Bad news for Sox fans, good news for Brewers fans

Posted on May 11, 2008
Filed Under Baseball Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment

The Brewers are coming into town this Friday to start off interleague play with a 3-game series. Most Sox fans have been looking forward to this since Eric Gagne signed with Milwaukee over the offseason. Why? Because we know that as long as there’s a save opportunity, we have a chance to win.

Unfortunately Gagne has officially been pulled from the closers role as of today and they’re going to use closer by committee from here on out.  Shucks..

Sox trade Bryan Corey to San Diego

Posted on May 11, 2008
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San Diego completed a trade today with the Sox for reliever Bryan Corey.  Boston will receive a player to be named later or cash considerations.

Portland Sea Dogs throw a combined 1-hitter

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under 2008 Season, Prospects | 1 Comment

It’s such a new feeling in the past 10 years to see our team have a promising farm system that I’m not sure how to react.

The Double-A Portland Sea Dogs threw a combined 1-hitter behind righty Michael Bowden yesterday who went 6 2/3 giving up just 1 walk and 1 hit. Hunter Jones retired the 4 batters he faced when he came into the game (3 on strikeouts) and Beau Vaughan set down the side in the 9th.

Bowden had a rough start to the season (0-2, 4.91 ERA in 4 starts) but after analyzing videotapes of himself on the mound, he has given up just 1 run in his last 18 2/3 innings while racking up 20 strikeouts.

Julio Lugo, you’re breaking my heart

Posted on May 7, 2008
Filed Under 2008 Season | Leave a Comment

This post WAS a disappointing memoir of last night’s game but it was poorly written and a spur-of-the-moment angerfest. Instead, we’ll just talk about Julio Lugo.

When will the cutoff point be for him? He’s committed 10 errors so far in 33 games. The Sox as a team have committed 20 total. To break that down for you, Julio Lugo has committed half of Boston’s fielding errors and commits an error once every 3.3 games. If he kept up this pace, he would have 49 errors in a 162 game season.

Are you kidding me? I miss A-Gonz.

Schilling to throw today

Posted on May 6, 2008
Filed Under 2008 Season, Injury Watch | 3 Comments

I didn’t think this day would ever come (and I was prepared for that) but Curt is going to throw for the first time all season today. He will throw 25 pitches from 60 feet. Everyone knows the background story so I won’t bore you with that but it looks like our starting rotation is going to get just a bit deeper. As for a time frame, I don’t see any way he’ll come back before the All-Star break but early August might be a safe bet.

Yankee fan murders a Red Sox fan

Posted on May 5, 2008
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It’s pretty sad when a persons love and devotion for a sports team gets manifested in violence. It happens quite often with football (soccer!) fans on the rest of the globe but not very often with fans of the “big 4″ sports in North America. Unfortunately ‘not very often’ is still way too often.

Authorities in New Hampshire have charged 43 year-old Ivonne Hernandez with reckless conduct and aggravated drunk-driving over the weekend after she ran over 2 Red Sox fans with her car (link). The fans were harassing (read: joking around) with the driver over a Yankees bumpersticker plastered to her ride. She didn’t find it very funny so she plowed them over. 29 year-old Matthew Beaudoin later died from the injuries he sustained thanks to this psycho-fan.

I’m guilty of wanting to punch a Yankee fan in the face once or twice (post-2003 ALCS) but to actually run someone over with a car is the mark of a sociopath.. or Jim Leyritz (sorry, couldn’t help myself.)
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Update: This story has now garnished national attention and it was found out in the aftermath that the young man who died, wasn’t even one of the people insulting the Yankees. My thoughts go out to his family and friends. What a waste.

Coco the Quote-Machine

Posted on May 5, 2008
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Say what you want about Coco Crisp and his vocal unhappiness about being a backup outfielder; but don’t you ever say that he doesn’t have a sense of humor.

When asked about the new speedier Boston team (their 26 stolen bases this season is the same as the amount of homeruns they’ve hit), Crisp came back with this gem: “But now we do [have speed]; Me, Ellsbury, Lugo, and Manny [Ramírez]. I think when you have the capabilities of stealing a base on a baseball team, it gives a different dynamic to your baseball team as well as having power.”

That is pure gold how he just slipped Manny’s name in there. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that a couple of days ago Ramirez stole his first base in 3 years.

Go speed racer go.

Sox to call up Hansen

Posted on May 4, 2008
Filed Under 2008 Season, 2008 Transactions | Leave a Comment

After outfielder Brandon Moss got his emergency appendectomy yesterday, the Sox found themselves with a player on the roster who wouldn’t be able to play for AT LEAST 2 weeks. A few hours after today’s win against the Rays, they decided to ship Moss back down to Pawtucket and bring up Hansen.

Hansen has been dominating at Triple-A Pawtucket (3 runs in 16 2/3rd innings) so far this season and didn’t do too bad during his brief call-up with the Sox earlier. He struck out 3 and allowed 1 run in 1 2/3rd innings.

Brandon Moss gets an appendectomy

Posted on May 4, 2008
Filed Under 2008 Season, Injury Watch | 1 Comment

Moss got an emergency appendectomy during yesterdays game against the Rays. Doctors said he is alright but the recommended recovery time for the procedure is close to 3 weeks. There hasn’t been any word yet if he will be sent to the DL or not (maybe) but I think its more likely that he’ll be sent back down to Pawtucket for a little while.

Sox look into moving their Spring Training home

Posted on May 1, 2008
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Red Sox spokesman John Blake admitted today that the team has spoken with officials in Sarasota, FL about possibly moving there in 2 years. The Reds will leave the facility empty after they move to Arizona and the Sox are looking into taking over where Cincinnati left off.

This is disappointing news, at least to me. My grandpa moved to Fort Myers about a decade ago so that him and my grandma would be somewhere warm, but more importantly, somewhere with a little bit of March Sox love. My grandfather has since passed away but my grandma still remains in Lee County and apart from seeing her and my other Sox Spring Training addicted relatives, visiting City of Palms Park is my biggest highlight. Hell, I even snuck in and patrolled the bullpen a few years back.

I hope they don’t move but they probably will. It doesn’t matter that Boston fans have moved to the area just for a pre-season peek at the players. Nor does it matter that they’ve sold out 73 consecutive games there.

What does matter is that they have to take 4+ hour bus trips to play anyone other than the Twins. I’m sure it also matters (just a bit huh?) that they can only fit 7,290 people into the park. Squeezing another 10 thousand people out of ticket money sure wouldn’t hurt the club.

Oh well. We’re still World Champs and 2010 is so far away.

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