Don't you hate it when your groin muscle pulls away from the bone?

When I awoke/stopped vomiting (due to being full of pre Thanksgiving travel food) this morning, I was planning to write about my thoughts on the various trade rumors surrounding the Boston Red Sox and Clay Buchholz. For the second off season in the past four years, one of the best pitchers in the AL is available on the trade market and numerous other players are within the realm of possibility.

But then I checked Extra Bases and found that the Curse of Nomar had struck again. I know we (Red Sox fans) are thought to be overly willing to call any amount of bad luck (or pure suckitude) a curse (like Shaughnessy’s made up Curse of the Bambino), but this time it really is a Billy Goat level curse. When Nomar Garciaparra was traded away from the Red Sox on July 31st 2004, he struck the team with a curse, not to have a successful shortstop (meaning one who didn’t make us want to swallow a winchester) while he was still in the league.

Today that curse came back to get us just when we thought things might be a little bit more settled. Alex Gonzalez, the Sox starting shortstop in 2006 and the guy who gave us some type of stability last August and September, was thought to be an option to come back. The team had declined a $6 million option on Gonzo a few weeks ago, but was still planning on offering him a one year $3 million deal, especially after he hit .280 down the stretch with an unexpected burst of power.

Then came this morning’s report that Gonzo had signed with the Toronto BJs for a one year deal worth $2.75 Mil. The Curse has struck again. The Sox will need another new shortstop.

So who will be the next bearer of the curse? The options are Marco Scutaro, a versatile guy who is coming off a career year, and, um, …. …. yeah. Adam Everett, Khalil Greene (best white guy name ever, it just makes me want to make jihad jokes) and Miguel Tejada are also options, but this is not 2006 and this is also not the NL West. The Sox need to get this settled, and a one year stopgap measure is not going to make it.

The other option that everyone is always mentioning is Orlando Cabrera, who took over for Nomar in 2004, but he has worn out his welcome on for other ballclubs since then, and was not resigned by the Sox for “Off-Field Issues,” which means that dudes boof him. Of course, I can’t confirm that, but since 2004, everybody who has been asked in public and may actually know has refused to answer for fear of being sued for libel.

More soon on all of the trade speculation, unless something went down at dinner tonight, Schilling style.

Happy Thanksgiving, Go Sox.

84 Days.

Done.

As usual in these situations, I’m going to cut to the completely unjustifiable chase.  We’re not getting the All-Star Game in 2012.  Kansas City is getting it.  I’ll give you a moment to recover from the shock before I continue, because believe me, this was one seriously twisted shock.  Okay.  Apparently, Kauffman Stadium recently completed major renovations.  How nice for Kauffman Stadium.  It’s brand-new, nice and clean, and very fan-friendly.  Congratulations, Kansas City; now Kauffman Stadium is just like every other ballpark that completes major renovations.

Just to review, the reason why we wanted the All-Star Game in 2012 is because Fenway Park will turn one hundred years old.  The oldest ballpark still in use in the United States of America will commemorate a century of baseball.  America’s Most Beloved Ballpark will celebrate its one hundredth birthday.  Think about what Fenway Park has seen in that time.  It’s seen the Royal Rooters, Tris Speaker, Duffy’s Cliff.  It’s seen Joe Cronin, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski.  It’s seen Nomar Garciaparra, David Ortiz, 2004, and 2007.  It’s seen a team of royalty followed by a team that committed cruel and unusual losses year after year after year, followed by royalty’s return.  If there is a structure in this country that embodies the history of the game of baseball within its very foundation, it’s Fenway Park.

And Fenway Park was denied.  Why? I have no idea.  What, they can give it to New York because it’s the last year of Yankee Stadium but they can’t recognize that America’s Most Beloved, and oldest, Ballpark will turn a century old? I mean, okay, so Kansas City hasn’t had the All-Star game in forty years and Fenway last had it thirteen years ago, in 1999 when none other than the Splendid Splinter threw out the first pitch.  But Fenway only turns one hundred years old once in a lifetime.  Kansas City could’ve gotten it in 2013.  In fact, it would’ve been okay by me if Kansas City had it every year for another forty years if only we could have it this one time.  Something just doesn’t seem right here.  I think I speak for all of Red Sox Nation when I say that we are extremely and profoundly disappointed and extremely and profoundly confused.

Zack Greinke won the AL Cy Young.  I’ll be very interested to see how he pitches next year.  I don’t think he’ll be as effective.  But I do think Josh Beckett is in line to have a break-out season so dominant that not even CC Sabathia can squeeze past him in the Cy Young voting.  Tim Lincecum won it for the NL, becoming its first repeat winner since Randy Johnson.  Andrew Bailey of Oakland and Chris Coghlan of Florida were the Rookies of the Year.  Mike Scoscia and Jim Tracy of Colorado were the Managers of the Year.  I don’t think I would’ve picked Mike Scoscia.  In my mind, there were three managers this year who faced significant uphill battles and who powered through them: Terry Francona, and then Ron Gardenhire and Ron Washington.  Terry Francona managed us through a lack of shortstop, the entry of a new starting catcher, a decline in the playing time of the team’s captain, a very public steroid scandal, and the worst slump in the career of the figure at the heard of said steroid scandal.  True, every manager deals with things behind closed doors, but what makes Tito’s job so difficult is that those doors are never closed completely.  It’s the nature of sports in Boston.  Gardenhire took the Twins from zero to one-game-playoff winners without Joe Mauer in the first month of the season, Justin Morneau in the last month, or a particularly effective bullpen.  And Washington almost made it to the playoffs this year without big-name talent.  All I’m saying is that, if the award goes to a Manager of the Year within the Angels organization, it should have gone to Torii Hunter, not Scoscia.  He was the real force in that clubhouse.  MVPs will be announced tomorrow.

Again, not much in the way of business yet.  Jason Bay rejected a four-year, sixty-million-dollar offer in favor of testing the free agent market for the first time in his career.  He’s Theo’s priority, though, and I still say he’ll end up back in Boston.  The Cards have already stated that they’re not interested, preferring Matt Holliday instead.  But I think this has the potential to be one of those long, drawn-out negotiations.  By the way, let’s not forget that Jermaine Dye is also a free agent.

We released George Kottaras, who has been claimed by the Brewers.  PawSox manager Ron Johnson will be our new bench coach.  We’re reportedly interested in Adrian Beltre, and we claimed reliever Robert Manuel off waivers.  Before the offseason is done, we’ll probably re-sign Alex Gonzalez and add a low-risk, high-potential starter.  Remember: in an economy like this, you do not need to, nor should you, empty your pockets to win a World Series, no matter what the Evil Empire might assume is the best practice.

Congratulations to John Henry on winning the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship.  Again, corporate social responsibility in this day and age is the way to go.  Unfortunately, though, ticket prices are up this year.  About half the seats were increased by two dollars, including the infield grandstand, right field boxes, and lower bleachers.  The field and loge boxes and Green Monster seats and standing room were increased by five dollars.  The outfield grandstand and upper bleachers weren’t increased.  Whenever you hear about price increases or decreases for tickets at Fenway, remember to always take them with a grain of salt.  Obviously we’d prefer a price freeze, but how many of us really purchase our Fenway tickets at face value anyway? I’m just saying.

So, as per usual this early in the offseason, we have more wait-and-seeing ahead.  Theo never reveals the tricks he has up his sleeve, so that’s really all we can do.

The Bruins suffered a particularly painful loss to the Islanders, 4-1.  I’d rather not talk about it.  We did best Atlanta in a shootout, though, and we eked out a win against the Sabres in sudden death.  That last one was particularly heartening, being that the Sabres are first in the division.  For now.  We’re only two points behind.  And now for the grand finale, let’s discuss Bill Belichick’s oh-so-positive judgment call on Sunday.  In the fourth quarter with a six-point lead, the Pats had the ball on their 28.  Tom Brady’s pass was incomplete.  With two minutes and eight seconds left on the clock, Belichick decided to go for it.  But Kevin Faulk fumbled the ball, and suddenly it was fourth and two.  Needless to say, we lost, 35-34, to the Colts, who are still undefeated.  I mean, it’s a tough call.  Belichick made the same decision against Atlanta and we won.  Then again, we had the lead, we had the time, and we had an opponent that wasn’t Indianapolis.  It was just bad.  It was just really, really bad.

Sawxblog/Derek Hixon

This week was basically all about options.  If we weren’t busy exercising somebody’s option, we were busy declining somebody else’s.  Hey, why not? They’re basically cheap locks; it’s a good way to keep a guy on board for minimal funds and minimal years.  That translates to flexibility, which is always a good thing.  Plus, it postpones contract negotiations, a solid strategy if you’ve got a lot on your plate during a particular offseason.

