Well, it was a good run, but anyone who still thinks the Sox are going to make the playoffs is out of their freaking mind. Don’t ask me why, but I still had hope entering last nights game against the Orioles despite losing two of three to Tampa. But when the Sox lost that game, I lost all faith.

Don’t get me wrong, with three games left against the Rays and six remaining against the Yankees it is by no means mathematically impossible, but you have to beat the shitty teams, it’s as simple as that. After losing two tough games over the weekend I expected the Sox to be fired up and ready to play, especially against one of the worst teams in baseball. An average victory of less than 8 runs a game should have been a disappointment. Instead, they play tight. Just watching the guys out there it was hard to believe that they were thinking about doing anything in October other than playing golf. Obviously this isn’t the case as the Red Sox are made up of 25 Manny Ramirez’s, but it was clear that the frustrations of the season had become too much for them to overcome.

Mike Lowell once was throwing equipment for the second time in a four days after a called third strike call. Marco Scutaro botched two plays at shortstop and nearly threw his glove. David Ortiz is arguing after every strike call made on him (usually he only argues every other strike call).

But I’m not even mad at them. If I was a player on this team, you can bet your ass I would be frustrated. When teetering on the brink like they were it’s easy to fall the wrong way. This team has nothing to be ashamed of. I have said it a million times already and I will keep saying it until opening day next April. It’s just unfortunate that we couldn’t watch a healthy 2010 Red Sox team, because they could have been real special.

White Sox to claim Manny Ramirez – Manny is expected to hit the waiver wire any time now. The Dodgers, like the Red Sox two years ago, are simply fed up with him and want him gone. According to FoxSports, the Chicago White Sox are prepared to claim him and try and work a deal. This was probably the best news that I have heard in a while because you know the Devil Rays would kill to add him to their lineup. And say what you want about Manny, when he is on the field, the dude can hit. If you put him in that Rays lineup they become that much better and you can bet your ass teams will fear him.

I love how Rajon Rondo quit on Team USA – According to WEEI.com, Rondo claimed there were family matters and other things he needed to attend to before the NBA season started. Call me insensitive, but I’m calling bullshit. Rondo was pissed that he wasn’t getting the love that he deserved so he walked out, and I am perfectly OK with that. The kid thinks he is kind of a big deal and demands the respect of a top player in the league. Nothing wrong with that. I guarantee you if he was the starter and not Derrick Rose he would not have quit the team, and you can take that to the bank.

Belichick on Maroney: “I think he’s ready” – Coach Bill talked earlier today about Laurence Maroney and whether or not he was over the case of fumblitis that he contracted last season, and it sounds like he is in pretty good shape. I have been waiting a long time for Maroney to put up an all pro year. In fact, I think I have predicted it for at least the last two, if not three seasons. He is like Alex Gordon (Roayls 3B). Every year I claim he will live up to his lofty potential, and every year he ends up on my fantasy team, and every year he ends up disappointing. Please don’t do me wrong again Laurence. I beg you.

Can we have Lackey pitch every game against the Mariners? Is there a way this can happen? Because he sucks against every other team, even the shitty ones, but for whatever reason dominates the Mariners. Yea, I get that they suck and all, but it’s not just that. The stuff he had in both his starts this year against them has been disgusting. First, he took a no no into the eighth inning out on the left coast earlier this year, and just last night he showed us a fastball that Boston fans haven’t seen since he mowed us down last fall in the playoffs en route to striking out ten over eight innings. Someone needs to play these two tapes on repeat until the guy can figure out his act and pitch like that every game. Please.

Mike Reiss took a look at the Patriots 2008 draft earlier today and the results were not pretty. Two third round picks are no longer with the team (Shawn Crable and Kevin O’Connell) and their second round pick is struggling to make the team (Terrence Wheatley). Good thing they cleaned up in 2009 and 2010 to make up for it.

Anthony Rizzo now has 23 home runs while playing most of the year at AA Portland. For those who don’t know, Rizzo is only 21 years old, and missed a season battling Hodkins Lymphoma. People need to keep an eye on this kid, because he is on the fast track to major league stardom. The Sox are due to produce a home run hitter from their farm system one of these years, maybe he can be the first.

