' on against the Rays (finally - the way they'd been getting knocked around, I thought we might be leaving Tampa on the business end of a sweep), he was not a part of it. He displayed some patience and got on base, keeping rallies going, but...he was not a part of the home runs or the base hits or the steals. Instead he stood on the basepaths between pitches like a wallflower at a party, shuffling his feet uncomfortably.

Today, in the sixth inning, he finally couldn't stand it, and took a mighty hack at the first pitch he saw in his at-bat against James Shields. The second the ball left the bat, he was hanging his head and limply jogging out of the batters' box. He jogged back to the dugout, face blank. As soon as he got about six steps in to the row of his teammates, he stopped right in front of Jason Varitek and slammed his batting helmet against the dugout steps. He yelled out a curse and turned with a grimace back toward the bat rack before the camera cut away.

"He has reason to be frustrated," came the nasal tenor intonation of Tony Massarotti, who hasn't been a bad analyst, but his voice could not be more different than the one we're used to hearing in duet with Orsillo's.

There's been talk starting to spring up about moving Ortiz in the batting order. Chad Finn suggested replacing him in the three-hole with JD Drew. I wouldn't want to see that. JD's batting average isn't much higher than Papi's at .239. And what's more...

JD w/ runners on: .190
Papi w/ runners on: .293

JD w/ RISP: .152
Papi RISP: .316

JD w/ RISP and 2 outs: .294
Papi w/ RISP and 2 outs: .500

The most significant sample-size discrepancy between the two is the situation of RISP w/ 2 outs, which JD has been in 16 times and Papi has been in 12 times. But in the other two categories, the number of times each has been in these two situations is roughly equivalent: JD has been up 20 times with runners on. Papi, 22. JD has been up w/ RISP 20 times, Papi 19. Meanwhile, JD's BA with bases empty is .310. Papi's .215 BA is very weak and his lack of power is downright worrying. But if you're putting someone in the third spot in the order to drive in runs, it probably shouldn't be JD. I would suggest switching Ortiz with Bay in the sixth slot.

That's if you're going to drop Papi in the order at all, destroying what little confidence he might have left, after just 24 games. I don't see Tito making that kind of move, regardless of any supporting evidence for it, until at least the All-Star Break. If he was willing to give all the chances he did to guys like Kevin Millar and Alan Embree, he'll surely give Papi quite a long time to prove he's done before we see any changes to the lineup.

But really, the point is, someone's still making the suggestion about JD over Ortiz, and it's not that far-fetched an idea with the way Papi's looked this season. And that's not to mention the ongoing, chronic middle relief problems or get into What's Wrong with Josh Beckett, and don't even get me started on Julio Lugo. Also, as mentioned, Jerry Remy is not in the booth. Also, swine flu. Things are admittedly not looking good right now.

On the other hand, a week ago, give or take a few hours, we were celebrating our third consecutive pasting of the Yankees and our tenth win in a row. The Sunday before that, we were establishing a 2-4 record with a second loss in three games on what would turn out to be a truly bogus West Coast skid.

The swings between outhouse and penthouse this season so far have been enough to make you seasick.