Case in point for that last one: Victor Martinez.  We exercised his option to bring him back as our starting catcher.  No surprise there.  And it’s no surprise that locking Victor Martinez for the long run is a top priority.  But that’s going to be a big project, so keeping him under contract until we can hammer out a new one is a good strategy.  The option effectively means that there’s no rush.  Expect Martinez to be back in a Boston uniform for the first of many years in 2011.  Although the arrival of Joe Mauer in the free agent market could potentially make that interesting.  It would probably play into our hands, being that Mauer will likely steal the show that year, leaving Martinez and us to take care of business.

Speaking of catchers, we declined our five-million-dollar option on Tek, but he picked up his three-million-dollar option, which includes another two million dollars’ worth of incentives, so our captain is coming back as a backup for three million dollars.  Not too bad, I’d say.  In terms of the role he plays on this team, there’s no better backup catcher out there for us, and being that he still has something left in the tank, it’s a pretty good deal.

Wakefield is coming back, folks.  Our deadline to pick up his option was Monday, and we agreed to a two-year deal with incentives that could boost the value of the contract up to ten million.  Within those two years, he’ll likely reach two hundred wins and 193 wins in a Red Sox uniform, a total that would break the current franchise record, held by both Roger Clemens and Cy Young.  Make no mistake: Wakefield would definitely be deserving.  How many other starting pitchers out there accept less money in favor of a tenure with a team that hadn’t won the World Series in almost a century, then voluntarily removed himself from the roster of the second World Series that team would go on to win because he felt he wouldn’t perform as well as another pitcher? Not many.  Believe that.

We declined our option on Alex Gonzalez, which was expected, but we’re still interested.  That’s also expected.  Jed Lowrie’s wrist sidelined him for essentially the entire season last year, and we need not just an everyday shortstop, but an everyday shortstop we can depend on.  That’s a luxury we haven’t had since Nomar wrote his one-way ticket out of town.  And with the improvement in offense he showed last year, Gonzalez would be a great fit.  Of course, what this gesture shows is that he’ll have to come at the right price.  Otherwise Theo won’t bite.

That’s basically all the news so far.  The GM meetings ended on Wednesday, so aside from these moves and Jeremy Hermida, we’ve been pretty quiet, but I don’t think that’ll last long.  Before the meetings ended, Theo met with John Lackey’s agent.  Smile, Red Sox Nation; Scott Boras is not John Lackey’s agent.  Free-agent negotiations with other teams start on Friday, so it’s likely he’ll be inundated with offers, but I could see us being a big player there.  We’re also supposedly interested in Dan Uggla; apparently there is potential in turning the second baseman into a left fielder.  Frankly, I don’t see that playing out.  Congratulations to Jason Bay, who won his first Silver Slugger! And that functions as even more of a reason for us to sign him.  I think we’ll focus our efforts there before we start turning infielders into outfielders.

In addition to options, the other big story at this point is arbitration.  We’ve got eight guys eligible: Casey Kotchman, now Jeremy Hermida, Ramon Ramirez, Fernando Cabrera, Brian Anderson, Hideki Okajima, Manny Delcarmen, and, you guessed it, Jonathan Papelbon.  The arbitration process will probably be more or less smooth sailing for the utility guys and the no-doubts, the players who have clear bargaining power due to their consistently good performances.  I’d put Ramon Ramirez and Hideki Okajima in the latter category.  As far as Manny Delcarmen is concerned, his second half was just bad, so he’ll probably take some sort of cut.  Jonathan Papelbon will be quite the case; I’ll be very interested to see how that goes.  He obviously packs a lot of bargaining power, but there’s also no ignoring the fact that his walk total was up and his postseason performance was…well, let’s not go there.  Let’s just say he’s less able to pull off the I-should-be-paid-Mariano’s-salary routine this time around.  Especially because Daniel Bard is coming on strong and Billy Wagner has stated that he might be open to an arbitration offer that would bring him back to Boston next year.  Let’s face it: he wants a ring, and in this day and age ballplayers who want rings come to Boston.

Nick Green and Joey Gathright have opted to file for free agency rather than accept minor league assignments.  Green had back surgery at Mass. General on Monday, by the way, so he’s facing an uphill battle as far as market value goes.  Dice-K is going to begin his conditioning program early this year.  Thankfully.  Finally.  I think I speak for all of Red Sox Nation when I say that we’re ready to see him ace this year.  Or at the very least spend more time on the roster than on the disabled list.  Theo and Tito are in the throes of their search for a bench coach, and they’ve narrowed it down to four: PawSox manager Ron Johnson, Lowell Spinners manager Gary DiSarcina, minor league field coordinator Rob Leary, and outfield and baserunning coordinator Tom Goodwin.  Promoting from within.  I like it.  Really, there’s no better way to ensure that a new member of the coaching staff knows the franchise and the players; many of the players currently on the team have played for these guys in their younger days.

We’re biding our time but staying in the loop.  I think there’s a potential for a serious blockbuster deal this offseason.  Whether it’s Lackey or Adrian Gonzalez or someone else, I don’t know.  I’ll leave that to the front office.  At this point, so much is kept under wraps that it’s hard to know exactly who we’re pursuing first or what our main focus will be.  But I will say that either of those guys would have a hugely positive impact on our team.  We’ll have to wait and see what happens, I guess.  It’s a long winter; the speculation keeps us going.  That’s just what the offseason is all about.

The Bruins played three games this week.  We shut out the Penguins, lost to the Panthers in a shootout, and lost to the Penguins in sudden death.  The Sabres lead us in the division by five points, but at least we’re ahead of the Habs.  The Pats beat the Dolphins.

AP Photo

My baseball card collection centers around two things. Cards of anyone who have EVER played for the Cincinnati Reds and autographs. However, any good baseball card collector knows and appreciates the significance of rookie cards. They are usually the most highly sought base card of a given player and that is often reflected by their “book value”. “Book values” mean nothing to me as I rarely sell cards and because nothing sells at book, but the pull of the RC still inspires me to acquire cards of guys I wouldn’t otherwise collect. Here are some rookie cards I have, I want, and I’m never going to get.

Got It:

1985 Topps Tiffany Eric Davis #627 PRO Gem-Mt

Sure it’s a less reputable grader but when I saw it on eBay I had to get it. Eric Davis is my favorite player and you can’t let something of that nature go. Especially because I didn’t even have an ungraded Tiffany RC at the time.

1991 Upper Deck Jeff Bagwell RC # 755

Being born and raised in the Houston area this is an essential card to my collection. Like most of my RCs this one is ungraded, but looking at eBay, I just might have to pick up a graded one soon. I saw BCCG 10s for under $10.

1992 Topps Manny Ramirez RC # 156

Here’s a card from way back when Manny Ramirez actually looked like a baseball player. I’m not much of a Manny fan due to his attitude. Leaving game 4 of the 2009 NLCS to shower early was kind of the last straw. But that aside, I can’t argue against the fact that he’s a great ballplayer so it’s pretty important for me to own this card.

1993 Topps Gold Derek Jeter # 98 AND 1993 Topps Derek Jeter #98

Ok, so a second ago I had this card in the Lost It category… I even published it like that. Well found it! I thought I traded this but apparently not. I’m pretty stoked. I’ve had this card for ages and it’s one of my favorite cards. I prefer the Gold over the base even though with RCs some people prefer the non-parallels.

1985 Fleer Kirby Puckett # 286

I forgot I owned this until I dug into my collection for this post. This an awesome RC and it’s ridiculous I’d forget owning such a card. I was a big collector of Kirby when I was young but that collection has long died out.

1986 Topps Traded Barry Bonds XRC # 11T

First of all, on behalf of baseball fans everywhere I apologize Mr. Bonds. You had the twilight of you career destroyed due to your steroid usage. But players who committed the same crime are still heroes to fans everywhere. It doesn’t make any sense to me either.

1989 Topps Traded Ken Griffey Jr. # 41T

Another card I thought I lost… Hooray! Turns out I had a box of rookie cards that I completely forgot about. This is my only Griffey RC and it’s a great cheap alternative to the 1989 Upper Deck RC.

1968 Topps Lou Piniella RC # 16

I’m not a fan of the Cubs and by extension not a fan of Sweet Lou right now. Except there’s one thing… This fella managed Eric Davis, Barry Larkin, Chris Sabo and the rest of the 1990 Reds to the World Series Championship. So when I saw the chance to pick this up the other day I jumped on it.

1997 Bowman Roy Halladay RC # 308

This is a card I pulled from a pack in 1997 and I quickly learned I needed to keep track of it. He turned into an ace and though the card hasn’t really appreciated in value it’s always been a cool card to me.

1995 Bowman Scott Rolen Foil RC # 271 PSA 9

This one hasn’t even arrived in the mail, but it’s definitely an essential card to my collection. Even before he found his way to the Reds it was a card I wanted but Ryan is the big Rolen collector so I wasn’t too compelled to go out and get one.