Figures, no more than six hours after I make a post that includes comments about how I am starting to feel good about this bullpen, Papelbon comes in a screws up what should have been an easy win. What makes it even worse is that he has been pitching great of late. It’s rare that the Red Sox are in a position to win a game that John Lackey starts these days so to let one slip away really is a kick in the balls. Now, instead of climbing to only 3 games back of the Rays we sit at 4 back and lose any momentum we had built during the three game win streak. It’s was likely a real long plane ride to Texas, but at least they can look forward to not having to face Cliff Lee this weekend. It could be worse though, Paps could have beat the shit out his father in law like Francisco Rodriguez of the Mets.

Notes…

- David Ortiz hit his 25th home run of the year yesterday marking the seventh time he has done it during his time with the Red Sox. Only Jim Rice (7) and Ted Williams (14) have as many 25 home run seasons for the Sox.

- Jarrod Saltalamacchia made his debut in the starting lineup and boy did he impress. Not only did he have no problems getting the ball back to the pitcher, but he gunned Aaron Hill down at second base, and went 2-4 at the plate with two doubles. Sure, it’s only one game, but it’s hard not to think we may have gotten a future all star in this deal.

- When Pedroia comes back, Lowrie needs to play first base. He is now batting .313/.441/.500 on the season and is hitting everything in sight. He doesn’t need to play every day, but he can’t simply go back to not playing at all, not when Mike “I have no lateral movement” Lowell is first on the depth chart. Maybe have him play once or twice a week at short and second and than two games at first. Marco has only had four days off this year so odds are he would welcome a few breaks here and there.

- Despite yesterday’s performance, I’m still not impressed with John Lackey. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but this just isn’t his year. His velocity is down, his location is off, his strikeouts are down, and he is giving up way too many hits. I know it’s kind of stating the obvious, but I had still been holding out hope for him. Not anymore. Consider me officially off the John Lackey bandwagon. When we make the playoffs I want Lester for game 1, Buchholz 2, Beckett 3, and Daisuke 4 (wow, that was hard to write).

The games…

- Red Sox 1, Indians 9 – Lester started off strong but tired quick. He has made every one of his starts up to this point in the season and it may be catching up with him. Normally, I would suggest a 15 day vacation but his next start is Sunday against the Yankees and we can’t really afford to be giving guys free days off. Justin Masterson dominated for the tribe picking up only his fourth win of the season. Two have come against the Sox. They also have been the best two pitched games of his career.

- Yankees 5, Blue Jays 1 – A Rod finally hit number 600, steroids or no steroids, that’s pretty impressive. He will become the all time leading home run hitter within the next five years, and half of the world will still consider Hank Aaron as holding that title. Phil Hughes picked up his 13th win in this one and Derek Jeter racked up four hits.

- Rays 1, Twins 2 – Luckily, the Rays lost last night so the day wasn’t a complete disaster. David Price was brilliant again, but Scott Baker was better. Unfortunately, new Twins closer, Matt Capps, blew his first save opportunity and sent the game into extra innings. After four extra frames the Twins strung together a walk and two singles to push a run across.

Recap…

The Sox are now only 15-14 against the four worst teams in the AL (Cleveland, Kansas City, Baltimore, and Seattle). If they could just take care of business against these stiffs it would be a completely different race. The Sox ended up losing a game in the wild card and remaining even in the division race. 6.5 is still an achievable number, but there is no excuse for losing games like they did last night. Daisuke Matsuzaka will face off against Josh Tomlin in a game that may be a must win. It would not be good to ride a two game losing streak into New York for the biggest series of the year.

Updated Standings

Rays 67 – 40, 0 GB

Yankees 67 – 40, 0 GB

Red Sox 61 – 47, 6.5 GB

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Estimated wins needed to make the playoffs – 37

Games remaining – 54

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Ryan Kalish can play for me any day – It’s only been four games, but how can you not love the way Ryan Kalish plays the game? The guy is a reincarnation of Trot Nixon (although Trot certainly isn’t dead). He plays the game hard and is above average in every aspect. I’m pretty sure no one in the park realized what was going on after he threw out Shelly Duncan at the plate on Monday night. I mean, a left fielder who can throw? Who’d have thunk. Obviously he isn’t going to hit .500 for the rest of the season, but he really impressed me in his short stint thus far, and I was already pretty high on him to begin with.

