And Now a Word From Our Sponsor…
The end of August and September is around the corner. The “dog days” of summer are upon us. The kids are sharpening their pencils (do they still use pencils that need to be sharpened?), covering their books with their favorite stars from their favorite teams, picking out a new backpack, and deciding to either buy “hot lunch” or bring lunch from home.
And deep in the night, the Red Soxare keeping these kids’ parents awake. Unaware of what is really going on in the world around us, all we can do is wonder.. what could have been?
Dramatic enough? I’m thinking about writing a screenplay.
Anyways, check out Fitzy’s (“Pocket Money” starts tonight at 11:30pm EST on NESN) new video he posted last night for “Soxycontin” – hilarious.
And now, back to the show…
Once again this past weekend, our poor, lowly Red Sox were upstaged by the “SMO” (Shiny Metal Object – you know the things people [ESPN] look at and go “oooooooooh… aaaaaaaaah”) known as the Yankees.
The Sox ripped the middle game of the series right out of the Yankees hands from the first inning on and otherwise looked quite over-matched. Losing 20-11 on Friday and 8-4 last night never looked pretty but pulling out Saturday night’s game 14-1 with the Japanese sensation Tazawa on the 
mound, this team really did show some bright glimmers of hope. Technically, the Sox were very consistent in their games this weekend if nothing less and it was merely a case of pitching woes. The teams each scored 29 runs in the series and for the Yankees, 20 of those 29 runs came in 1 of the 3 games and remember that they went on the next night to score 1 run. The Sox however remained consistent throughout the series with run totals of 11-14-4. I will take it. We know where the remaining issues are andwe have over a month to get into the playoffs and make it work.
Yes, I know I am a homer andI always look to find the bright spots in all of this but after whining and complaining for 86 years, I am a little tired of having to do that… and I took some Soxycontin!
All the pieces always seem to fall into place for this team at the right time. Really, over the last decade or so, no big blow has come at a time that didn’t allow time to be fixed. With Tazawa being the Japanese sensation that Dice-K refuses to be, that is a good step. We knew when the Sox signed him that he was a young kid that never played professionally in Japan and that he modeled his stuff after Dice-K. Both of those experiences are adding up well for the Sox at this time.
This guy… um, what’s his name… uh…. Tom Workfield?… um, Tim Workfled? OOOOOOH, Tim Wakefield will be rejoining the team this week. Wake will play the part of the bandage in the gaping wound that is Brad Penny’s start every 5th day. Since June 23rd, Brad Penny’s ERA has been a startling 6.38. Despite a surprisingly strong start to the season, his future seems uncertain besides the fact that it won’t be in the starting rotation.
David Ortiz is another bright spot. Papi has finally got his act back together it seems with his steroid allegations seemingly flying under the radar since he held his press conference in NY a couple weekends ago. 8 HRs in the past month with 3 of them in this past week along with hitting 8/20 with 8 runs scored and 10 RBI in the last seven days.
The majority of the team is playing well right now, once again rising questions of what is going wrong but we won’t start that argument again. YOUUUUK is crushing the stuffing out of the ball, Pedey looks poised in his new fatherhood figure, JayBay is seeing the ball well again, Jacoby is stealing bases like Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez (I watched “The Sandlot” on Sunday and 
all I could think of was Jacoby every time I watched Benny’s character, as kid and adult), Victor seems to be fitting into the lineup very well on both sides of the plate, and even JD is hitting for power.
Take it with a grain of salt but Dice-K is also rumored to be ready to come back to the club sometime in September. Having been training like Stallone for Rocky VI for the past 2 months, Dice-K should be returning with 30 less pounds and lots of energy “built up” in his shoulder for the home stretch.
I’ll take this past series as a positive note. Losing 2 out of 3 to these Yankees isn’t really a slap in the face. They have a good club and their 2 aces were both up, we beat up on one of theirs and they beat up on one of ours. Nonetheless, the one win was huge. We were able to AT LEAST guarantee ourselves a tie in the season series with the win on Saturday with just 3 more games coming up at the end of September with them (in NY).
Just homerize yourself and think about how well the last 2 weeks of the season seem to play themselves out for the Sox like they usually do too. Prior to the last two weeks, the Sox have 4 home against the White Sox, 3 at home against Toronto this weekend, hit the road for 3 at TB, 4 at the White Sox, come back home to 2 against Baltimore, 3 vs. TB, 3 vs. the Angels, then smooth sailing (other than the Yanks) with 4 at KC, 3 at NY, 3 home against Toronto, and finishing up with4 home against Cleveland (by the way, season ends October 2nd… this is New England damnit! Stupid idea).
If you didn’t get all that, here it is broken down for you:
22 home games, 14 away games, a combined record of 437-425. Currently back 7.5 games in the AL East and up 1 game in the AL Wild Card race.
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HAHA Becky and I watched the sandlot the other day and the wholetime we laughed at how much young Benny reminded us of Jacoby.