1990 Topps Frank Thomas RC #414

1990 Topps was one of the first products I got my hands on when I started collecting baseball cards. The NNOF (No Name On Front) variation of this card made it even more appealing back then, but I never acquired it until recently. In fact it’s still in the mail. But now I’m working on getting a graded version. For some interesting info on the NNOF variation go here. I also have the 1990 Bowman # 320

Ok that’s enough of what I have. Not too impressive. So there are some cards I really want to add to that and probably will within the next year.

Will Get It:

1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. #1

I would already own this but I’m holding out for a steal on a graded copy. This is my most coveted RC. Sure there are other RCs I’d have to choose over it because I could sell them and buy ten of this one. But all that common sense aside this is the one that I think of most often. (I’m not the only one who thinks this card is essential.)

1992 Topps Traded Nomar Garciaparra # 39T

I used to collect Nomar and still have a decent little collection of his cards. However it’s quite incomplete without this card. I still remember all the hype around it when it was seemingly discovered out of nowhere at the time Nomar really arrived. I should own it by this time next year.

1994 SP Alex Rodriguez # 15

Of these cards this will probably be the last one I get. I’d like to hold out for a graded one but they’re pretty expensive. A-Rod has done a lot to hurt his legacy. But I can’t help but be a fan of this card. Did you see his Jeter buttgrab?

Lost It:

1993 Bowman Derek Jeter # 511

I remember opening a pack of 1993 Bowman in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Conroe, TX. I pulled the Derek Jeter and an Albie Lopez. I also remember sitting in my friend’s room, trading this card away. All I remember getting in return was a Vladimir Guerrero IP autographed card. At least I remember part of what I got. I won’t whine and say I was a little kid who was taken advantage of. If I’m really thaaaaat worried about it I can go buy it again. Someday I will.

Luckily that list is short. Unluckily I love that card. So I guess there’s only one thing to mention. You can’t talk about rookie cards without mentioning this card. It is…

The Holy Grail:

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle # 311

Unless I win the lottery, it’s pretty safe to say that I’ll never own this card. I don’t play the lottery. So I don’t think it’s happening for me. But this is the holy grail of rookie cards.

Hopefully by this time next year I’ll have improved my RC collection. And to those of you who are saying “Why don’t you just go get some of those cards on eBay already?” well I have a couple other projects going on. I can’t afford to go after everything I want. Maybe I’ll write about those projects in the near future.

I agree 10,000 percent with your last point. And I wonder if I hadn’t made myself clear in my Nomar post. Hendry was jobbed on that trade. Not necessarily because of anything he gave up (primarily Francis Beltran — ugh! — and Brendan Harris — meh) but because he thought he was getting Nomar Fucking Garciaparra, the great shortstop.

What he really got, as I implied, was nomar garciaparra the fairly decent hitter and liability in the field.

My feelings on Hungry Jim have changed through the years. That’s probably because he’s the most Jeckyll and Hyde GM I’ve ever seen. Within his first two years on the job, he flushed Todd Hundley off the roster and swindled the Pirates and Marlins out of corner infielders who each can be reasonably argued as among the greatest ever in Cubs history at his position. Hendry exiled the drunken, bitter, impotent Son-of-the-Sainted-Randy to LA for Eric Karros and Mark Grudzielanek, who played key roles on the 2003 division champs. That summer, he shipped a minor league catcher, a grossly overhyped Triple A second baseman and an eminently forgettable major league infielder to Pitt for Aramis Ramirez, whom the Bucs had soured on for reasons known only to a team that has spent the last 17 years under .500. A few months later, he sent Hee Seop Choi to the Fish for Derrek Lee.

So for a brief shining moment, I hailed Hungry Jim as a cross between Branch Rickey and Isaac Newton.

But then…, but then, but then. Hungry Jim, the big boss man of the Cubs allowed Johnnie B. Baker to cripple Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. Hendry signed everybody and his brother on the team to big, fat, long-term, no-trade-clause contracts and now he’s stuck with them. He showered Alfonso Soriano with gold through 2014 (when he’ll be 38 years old, unable to run around the mound — much less the bases, and still incapable of laying off the outside curve.) He allowed Baker to miscast LaTroy Hawkins as a closer. When the time came to dump Sammy Sosa, Hendry did everything he could — up to and including releasing security video of Sammy ditching the last game of the season — to destroy whatever trade value he had left. After losing out on free agent Rafael Furcal, Hendry panicked and traded a trio of decent minor league arms for the indecent Juan Pierre. Then he upended the roster of a team that had just won 97 games to sign the Lee Harvey Oswald of Major League Baseball, Milton Bradley (I didn’t do what they say I did…, I’m a patsy!)

Every night before I go to bed, I pray to the god I don’t believe in to make Jim Hendry suddenly want to up and join the Peace Corps.

Yeah, you’re right. To say, as you did, that the Cubs have not shown savvy in acquiring players (even allowing for the aforementioned glaring exceptions) is to utter the understatement of the century. And, yeah, I’m jealous as hell of a guy for whom 95 wins isn’t enough.

That said, let’s get down to cases. Is it possible for the 2010 Cubs to win anything near 95 games? Phe-e-e-e-w!

I’ll go so far as to say I’d bet the new home deed that they won’t. They can, though, win 85 to 92 games — anything within that range might well be enough to cop the NL Central. And, as I’ve said many times before, once you get into the playoffs anything can happen.

They need, as even a teething baby knows, to get rid of Gameboard. When Bradley was suspended for the remainder of the season in September, players literally lined up to tell reporters how much they approved of his banishment. That’s unheard of. It’s also prima facie evidence they see his mental illness (trust me on this diagnosis) as an unneeded distraction.

If they can palm him off on a sucker, they need to find a second baseman, a shortstop and a centerfielder. Yuck. Conventional wisdom holds that the core of a good team is up the middle. And if Geo Soto doesn’t lay off the post-toke munchies, they’ll need a catcher, too. Yikes!

Did I say 85-92 wins?

Well, yeah, I did. They have a terrific starting staff, even if it is nominally led by the puerile, bullying, prickish knucklehead, Carlos Zambrano. Ted Lilly really is the ace of the staff (his signing is another example of Hendry as Dr Jeckyll.) Ryan Dempster is a decent number three and Randy Wells appears to be a nice end-of-the rotation guy. Sweet Lou will choose between Tom Gorzelanny, Sean Marshall and Milo Samardzija’s bastard son for the fifth starter spot — not a bad choice to be faced with.

The bullpen looks fine as long as Hendry can re-sign lefty John Grabow. Carlos Marmol now seems to be taking to the closer’s role better than the set-up man’s. Angel Guzman and a slew of live-armed kids (Berg, Caridad and Stevens) will fill out the pen.

The entire staff ought to keep the team ERA hovering around 4.00, which should be good enough as long as the Cubs can find a way to score runs. If Soriano and Soto bounce back nicely, D-Lee doesn’t suddenly grow old before our eyes and Aramis simply does what he’s been doing for seven straight years, that division title is no pipe dream.

My fingers are crossed that — in lieu of some shocking blockbuster deal — Ryan Theriot and Jeff Baker can man the keystone without embarrassing themselves. As for centerfield, well, um, Hey AJ, you got a mitt?

So, we’ve had a week to recuperate from last weekend’s miserable postseason showing.  I’m not going to sugarcoat it because, quite frankly, I’m still bitter about it.  And I think Red Sox Nation will agree with me that it’s frustrating to make sure you can watch the playoffs in their entirety, only to find out that your playoffs that year consisted of three games during which the team you’d been watching for the entire season didn’t even show up.  I’m just saying.

Evidently we have some work to do, and when I say “we” I especially mean Theo Epstein.  There is a reason why we were swept in the first round.  We had a hitting issue.  If you think about it, we didn’t have a pitching issue.  Lester made a mistake with Torii Hunter on the mound, Josh Beckett had one bad frame in the seventh, and Clay Buchholz, the vindicator of the entire 2009 postseason for the Boston Red Sox, delivered an absolutely stellar performance, and Theo has confirmed his membership in the 2010 starting rotation.  But the hitting issue was glaring and significant.  Even reflecting on the regular season.  In past years, when the team slumped, we were at least able to manufacture runs through walks and small ball.  This year, when we slumped, we didn’t reach base at all.  So let’s discuss how to solve this hitting issue.

Starting with Tek.  This was a hot topic last offseason, and while it’s not going to be as hot this year, it’s going to be just as significant.  After we acquired V-Mart at the trading deadline, Tek became our backup catcher.  V-Mart would’ve had playing time no matter what, given his diversity in the field, but it was his offense that did the captain in.  Theo has confirmed that V-Mart will start next year.  The Red Sox probably won’t exercise their five-million-dollar option for next year, so it’ll be up to Tek to exercise his option, worth three million, and just accept the fact that he’s no longer a starter, which he did this year with composure and grace, teaching V-Mart everything he knows to prepare him to catch each arm.  Will Tek exercise the option? I think he will.  And I would even go so far as to say that Tek may join our coaching staff after he retires.  Meanwhile, Tek’s solid defense behind the plate makes him one of the best defensive backup catchers there is, and having him on the roster would allow V-Mart to play other positions if necessary.  And let’s not forget the fact that Tek is our captain.  And the fact that he was a good soldier this season proves yet again that he deserves that “C” on his jersey.