The Jeremy Hermida era was short lived – I mentioned last week that Hermida’s days may be limited. I said I would rather have Hermida than Eric Patterson, but unfortunately, Hermida got the axe Saturday. I’m still kind of puzzled by the move. Patterson adds no value to the club. As long as Lowrie is healthy, he will never see the infield, and once Ellsbury comes back, he should never see the outfield again. Long term, I still think Hermida is going to be a decent hitter. It would have been nice to find a way to keep him around for next year.

Grant Balfour hit the DL this week when he strained his oblique wrestling with his pitching coach. You know how I know he’s gay?

Kevin Youklis tore a muscle in his hand swing a bat. Could this injury have happened to anyone other than the Red Sox? I don’t know who sold their soul to who but this team is cursed. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the amount of injuries this team has overcome is unfathomable. If they do any damage in the post season it has to go down as one of the best seasons ever, right?

On that note, looks like I need to start being nicer to Mikey Lowell – With Youk down, Lowell is going to see some significant playing time. Either that, or Kevin “I couldn’t drive in a run with the bases loaded in slow pitch softball” Cash will catch and V Mart will play first. Hopefully, it is the former. He started off right Tuesday hitting a two run homer and playing good D at the one bagger, keep it up and maybe I can go a few weeks without ripping.

Where was Jacoby Monday night? – I’m not blaming this on Jacoby as it seems like it was the teams decision, but why would they not activate Ellsbury on a night when Mike Cameron goes on the DL and your team is desperate for help in center field, even if it means doing nothing more than making the routine plays? He had already played five rehab games and showed no ill effects other than a little soreness. At a time where every game is magnified and every loss kills, you have to think, does Jacoby turn a 6-5 loss into a 6-5 win?

I love the Shaq to Boston news – Sure, he only averaged 20 minutes, 12 points, and 6.7 boards per game, but that’s right in line with what Perk would give you. The C’s needed a big man, and if Shaq was willing to come here for the veterans minimum, you’d have to think he is motivated to win a championship. If nothing else he will give you big man minutes that otherwise would have been for some stiff like Scalabrine. Best case scenario he gives you a down low presence on offense and grabs you some boards on D, something they couldn’t do against the Lakers.

Remember when the Rangers wanted Clay Buchholz for Salty? – Ha, those were the days. Instead we get him for a couple of prospects who will never become anything more than fringe major league players at best and a couple hundred thousand dollars (that was strange to say). Salty has been plagued by injuries and a case of the yips throwing the ball back to the pitcher but Red Sox scouts are confident that it is all behind him. He is still only 25 and at a position that usually develops late. After only a couple of games with Pawtucket they are already raving about his play behind the plate. If he can figure it out a little bit with the stick that this could become the deal of the decade for the Sox. And the best part is, we got to keep Clay.

I love the Patriots young defense – Obviously it’s impossible to judge players based on written reports of training camp practices, but the young players on this Patriots team really give you a reason to be optimistic about the future. Just from the past week I have read good things about TE Aaron Hernandez, CB Darius Butler, ILB Brandon Spikes, OLB Jermaine Cunningham, WR’s Brandon Tate and Taylor Price. The first pre-season game is a week from Thursday and it should be even more fun than normally with all the interesting young players on the squad.

I am not worried in the least about Tom Brady not being under contract – Would it be nice if he was locked up for the rest of his life? Sure, but I don’t think Robert Kraft is willing to risk the PR disaster that would be Tom Brady leaving the Patriots organization. Once it is all settled, Kraft is going to have to spend far more than he ever would have wanted to in order to sign Brady, but everyone knows it is for the best. I would advise Kraft to get a deal done sooner rather than later though as it would be advantageous for him to sign Brady before Peyton Manning and the Colts set the new ceiling for quarter back salaries. If this drags into the season I would be surprised. If I had to guess I would say a deal gets done a couple weeks for opening day.

There is a zero percent chance Brett Favre retired – This is nothing more than Favre being a media whore. He has tried to retired elevnty billion times to this point and has never stayed that way. Plus, as Jeff pointed out already, it wouldn’t be right if Favre didn’t come back to somehow screw the Pats. I do think he will miss some time in the regular season as he seems to come back later and later each year, but the dude is set to make $13 million this year. If he doesn’t play 75% of the games, I may be forced to quit this whole blogging thing.