We need a shortstop.  There’s no getting around that.  We’ve needed a shortstop ever since Nomar wrote his one-way ticket out of town.  Jed Lowrie needs insurance for his wrist, but that insurance probably won’t come in the form of Alex Gonzalez.  He’s got a six-million-dollar club option for next year, but that’s a steep figure in this economy, and unfortunately Theo probably won’t be picking that up.  It doesn’t look like we’ll be making any blockbuster deal for a power bat at that position, so look for Theo to focus more on defense.  Which Julio Lugo made painfully clear.

We also need to resign Jason Bay.  Let me repeat that.  We need to resign Jason Bay.  He’s an excellent hitter and fielder, walks more than most in the American League, and, oh, by the way, he hustles and he’s drama-free.  To be honest, it’s either him or Matt Holliday, but he’s been here, he’s used to this city, and he’s put up great numbers.

Oh, and we need David Ortiz to be a force again.  None of this one-home-run-in-his-first-forty-plus-at-bats business.  That won’t fly.  We need Big Papi back.  A big part of that will be monitoring his off-season program.

Mike Lowell’s situation is a bit tricky.  Tito expects him to be healthier than ever next year, and indeed he showed flashes of brilliance in the field in Anaheim.  But that’s just it.  We were in Anaheim, where the weather was warm and stable.  In Boston, it’s either hot or cold.  I’m not necessarily saying that we should get rid of Mike Lowell because I think he’s valuable to our club, both as a third baseman and perhaps as a DH when Ortiz gets the day off.  I’m just saying that we need to watch him closely.  Very, very closely.

Even though our pitching was definitely a strong point this season, there are some interesting discussions on that end, too.  Theo is insisting that Dice-K adequately prepare himself for Spring Training this year.  I couldn’t agree more.  And I will be furious if he’s a World Baseball Classic ace at Boston’s expense.

Wakefield had surgery on his back a few days ago to correct a loose fragment in his back that’s been bothering him since July.  It’s been significant; he’s had trouble walking because of weakness in his left leg.  But the surgery has minimal recovery time, so barring any complications, expect him to show up on time for Spring Training.

Billy Wagner’s agent says that he wants to pitch next season, and why not? Dude’s still got it.  The Red Sox agreed not to pick up his option for next season, so he’ll be testing the waters, but he says his family is his top priority.

Sooner or later, we have to start restoring our faith in Papelbon.  I personally am not completely ready to do that yet.  In a broad sense, it’s the lineup’s fault that we’re sitting on our laurels right now with nothing to do, baseball-wise, for the rest of October, but Papelbon just rubbed salt in the wound.  If you’re one pitch away multiple times, there’s no reason to not record the out already.  But I digress.  The point is, he’s still our closer, and he’s obviously shaken.  At some point this winter, we’ll have to remember the fact that he’s got some of the best stuff in the Majors and that he’s one of the elite closers in the game.  Even if he did ultimately play an integral part in our postseason downfall.  On a related note, I think it’s safe to say that the eighth inning has “Daniel Bard” written all over it.

But after all is said and done, I think one of the absolutely most important roles we need to fill this offseason is that of Kevin Millar.  He was the essence of the 2004 World Series champion Boston Red Sox.  He exuded a winning spirit, kept the clubhouse loose, and helped take the team to the top.  Right now, Dustin Pedroia is the emotional leader of this team, but after this year’s ALDS I think it’s safe to say that he needs some help.  Someone to spark the squad when the going gets tough and the tough need to hit.  Someone, ironically and unfortunately, like Torii Hunter.

All of that is to say that our front office has its hands full.  It’s not like last year where we barely didn’t make it.  This year we didn’t make it by a mile.  Something must be done.  I’ll leave it to Theo to ultimately decide what, who, when, and how, but I think we have effectively established the why.  The only thing we as fans can do now is look forward to 2010.  Meanwhile, the Bruins are 3-4-0 in the first seven games of the season.  We’re in third place in our division.  We’ve had some very spotty play, so I’m looking forward to some improvements.

The Future Blog of the Boston Red Sox

MLB Trade Rumors, one of my favorite sites, talks today about the Red Sox shortstop hole since the team traded Nomar Garciaparra to the Cubs in 2004. According to mlbtr, the Cherry Hose have used 19 shortstops in the intervening years. Yikes.

The Nomar deal was Jim Hendry at both his best and his worst.

I heard about the deal on the radio on a Saturday afternoon, the day of the trading deadline, moments before a game against the Phillies. The Cubs, of course, were scuffling to return to the post-season after they, gulp, had come within five outs of the World Series the previous year. In fact, Sports Illustrated’s baseball preview issue that March had featured Kerry Wood on the cover along with the heart-breaking prediction, “Hell Freezes Over: The Cubs Will Win The World Series!” The dopes.

Nomar Fucking Garciaparra! I could not believe my ears. He was one of the holy trinity of shortstops of the late 90 and early aughts. He, A-Rod and Jeter. The three had revolutionized the position. Oh sure, there’d been slugging shortstops before — our very own Ernie, Milwaukee’s Yount, the Tigers’ Trammell, and the Orioles’ Ripken, but they were anomalies, outliers. No team had a right to expect its shortstop to slug 30 homers or hit in the .370s. But Nomar and his fellow Short-sketeers did that kind of thing and more.

Nomar Garciaparra. The Cubs were nine games over .500 that day. They stood in second place 10 games behind the surprising Cardinals. There was still plenty of time to catch the Birds or, failing that, to win the Wild Card. All the Cubs had to do was make the post-season. With that starting pitching — Wood, Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, Greg Maddux and Matt Clement — the Cubs would scare the poo out of all comers in the playoffs. The shortstops prior to the deal had been Ramon Martinez and Alex S. Gonzalez. Nice fellows, I’m sure. Loved by their families. Upstanding citizens. Horseshit shortstops.

Jim Hendry smelled blood that Saturday and arranged the mother of all four-team trades. Working with Theo Epstein in Boston as well as the Twins and the A’s, Hendry snagged Nomar Garciaparra. The team was complete. Not a hole in the lineup.

When Hendry sets his sights on a target, he’ll move heaven and Earth to get him. When Johnnie B. Baker seemed to have fallen out of favor with the Giants at the end of the 2002 season, Hendry bided his time as all the other candidates he’d interviewed for his vacant manager’s position took jobs elsewhere. No one could say if the Giants would retain their World Series skipper. But Hendry still waited. Some ten days after the Series ended, Hendry and Baker held a press conference together.

After the Cubs had stunk up the joint in 2006, finishing last with a 66-96 record, Hendry identified Lou Piniella as the man who’d lead them out of the darkness. Lou, who was 62 at the time and happy doing occasional color commentary for Fox Sports, was persuaded to come aboard thanks to Hendry’s silver tongue and TribCo’s fat wallet.

Then Hendry spied Alfonso Soriano on the free agent market. Possessed of rabbit speed and Paul Bunyan power, Soriano was the jewel of the 2006-07 off-season. Hendry outbid the Angels and others for his services over dinner one November night. He told Fonzie they wouldn’t leave the table until the player had shaken on a deal.

Last off-season, Lou hinted to Hungry Jim that the Cubs might want to add a little left-handed thunder to the lineup. Whereupon Hendry inked Milton Bradley, who’d just turned in the season of his career.

It’s refreshing to have a Cub honcho who’s greedy, impatient, unafraid to take a gamble,  and doesn’t care how much he has to spend to bring a winner to Wrigley. And Hendry is nothing but greedy, whether it comes to Jack Daniel’s, crullers or big-name outfielders.

On the other hand, with the arguable exception of Lou, each of the aforementioned coups looks like the result of a man picking answers out of a hat. Yeah sure, Baker was known as a players’ managers who could handle moody superstars but he also had a rep as a destroyer of young arms. The core of the team Hendry entrusted Dusty with was that young pitching staff. Oops.

Soriano was hoped to challenge the 40-40 barrier every year for the foreseeable future when he became a Cub. But his are a young player’s skills and he was already approaching his mid-30s.

Bradley, of course, has long been known as the loose cannon of the big leagues. Yet Hendry still exposed him to the pressure cooker that is Wrigleyville. That big left-handed bat, impaired by several mini-nervous breakdowns this past summer, produced a single home run and a paltry nine RBI.

Even the Lou hiring can be second guessed. Piniella remade the team in his image, sure, refashioning the attitude in the clubhouse in the process. But when the Cubs backslid this year, the old goat seemed as interested in the proceedings as a freshman in algebra class.

So, yeah, the Bosox have burned through 19 shortstops since they exiled Nomar to the North Side. But they knew that despite his big name, Garciaparra was about finished being Garciaparra. He was rapidly and dramatically becoming just another ballplayer. They found a willing taker in a man who loves Big Names.

The Red Sox, though, have won the World Series twice since that deal. The Cubs? Well…, you know.

If you give an average team multiple chances to beat you, they will.

If you give the New York Yankees multiple chances to beat you, they definitely will.

The New York Yankees took advantage of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim leaving a small village (16 to be exact) on base and some more bad defense to beat the Angels 4-3 in 13 innings to take a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven series.

Before I get into the finer points of the game, this game was just a perfect example of why the NFL has passed MLB in popularity. This was a really good game that ended at 1:15 AM ET.

Casual fans and more importantly, young kids on the east coast aren’t staying up to watch the end of these games. It’s absolutely absurd that on a Saturday night, you would start a game at 8:00 at night.

This game should have been started at 4:00 ET. Do you ever see an NFL Conference Championship game end at 0ne in the morning? No, you don’t.

The NFL makes sure that in their most important games, everyone can see the end. There is probably a nine-year-old kid living in NYC, who has never seen the end of a Yankees playoff game.

Way to alienate your fan base Bud. Keep up the good work!!!

Now let’s get to the actual game itself. This was a great game. Was it the best game I have ever seen? No, but it was really good.

A lot can happen in 13 innings of play, so here were the most important things I noticed last night:

• Does Joe Girardi get paid by the pitching change? I have never seen a manager overmanage like Girardi does. He is so high-strung and uptight that the Yankees win despite him.
• Can we finally stop talking about Bobby Abreu’s patience at the plate? You can be patient all you want, but at some point you have to hit the ball. Abreu went 0-5 last night and is now 0-9 for the series.
• Robinson Cano didn’t show up last night. If this guy had a heart, he could be Derek Jeter. Instead he will be more like Nomar Garciaparra. And that wasn’t a compliment.
• The Angels found out that Brian Fuentes isn’t an October closer. You could see that HR to Alex Rodriguez coming a mile away. You can’t throw the ball right over the plate on an 0-2 count. Terrible pitch
• Thankfully Jerry Layne’s atrocious call didn’t hurt the Angels. Apparently the neighborhood play applies to every neighborhood except the Bronx. I thought that was going to be the Angels Joe Mauer moment.
• Vladimir Guerrero is toast. Vlad killed the Angels last night. Every big spot he came up in–he failed. We are definitely seeing Vlad’s last AB’s as an Angel.
• How great is Mariano Rivera? He has moved into the Albert Pujols category of guys that are so good we don’t appreciate them enough. Greg Maddux was in that category as well.
• I was really impressed with Joe Saunders last night. Two runs, one walk, and five K’s in seven innings. I didn’t think he had that type of game in him.
• Why was Gary Mattews Jr. hitting for Mike Napoli? Is Matthews really a better hitter at this point than Napoli? I don’t think so.
• The Angels’ defense has been horrible in two games. Five errors in two games and it should be six. The ball that dropped between Chone Figgins and Erick Aybar wasn’t technically an error, but it was.
• Mark Teixeira should be thanking god for Rodriguez. If it wasn’t for Rodriguez’s heroics time after time, the New York media would be killing Teixeira. He is 3-for-22 in the postseason.
• Can Figgins just pick up the ball? If he just picks up the ball, he nails Freddy Guzman at the plate on that final play of the game.

Hero for Game Two – Alex Rodriguez

Goat for Game Two – Vladimir Guerrero

Series MVP – Mariano Rivera

Game Three is Monday at 4:07 ET. At least kids on the east coast will see the end of this game.

I know I am not the first person to point out when companies recycle images for baseball cards. But I might be the first person — OK, maybe not — to ask what the hell Topps was thinking when they created these two 2002 Topps Total Nomar Garciaparra cards.

Upon first inspection, it looks like we are viewing two copies of the same exact card. Same design, same color scheme, same image: Same card, right? Wrong. One of these is the base card, and the other in an insert team checklist card. I’m all for team checklists cards, especially when the cards actually feature a player or the entire team. But don’t ya think things would be better if they had used a different image here? I damn near dismissed one of these cards from my collection after mistaking it for being a duplicate.

Six-time All-Star Nomar Garciaparra, now long removed from his heydey in Boston, has adjusted to his new role as a utility player with the Oakland Athletics.

Source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374903518375242.html

Cutting to the chase yet again, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were both revealed to be on the list of the roughly one hundred baseball players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drug use in 2003.  Neither will be punished by the league because suspensions were only introduced in 2004.  But this season just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it.

Isn’t it funny how the New York Times is always the one to break these stories? And with a decidedly anti-Red Sox bent, too.  “Now, players with Boston’s championship teams of 2004 and 2007 have also been linked to doping.” Like we couldn’t figure that out from the headline.  And isn’t it funny how, out of one hundred-plus names, these were the only two that were leaked? To a New York newspaper? On the front page? Mere moments before game time? When David Ortiz was scheduled to be in the lineup? It’s just strange, is all I’m saying.

The first thing I’d like to say is that the tests in 2003 were called for by Bud Selig to determine the percentage of baseball players who were using.  The results were supposed to be destroyed.  They weren’t; they were supposed to remain anonymous.  And that’s the kicker.  You can’t just release only a handful of the one-hundred-plus names on the list; it’s completely unfair.  If you release some, you have to release all.  Not doing so allows unclean players to masquerade as clean and point fingers to the unclean when really they’re all in the same boat.  And it’s deceiving; it makes it easy for people to forget that at that time this was prolific.  Furthermore, according to Nomar, because the test was anonymous and only for the purposes of determining whether testing was necessary, many players intentionally refused to be tested, thereby allowing themselves to be associated with positive results, in order to push the number of positive players over the top, which would force Bud Selig to implement tests.  This is definitely something to be kept in mind when future revelations of names are made.  Unless that’s not altogether true.  And in this day and age, you can’t be too sure.  Either way, the point is that, as it stands now, the list totally irrelevant.  Just sayin’.

Usually in these situations, the logic of choice would be that of superficial fairness.  Yes, it looks like Manny Ramirez was possibly David Ortiz were taking steroids at the time.  (I’ll explain the “possibly” in a moment.) Just like Jason Giambi and Alex Rodriguez.  And that by taking steroids, Manny and Papi actually evened the playing field.  The Yankees had cheaters on their team.  We had cheaters on our team.  So we still won, and we were still the better team.  Plain and simple.

But I’m not going to employ that logic, because I am a member of Red Sox Nation, and I root for a team that deserves more than just the cheap, dirty, easy way out.  When the first news of Manny Ramirez broke, I said that neither the 2004 nor the 2007 World Series victories are tainted, and I stand by that.  Yes, it looks like Manny Ramirez and possibly David Ortiz were taking steroids at the time.  But they were only two on a team of forty.  To taint those two victories is to besmirch the rest of the team without due cause.  True, they played an enormous part in both, but without the team they would’ve gotten nowhere.  David Ortiz hit walk-off home runs in the 2004 playoffs. In order for those home runs to win the game, other runs had to have been scored and plated by other players.  Like Mark Bellhorn, Bill Mueller, Pokey Reese, Trot Nixon, Orlando Cabrera, Dave Roberts, and Kevin Millar, to name a few.  What about them? They played more of a part in those wins than just two guys.  So when Yankee fans, or anyone else for that matter, try to void 2004, they’re just grasping.  Men don’t win championships.  Teams win championships.  And I think I speak for all of Red Sox Nation when I say that we are not about  to let the superficial fan or the weak of heart slander two entire teams of upstanding ballplayers.

Now, that begs the question of who else on the 2004 team tested positive, but we have to work with the information available.  And I can guarantee you right now that every member of that team did not dope.  Doping had to have been an isolated incident, done on an individual basis.  It wasn’t something that ran rampant in the clubhouse.  We didn’t have a trainer injecting people or a supplier doling out pills.  The clubhouse, then, was clean, and as a team, we won honorably.  As a team, we were clean because we did not condone this behavior.  And we still don’t.

And now we get to discuss the “possibly.” David Ortiz admitted that, when he was a young man in the Dominican Republic just breaking into the game of baseball, he’d started buy protein shakes without really knowing for sure what they contained.  It’s possible that they contained PEDs and he just didn’t bother to check.  There’s no excuse for that.  But there is a difference between that and the actions of Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds.  It’s possible that he tested positive in 2003, figured it must have something to do with an ingredient in the shake, and stopped drinking them, which coincides with the fact that starting in 2004 he tested clean, a fact we have records to prove.  And the plausibility of this possibility is actually confirmed by the fact that Bronson Arroyo has publicly stated that he was taking androstenedione and amphetamines.  He stopped taking the andro because he found out it was laced with the steroid Winstrol due to “lax production standards.” Apparently, back then, it wasn’t that rare to take something without bothering to check what was in it.  (Arroyo stopped taking the andro in 2004 and the greenies in 2006, when each was respectively banned.) Manny Ramirez is another matter entirely, but we can’t pass judgment on David Ortiz.  Not yet anyway.  Not after he issued a public statement through the Red Sox during which he said he knows nothing, wants to find out all he can, and will explain the situation to the public as soon as he has more information.  This is not the usual skulking off that guilty users practice.  He’s being responsible; the first thing he did was confirm with the Players Association that the report is true.  This is exactly in the style of Big Papi, always open with the media and up-front with the fans.  We owe him our patience while he figures this whole thing out.