I love that the Celtics open the NBA season against the Heat – Good work with the scheduling NBA. Lebron has opened the season against Boston two years in a row, so why not keep the tradition going? All everyone wants to see is a Heat/Celtics finals next year, so giving the people a sneak peak to open the year is brilliant. And at least now we can safely say, one of these teams won’t go undefeated.

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It’s getting down to crunch time. We are at the point of the season where scoreboard watching is now acceptable and encouraged. Every win is huge and every loss is magnified. From here on out I’ll do my best to keep up on the happenings of all three contenders, the Sox, Rays, and Yankees.

98 is the magic number in my mind, obviously it could be +/- one or two games, but if the Sox can get to 98 wins I think they make it. With 56 games remaining they need 38 more wins to make it, pretty much two out of every three games. I’ll also keep tabs on that as we make our way through the summer with a simple counter.

August 3, 2010 Results

- Red Sox 3, Indians 1 – Josh Beckett pitched like an ace last night going eight innings allowing only three hits, one run, striking out eight, and walking none. Mike Lowell, despite all the shit I have given him, hit a two run homer on the first pitch he saw, and that’s all the team needed on this night. There was some extracurricular activities (code for the benches clearing) but nothing that should have any long term repercussions. The news wasn’t all good though as Youk was put on the DL and could miss the rest of the season, more to come.

- Yankees 2, Blue Jays 8 – Dustin Mosley had a rough outing and the Yankees bullpen continued the struggles. The offense only had two hits (although one was another dinger for Teixeira) as Ricky Romero tossed a complete game walking only one and striking out four. The Yanks are now riding a two game losing streak and fall out of first place for the first time in a long time.

- Rays 6, Twins 4 – The Twins had 10 hits to the Rays four but were only 3-11 with men in scoring position and left nine guys on base. They rallied and scored a run in the ninth to cut the lead to two, but it wasn’t enough to overcome home runs from Sean Rodriguez and BJ Upton as the Rays and Jeff Nieman picked up yet another win.

Updated Standings

Rays 67 – 39, 0 GB

Yankees 66 – 40, 1 GB

Red Sox 61 – 46, 6.5 GB (5.5 GB of wild card)

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Estimated wins needed to make the playoffs – 37

Games remaining – 55

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Beckett picked up only his 2nd win in 10 starts yesterday, hopefully he can build on this momentum

A week and a half ago, the night before this west coast swing started, I wrote a state of the nation address. The main thing to take out of it was that the Red Sox were starting to get players back and all they needed to do was stay within striking distance of the Rays over the next ten days. Although it seems like they went 2-8 over the past three series, the Sox actually fared pretty well and won six of ten. I just happen to have each of the losses firmly entrenched in my brain due to the ridiculousness of them. Regardless, the Sox entered the trip only 3.5 games back of Tampa and came out of it 4.5 games back. And that is fine by me.

What excites me most about the coming weeks is the way the starting pitching has performed of late. Other than Clay Buchholz struggling in his first game back from the disabled list, the starters have been lights out. Of the six wins, the starter accounted for four of them and only two of the four losses. Hell, there were even two legitimate no hit bids (although one of them turned into a loss and the other took 13 innings to finish off). What we now have is everyone on fire at the same time. There is not a single weakness on this staff. Ignore the bullpen issues if you may. The way the last ten days have gone you should be disappointed if the starter goes less than seven innings making it difficult for even this bullpen to screw up too much, especially with Bard and Paps ready to go on most nights. I’m telling you, the way this team is now positioned they have the ability to win games in bunches. Do not be surprised if they win 20+ games in August and September. Call me optimistic, but (starting) pitching wins championships, and I’ll take this starting rotation combined with Paps and Bard over any team in the league. Enough said.

Dunn Would add the consistent bat that the Rays need

WEEI.com – According to a tweet from Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated, the Rays are “in [the] mix” for Nationals slugger Adam Dunn. Heyman tweets that Dunn would be a “big boost for [an] already great team.”