Believe it or not, that was the easy stuff.  Deep down, we all know the wins aren’t tainted.  We all know that, as both a team and a clubhouse, we’re clean and honorable.  We know it, we believe it, and it’s easy to explain why, and I’ve done that.  Now comes the hard part.   The part where you realize how painful it was to discover this, how frustrated you were to read it, especially on the front page of a New York newspaper.   I won’t lie; it hurt bad.   And if it comes to pass that he was ingesting PEDs a-la Bonds and A-Rod, I’ll be even more disappointed in David Ortiz.  But we’ll cross that bridge when and if we come to it.  As it is, it stabs you right in the heart.  It makes you angry that he could be so ignorant and stupid as to get caught up in all of that, and it frustrates you even more because you know you can’t judge yet since you don’t have all the details.  And it makes you sad.  But what makes you even sadder is that there are people out there who’ll try to take away from you what you’ve rightfully earned, based on the mistakes of two misguided men.  Whether one of them acted with a certain intent or not.

If there’s one thing we have to take away from this, it’s that it’s wrong to let unclean players give the clean a bad name by hiding among them.  Similarly, it’s wrong to accuse the clean of being unclean just because a realistic outcome could maybe, possibly, sort of be construed to fit an anomalous behavior.  That’s slander.  When the press does it, it’s libel.  And it’s illegal.  Just to give you an idea of how grave an offense defamation can be.  Red Sox Nation is better than that.  The Royal Rooters raised us better than that.

I was very surprised to hear about this.  I know, I know, technically this shouldn’t have surprised me.  Maybe I relate too much to the pre-steroid era, or maybe I’m stubbornly non-cynical; I don’t know.  Whatever it is, there are things I do know.  I know that 2004 ended the Curse of the Bambino and that 2007 reminded us it wasn’t just a dream.  I know that the retired numbers hanging on the right field roof deck represent players who couldn’t be paid to look at a PED.  I know that the men wearing our uniforms now know what not to do.  Behavior like this doesn’t fly in Boston.  Never has.  Never will.  And finally, I know that when I look at a Red Sox jersey, at the World Series trophies, and the youth of the 2009 club, I’m looking at things and people I can respect.  Clubs like ours have learned from their predecessors’ mistakes, and the things they will achieve without the aid of PEDs will be even better than anything that could be achieved with them, because of their absence.

So, that’s that.  I’m not naive.  I just refuse be as cynical and detached as many other baseball fans and sports writers are being.  The situation’s awful, but it is what it is.  Hopefully, and I mean hopefully, this’ll be the last such issue I’ll have to address.

Boston Globe Staff/Jim Davis

Deconstructing Matt Holliday

Or that’s what it has to feel like now that he’s transitioned his MLB life from hitting with injury-riddled steroid freaks like Jason Giambi and Nomar Garciaparra in the offensive black hole that is Oakland’s McAfee Coliseum to hitting behind merely the best in the game, Albert Pujols, with the St. Louis Cardinals. 

Fantasy owners who traded for Holliday before his trade from Oakland to St. Louis were treated to a surge in his overall value. Wish I had been more proactive in recognizing how much his situation could have improved by getting dealt from the A’s.

Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz (center) hugs teammate Mike Lowell after hitting a go-ahead three-run home-run. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

After being informed that he was on “The List”, Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz had a game to play, the series finale against the Oakland Athletics. He was frustrated and disappointed, just like his teammates and fans, and took his anger out on Gio Gonzalez, the A’s 23-year old starting pitcher. He clocked the first pitch he saw off the Green Monster for his 22nd double of the season, moving Jason Bay, who walked to begin the second inning, over to third base.

Boston scored one run in the frame and their 1-0 lead stood until the sixth inning. Starting pitcher Jon Lester, who walked none and allowed six hits over the first five innings, issued a one-out walk to Orlando Cabrera that fueled his implosion. Former Red Sox great Nomar Garciaparra, who was serenaded with applause upon reaching the plate, singled to continue his torrid month. Jack Cust followed by drawing his ninth walk against Boston this season, loading the bases. The bases were cleared soon enough, with rookie Tommy Everidge tying the game with a sacrifice fly, Bobby Crosby giving the Athletics the lead with a double, and Rajai Davis adding insurance with a two-run twobagger. Lester’s once promising outing ended in disappointing fashion, silencing the sellout crowd. But who was there to brighten his fans and team’s spirits? Big Papi Ortiz.

Ortiz patiently worked a one-out walk in the bottom of the sixth, then after a wild pitch moved him to second base, he scored on a double by Mike Lowell. Leave it to Ortiz, a determined, angered, and rejuvenated Ortiz at that, to fuel another rally. He wasn’t about to make this day more disappointing to Red Sox Nation than it already was. For now, he wanted to let his bat do the talking.  That’s fine by me.

So once Ortiz strode to the plate in the seventh with two on with two out and his team down two, it was a forgone conclusion that he would deliver. Jason Bay walked again and Kevin Youkilis doubled him over to third to set his stage. He took ball-one, then was late on a high fastball, fouling it back into the crowd. He took a similar pitch that missed inside, putting him into a hitter’s count. Craig Breslow, a former Red Sox prospect, inexplicably challenged him again with another fastball. A month ago, throwing three straight fastballs to Ortiz wouldn’t have been a problem, but not to the Ortiz with a steroid cloud hanging over his head.

Ortiz didn’t release all of his anger with his second inning double. No, he still had plenty bottled up, hopefully enough to last the rest of the season. He relinquished a bit more on Breslow’s mistake that was thrown low, in Ortiz’s wheelhouse. The slugger didn’t miss it, clubbing the offering high and deep to center-field. Upon contact, the crowd rose as one, thrusting their arms in the air in celebration. Ortiz’s fourteenth home-run of his nightmarish season landed 420 feet from where he stood. Everyone was clapping, cheering on the player who made their 2004 World Series run possible. The sound was deafening as Ortiz headed home. As he touched home-plate, he slapped hands with Bay and Youkilis then gave Lowell a huge hug. This was no ordinary home-run.

Manager Terry Francona, waiting on the top step of the dugout, slapped hands with Ortiz. He received high-fives all around from his teammates. They knew of his steroid use, but it didn’t matter to them. What mattered was the present, Ortiz’s blast and the smiles that followed.

On the New England Sports Network broadcast, the camera focused on a boy probably around the age of ten standing in the front row dressed solely in Red Sox gear. He was full of joy, celebrating his hero’s home-run. He could have known about Ortiz’s past steroid use, but you couldn’t tell. If he didn’t however, when he eventually heard the news, hopefully he reminded himself of of how happy he was at the ballpark. How happy he was to see one of his favorite players, steroid-free, lead his Red Sox to victory. Hopefully he forgave Ortiz, as we all should.

(from left) Dustin Pedroia, Mike Lowell, and Nick Green dejectedly look on during a pitching change in the eleventh inning after the Oakland Athletics took the lead against their Boston Red Sox. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

On the eve that Jim Rice, recently enshrined into the Hall of Fame, had his number 14 retired, the team he began and retired with, the Boston Red Sox, did everything they could over the first eight innings to make his night that much more special. With a three-run lead and closer Jonathan Papelbon set to take the mound for the ninth inning, Boston was in prime position to take advantage of a rare loss by the New York Yankees, move up in the American League East standings, and send their fans, including Rice, home happy.

After starting pitcher Clay Buchholz allowed two runs in the top of the second inning, his Red Sox offense exploded in the third inning for five runs. Buchholz struggled through the first two frames and threw a lot of pitches over his remaining three-plus, but pitched very effectively. He worked out of multiple jams, holding the Oakland Athletics offense at bay to keep his team’s three-run lead intact.

Boston added to their lead in the sixth, stretching the margin to four once Mike Lowell laced a rbi-double off starting pitcher Vin Mazzaro. The Red Sox were in business and, with Buchholz out of the game, had their bullpen set up to their liking against the light-hitting Athletics.

Oakland, like their teams of years past, always find ways to compete despite their low payroll and a roster full of relatively unknown players. Their lineup doesn’t have a hitter batting over .300 this season and is made up of both singles hitters and one-year rental past-their-prime stars. Yet, the Athletics are scrappy and, despite their porous record, have the same desire to win as any contender. So, though much of their offense is gone with the trade of Matt Holliday to the St. Louis Cardinals, as the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings suggested, they can still put a hurt on even the best of bullpens.