Yea, it would be a huge boost, one I would rather not have to deal with as we sit 4.5 games behind them. I am OK with the Rays as currently constituted. As is, I think the Red Sox will have plenty of time to catch up and ultimately pass them in the wild card standings. But if they start doing crazy things like trading prospects, adding salary, and adding players than we may have a problem.

In the end, I think the odds of a deal getting done are slim. As I just said, the Rays are cheap and notoriously difficult to trade with. They just aren’t really a team that is willing to sacrifice good prospects for a two month rental. But the thought of it is enough to make you a little queasy, isn’t it? Especially at a time when it looks like the Sox are going to stand pat and enter August with their current team. Hopefully this tweet was nothing more than media hoopla, otherwise it could be a long two months.

(Tito putting on a show)

What I Think I Think is a new feature here that encompasses random thoughts from around the world of sports. I have so much to say and so little time that I don’t get to blog about nearly as much as I would like to. Here, I can quickly give my two cents and move on without spending an hour on each post. Plus, if history is any indication, you people stop reading after the first paragraph anyways. So here is our first of many, What I Think I Think:

- Jed Lowrie is starting at shortstop this afternoon in his first game back from the 60 day DL. If nothing else this means we will see less of Bill Hall and especially Eric Patterson; at least until he gets hurt again.

- Is there anything worse than an extra inning game, on the west coast, that the Sox lose? I wasn’t even going to watch the game because Wake started, and he blows, but I noticed it was 4-4 when flipping through the channels and got sucked in. At least now there are much fewer west coast swings due to the imbalanced schedule. I feel like when I was growing up every other week was spent on the west coast and I would struggle to stay up past 11:30.

- Carl Crawford does not wear a cup. He may reconsider after this play. When it’s this close he should have been sliding head first anyways. Bet he won’t make that mistake again.

- You’ve got to love the routine Tito has when he is arguing with umpires. Has a nice slow jog out there making the ump wait for him. Puts his hands on his hips while telling the ump he is an idiot and he fucked up. Then he gets the head shaking when the ump tries to explain himself. Finally, he gets the finger pointing going with the head shaking as the tempers flare. It doesn’t even matter what he is saying, the finger pointing would be enough to make me think that I was wrong in a particular situation.

- I can’t believe I saw two different sources saying that Tom Brady will NOT hold out this summer. Gee, you think? Any idiot could have told you that. Say what you want about Brady. He isn’t the same player he used to be, he isn’t 25 anymore, he skips optional practices, he is more worried about nailing his super model wife than playing football, blah blah blah. But the dude is still Tom Brady. He understands the business and knows he is going to get his once this whole labor thing is figured out. Anyone who though he was going to hold out should no longer be allowed to speak.

- I’m going to be super pissed if the Rays end up getting Jayson Werth. I have ignored rumors of them going after Prince Fielder because, well, that is just silly. He is going to get like $15 million next season in arbitration and there is a 0% chance the Rays are willing to pay that. I guess they could turn around and trade him again in the winter, but that’s not really the rays style. Werth is actually a possibility as the Phillies have been aggressively shopping him and he will be a free agent at the end of the year so they aren’t on the hook for any salary beyond 2010. That being said, I still don’t think they get him making this entire paragraph pretty much a waste of space and time.

P.S. Who the hell spells their name JaYson. There isn’t a Y there, it’s obviously Jason. Geesh.

- I wish the Patriots could work something out with Logan Mankins. Unfortunately, it is not looking good. Expect a holdout and a potential trade by the end of the summer. *sigh*

ESPN.com — Five minor league players have been suspended for 50 games because they tested positive for steroids.

New York Yankees pitchers Daury Aquino and Alexander de los Santos tested positive for metabolites of Stanozolol, as did Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Joel Matos and Kansas City Royals pitcher Freddy Rodriguez.

Tampa Bay Rays catcher Jhancarlos Infante had a positive test for Boldenone.

So this means by default the Red Sox win the division, right? They’re out there working their asses off trying to get prepared to play this silly game all the while the Yankees and Rays are pumping their players with horse tranquilizers. Doesn’t seem fair to me. All I know is no Red Sox players have ever been suspended for a banned substance. Psh, oh well, we’ll just win it the old fashioned way. With pitching, defense, and more than half of our opening day roster on the DL.