Ramon Ramirez, who relieved Buchholz to obtain the final out of the sixth inning, was sent out to begin the seventh frame. He disposed of former Red Sox star Nomar Garciaparra by strikeout, but then succumbed to Jack Cust, the only remaining power hitter the A’s possess. Cust racked a double deep to center-field, hit so well that the fleet-footed Jacoby Ellsbury couldn’t track it down. An out later, Ryan Sweeney stepped to the plate to face the newly inserted Hideki Okajima.

On a 3-2 count with two outs, Okajima threw Sweeney a changeup that swept away from the left-hander. It was a great pitch given the situation and nearly impossible to put good wood on. But, a pitcher’s pitch can still be hit, especially by Sweeney, a slap-hitter. Sweeney figured it wasn’t a strike, considering the tailing action away from him, but in order to be a good hitter in the major leagues, possessing the ability to protect the plate is vital, especially if the offering could either be called strike-three or ball-four if let be. Sweeney poked at it, and managed to get the barrel on the ball to line the pitch into center-field.

The slow-footed Cust was running on the play, as all baserunners do with two outs, and it was a good thing. Ellsbury doesn’t have the greatest throwing arm, but he certainly isn’t in New York Yankees left-fielder Johnny Damon’s category. Whereas Damon has trouble throwing the ball far enough to reach the cutoff man, Ellsbury is much more likely to gun down the opposition. He charged Sweeney’s single, so he had a head of steam towards home-plate, and his throw was on line, but Cust’s head-start proved the difference. The ball trickled away from catcher George Kottaras, to no fault of Ellsbury’s, and Cust rumbled in standing up.

The margin was three and with six outs left, Oakland had plenty of time to at least tie Boston. Their optimism grew once the deficit dwindled to two when, with one out in the eighth inning, Adam Kennedy drove home Mark Ellis, who had led off the frame with a double.

The Red Sox answered in the bottom, but not the way they would have liked. Jason Bay led off the inning against Brad Ziegler and was promptly plunked. J.D. Drew followed. He saw three fastballs and tagged the third down the left-field line. Bay, with above-average speed for someone his size, sped around the bases as Sweeney tried to corral the ball, which ricocheted around in the corner. As Sweeney collected it, Bay was just about to round third base. He touched the bag and headed home as Sweeney’s throw to shortstop Orlando Cabrera was in mid-flight. Cabrera, who was part of the ‘three shortstops in three years’ failed experiment with Boston after Garciaparra was infamously traded, wasted no time once the ball snuggled into his glove. He immediately fired a strike to catcher Kurt Suzuki, who blocked the plate perfectly and tagged Bay to cut down the would-be seventh Red Sox run.

Drew moved to third base on the Cabrera’s throw home and scored on Lowell’s ensuing sacrifice fly, but it was an opportunity missed. Bay would have scored if not for Cabrera’s perfect relay throw, but had he played it extremely safe and held up at third, the Red Sox could have had two runners in scoring position with nobody out. That way, two well-placed fly ball outs could have scored both Bay and Drew, but as it was, the Red Sox faced this reality: the bases were empty with no one on, with two out and only one run.

But, what’s the big deal? They increased their lead to three heading to the top of the ninth, znd Papelbon was ready to mow the A’s down. Surely they could breathe easy, right?

It appeared that way once Papelbon retired Suzuki and Sweeney after allowing a leadoff walk to Cust. The Athletics were down to their last out still down by three runs. Tommy Everidge, making his major league debut, socked a double, his first career hit, high off the Green Monster in left, scoring Cust, who had reached second on defensive indifference and third on Suzuki’s groundout. Now a home-run could tie the game.

The A’s are home-run challenged, however, but that didn’t stop them. Ellis tapped a slow dribbler to Red Sox shortstop Nick Green. It was too slow for Green to do anything with, as Ellis was speeding down the line and would have beaten any throw he attempted. Yet, with Ellis zeroing in on first, Green made a throw he shouldn’t. It was wayward, scoring Everidge and sending Ellis into scoring position at second base. Now a single could tie the game.

Ellis stole third during Rajai Davis’s at-bat, which proved to be huge. Davis hit a grounder deep into the hole to Green. Ellis was off on contact, so instead of trotting to third base, he sped home with ease being just 90-feet away. His run wouldn’t count if Green could make a strong accurate throw to first, however. Davis, with electrifying speed that rivals Ellsbury’s, put pressure on Green, pressure Green couldn’t handle. The shortstop fired, but his throw once again evaded Youkilis. The Red Sox crowd went silent. The only noise that could be heard was faint yelps of triumph from the Athletics dugout and the footsteps of Davis, who took advatange of the errant throw by motoring into third base. Boston held a three-run lead needing to record one out, but suddenly, thanks to Papelbon and Green’s combined implosion, the game was tied.

The game was untied by Davis with two outs in the eleventh, as he knocked in Ellis, who had previously doubled, by singling to right-field. The Red Sox could have limited the damage to the single run, but sought out to duplicate a portion of the nightmarish ninth. Davis continued to torment Boston, stealing second base, then ran to third and home on Kennedy’s fifth hit.

Boston’s offense came alive in the bottom of the inning, but their rally was all too brief. Lowell and Kottaras reached with singles to begin the inning, then were moved over to second and third on a sacrifice bunt by Green. A single could tie, but only one run would score, on Ellsbury’s ensuing groundout.

The Red Sox ruined Rice’s night because of their inability to execute offensively in crucial situations, pitch well in the latter innings, and make smart decisions in the field. The A’s did everything right to come away with a stunning victory. The Red Sox, as they have far too often this month, did everything wrong, throwing away opportunity after opportunity and, eventually, the game.

Eff Oakland. Eff Alameda County. Eff  The Colors Green and Gold. Eff the Letter A.

This is now last night's game made me feel.

What started out as a great night at the old ballyard in the Fens turned out to be a four hour suckfest which drained all hope from my body. I blame it on Nomar. For the last two months he was here he took just about everything cool and made it suck with his angry face (no seriously, the guy kind of always looks angry, even when he’s smiling. I think it has something to do with the fact that his nose makes him look like the witch in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, just not green), and now he is doing the same with special events that his awful team just happens to be in town for.

You Are Welcome, Jim.

Jim Rice Night was awesome. The number got unveiled on the right  field facade, Jims family and friends were on the field to salute him, along with many of the guys he played with. He was relaxed, eloquent and happy in his speech, more so than at Cooperstown on Sunday. The Sox banged out 5 runs in the third to give their young starter (some guy who’s going to end up as a Blue Jay) a lead that they should never have relinquished. Everybody was hitting, Ellsbury was stealing bases, it was a good night.

Yeah, that sucked, we know.

And then a shaky Papelbon (if you didn’t see this coming eventually, you are crazy, he’s been rocky for a few weeks now), two errors from Nick Green (a career backup who hasn’t played like it for the past two months) and a breakdown in the rest of the pen doomed me to an extra hour of sitting on the couch, sweating like Rich Garces at a rib eating contest, and cringing with every pitch. I just knew that this one wouldn’t be pretty from Paps, and he’s allowed a shitty night every now and then, but this wasn’t just another night, it was a chance to take a game back from the Pinstriped Assholes (who lost to the Rays).

I really don’t know who to blame for this one. The bullpen, the defense (O.K. only Nick Green, because Pedroia and Lowell both made sick plays in the 11th), Pedroia for not being able to get the two out hit in the 11th to score Kottaras from third, or the entire city of Oakland.

I choose Oakland. I can’t see a reason for their city to have a baseball team, football team or modern plumbing. Aren’t all of those things available just across the Bay in San Fransisco? Either way we’ve got two more nights of shitkicking to put on these guys heads before spending the weekend at Fenway South (possibly with some Canadian guy pitching for us, or not).

Go Sox.

Done.

from Susan Slusser

(07-27) 04:00 PDT New York — Look for Nomar Garciaparra to go back to his familiar No. 5 tonight in Boston. Matt Holliday had the number when Garciaparra signed in March, and it appears Garciaparra will switch with Eric Patterson, who now has No. 5.

---

Holliday was willing to give Garciaparra No. 5, but with thousands of No. 5 Holliday jerseys already printed for a promotional giveaway, the move was discouraged, and Garciaparra said he got a kick out of giving Holliday a hard time for having his old number.
“I’d say, ‘Man, a little kid today didn’t recognize me because I didn’t have No. 5 on,’ ” Garciaparra said with a laugh. “Matt would say, ‘No, no, you can have it! I’m sorry!’ “
Garciaparra, who’s hitting .247, has been wearing No. 1 all season. He is the first member of the A’s to wear that number since manager Billy Martin in 1982.
Barton strains hamstring: First baseman Daric Barton left the game in the eighth for a pinch-runner after hitting a double. Manager Bob Geren said Barton has a mild hamstring strain, the result of doing the splits to reach a throw in the fifth inning.
Geren said there are no immediate plans to place Barton on the disabled list.

Briefly: After coming from St. Louis in the Holliday deal, Brett Wallace went 2-for-6 in his Triple-A Sacramento debut Saturday. Sunday’s game in Colorado Springs was called because of rain. … Justin Duchscherer worked two perfect innings, striking out two, in a rehab appearance with Class A Stockton at San Jose on Sunday evening. Numerous teams were expected to send scouts to see Duchscherer, who could be an addition to a contender’s bullpen or rotation. The two-time All-Star had elbow surgery in March and back trouble before the break.
This article appeared on page B – 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle

And we’re back to losing.  Back to being two and a half games behind the Yankees.  Back to scoring less than three runs per game.  Back to wondering how Smoltz will pitch in the postseason if he can’t even pitch against the O’s at home in July.  We’re beyond nerves of the first game, nerves of the first game at home, getting used to pitching for a different team.  That was all well and good, but it’s no longer applicable.  Nothing is applicable.  Smoltz has enough games under his belt that his brilliance, if there’s any left, should be shining through.  It isn’t.  He’s one and four with a 7.04 ERA.  That doesn’t sound like a postseason pitcher to me.  The goal is to peak late, but it’s getting late and there’s no sign of peaking.  It’s August next week when the real hunt begins, but Smoltz just doesn’t look like he can cut it.  In five innings, he gave up six runs on nine hits with a walk and six strikeouts.  He allowed a solo shot to Nick Markakis in the fifth.  The irony, of course, is that Dice-K was sent to the DL twice, the second time for an extended period, because he kept having outings like this.  So basically what we have here in Smoltz is a perfect and exact replacement for Dice-K.  Great.  That means that win of his will be the only one and the loss column will just keep growing and growing.  How lucky are we.

Masterson was fine enough, Saito could’ve been better, and Ramirez struck out the last batter of the game on three pitches.  If you ask me, they should just make Masterson a starter and leave him in that position already.  I think at this point a final decision has to be made.  If you keep using him frequently in both roles like that during a season, his performance in each will suffer.  They need to pick one, and he’s shown that he can handle both, but to me he seems much more suited to the starter’s role.  Especially lately.  Any kid who can start that well at such a young age deserves a chance to develop himself as a starter.  Then, if it doesn’t work out, he can join the bullpen.  But it seems like we have a golden starter on our hands and we’re wasting him.  He’s good.  At this point, he’s a lot better than Dice-K and Smoltz.  Put him in there and see what happens.

We lost, 6-2, so obviously the lineup did not do well.  Pedroia hit an RBI double and Lowrie hit another sac fly;ur two runs, ladies and gentlemen.  Ellsbury went two for four with a steal, his forty-fourth of the season.  Drew hit and scored.  LaRoche went two for four.

So that’s it.  That’s pretty much everything there is to address.  Pretty much all there is to it, really.  I think I speak for all of Red Sox Nation when I say that this is incredibly frustrating.  Incredibly frustrating.  We’re not even playing .600 ball.  Nomar and the A’s are back in town, and it’s Trevor Cahill against Beckett.  It’s Beckett, so we should be covered.  I said “should.” Apparently, since we’ve determined that he is in fact human, there’s no guarantee.

The Bottom Line

When the 2006 season came to an end the general consensus was that once again the Boston Red Sox would be in search of a shortstop on the free agent market. Over the previous three seasons the team had seen four individuals play significant time at the position with none doing enough to earn the job for the long term. Nomar Garciaparra was traded for Orlando Cabrera. Cabrera left via free agency and was replaced by Alex Gonzalez. Gonzalez was allowed to leave and was followed by Edgar Renteria. Renteria was shipped out of town and the team again had to fill the same need.

There was a pattern developing in Boston. And not a good one despite the fact that the team was still competitive year in and year out during that time. So, in that offseason Theo Epstein went all out to get what he perceived to be the best available option during that time. Of course, if you were to look back at the free agent class for that offseason, Julio Lugo was actually the best option available. Nobody could have been able to tell at the time that Jerry Hairston Jr. would turn into a viable utility man over the past few seasons in Cincinnati but even still, he hasn’t been primarily a shortstop during that time so it’s tough to say he was truly a better option. In the end, Epstein got his man by signing Lugo to a four year, $36 million deal.

This week, after 266 games with a .251 batting average and committing 42 errors, the Sox finally cut ties with Lugo when they designated him for assignment. I personally expected that the team would simply release the shortstop as no team could possibly have enough of an interest in him to give up anything viable in return when they could simply wait 10 days and sign him for the pro-rated league minimum. But, yesterday I was proven wrong when Lugo was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for Chris Duncan and a player to be named later (or cash considerations).

Sure, the Red Sox are paying the remainder of Lugo’s salary through the end of next season, but they can finally utilize that spot on the 25-man roster by filling it with a player who’ll help the team. Lugo’s inability to play defense was ultimately what ruined any chance of him being a successful player in a market as tough to play in as Boston can be. The fans chewed him up at every opportunity and by association continued to question Epstein’s thought process behind signing Lugo in the first place. But in the end, Epstein started to right the wrong not just by dealing Lugo but by actually getting something in return. Chris Duncan, a 27 year old outfielder/first baseman, gives the Red Sox some more depth at a number of positions. He has shown in his time in St. Louis that he can hit for some power and can play respectable defense. Plus, he is under team control at an affordable price through next season. The proverbial PTBNL or cash considerations is secondary, but still a nice addition to sweeten the deal.

Personally I don’t see what need the Cardinals have for Lugo. Brendan Ryan has turned into a decent shortstop and between Skip Schumacher, Joe Thurston, and Khalil Greene there seemed to be enough production to fill the at bats coming from second base and off the bench. Mark DeRosa has solidified third base and the team still has Brian Barden and David Freese just in case. Lugo isn’t an upgrade over any of these players and sitting on the bench getting two at bats every three weeks isn’t going to turn him into a reliable contributor. Again, the Cardinals aren’t paying much for Lugo’s services but with so many existing internal options I fail to see the point in adding him.

Randy Johnson stopped Atlanta for his 299th win last night, next up Washington next Wednesday, then (likely) Florida. If that happens, you know where I’ll be.

Moving to the Marlins (sort of), Philadelphia’s Brett Myers left last night’s game with pain in his right hip. MRI and possibly a cortizone shot in his near future. He’ll miss a start.

Carlos Zambrano will likely miss a start after erupting over a close play that went against him in last night’s game against Pittsburgh. He was mad when contact between he and the umpire sealed Zambrano’s fate. Having watched it, though, it looks like the umpire bumped Zambrano and not the other way around. So, Zambrano beat up a gatorade machine.

How about that Daisuke Matsuzaka start? Four wild pitches yesterday, and then two more by relievers, tying an AL record for most wild pitches in the game. Catcher George Kottaras got a little extra exercise last night…

A couple was arrested in Tampa last night, and on the way to jail claimed that they were the steroids suppliers to the Washington Nationals (and Washington Capitals of the NHL). If anyone has seen the Nationals play, you know that they aren’t using steroids – or don’t know what to do with the stuff. Richard Thomas, who was caught with $200,000 worth of steroids, says “the truth will come out…” Isn’t Richard Thomas the guy who played John Boy Walton on TV 30 years ago?

Jake Peavy is pitching through an ankle injury – which is just the type of thing that ruins a shoulder or ankle. If I owned him, I’d be nervous. If I were trading for him (Cubs, Phillies), I’d be more nervous.

Houston’s Brandon Backe returns from the DL – and the Astros can use him out of the bullpen. Wesley Wright returns to AAA Round Rock.

On the Mend? Jorge Posada might be back with the Yankees for the weekend. Cincy’s Edinson Volquez says he can throw without back pain. And, Minnesota’s Joe Crede might be back today.

Melky Cabrera made a fine running catch and crashed into a wall – and now is headed back for treatment on his non-throwing shoulder. He’s day-to-day.

Definitely out? Cubs Aaron Miles (shoulder), A’s Nomar Garciaparra (calf), and Oriole Koji Uehara (hamstring). The last one is especially sad as he’s been doing a good job for Baltimore.

My favorite failed prospect, Daniel Cabrera, was designated for assignment by Washington. Talk about someone who needs a new pitching coach!!! His velocity is down a touch, and (like Matt Lindstrom) he throws a very flat fastball.

A few other transactions hit the wire, but nobody of interest is on the list. Sorry to see the Cubs sent Bobby Scales back to AAA Iowa…

St. Louis’s hot streak has them in first place in the NL Central. Toronto’s loss last night is the ninth straight and moves them off people’s playoff radar…

Buster Olney’s blog on ESPN.com has a bunch of odd stats, of which just a couple are really important. The Indians pitchers are walking a lot of batters, which was contributed to the disappointing start, and the rest are mostly trivial unless they hold up for the rest of the season. However, he has a couple of interesting trade rumors, including Brad Penny to Philadelphia… Hmmm…. Penny has pitched well for Boston and just would like to stay healthy to get a contract for next year.

Andrew Gallo was officially indicted in the death of Nick Adenhart and two others stemming from an alcohol related accident in southern California last April.