Beaneater

Yeah, I hardly ever call him "Delcarmen" anymore. That is who you're talking about, right?

OK, you're off the hook... this time.

Payable out of the nearly-bottomless TalkSox Swiss bank account, I assume.

Oh, come on. We've been scoring them by the bushel basket recen--.... Oh, never mind.

Ha! Got it!

I'm going with "Timlin miraculously doesn't let the run in". Just a hunch.

How about this: every time a Red Sox batter crushes the ball right at a fielder, drink. Should make the games go faster.

Kevin Cash is a dangerous man and should always be walked. He just saw as many pitches as our 5-8 hitters saw in the 2nd inning combined.

Yeah, I've been thinking to myself for the past few days, "If this is what our pitching is going to look like, we are going to rock." Not that anyone expects Lester and Matsuzaka to go 7-8 scoreless inings every night, but there's no denying that we have a pantry full of pitchers who can lock a game down. Sweet.

So, how much of our offensive ineptitude is cold bats on our part, and how much is running into a string of good pitchers? All the pitchers who have hosed us recently are guys that are capable of fine pitching on any given night. So do we suck, or are they good... or some of both?

It's no fun, really. I work in West Africa most of the time -- same time zone as France so it's equally impossible to catch games real-time. I'm usually out in the semi-boonies where I have balky dial-up internet and BBC shortwave as my two connections to the world. You can guess how much BBC covers baseball. I think they do mention the World Series, so that's about 45 seconds per year of baseball coverage. I binge on the Sox when I'm in the States (like now). That way I have a store of happy (and unhappy) Red Sox memories in the storehouse. When I'm in Africa... not much I can do. I read TalkSox sporadically and try to get online for box scores at least. That's all there is. Come to think of it, I did watch a couple games. Our neighbors had satellite TV, including ESPN. I stayed up all night watching probably 5 out of the 7 games of the 2003 ALCS. Man, trudging off to bed at 5 am to grab 2 hours of sleep after watching Grady blow game 7... that bit. I was in the States for the end of the 2004 season, though. Bonus! Anyway, I basically have to let the Sox slide to a back burner when I'm overseas. There's no magical solution that I know of.

And may I suggest that it really bites to lose a game that way? Especially that game, where Buchholz was mowing them down mercilessly. Edit: And it was a freaking .213 hitting second baseman with 1 extra base hit all year that hit the homer! A guy slugging .223! That's just ridiculous.

A nice change of pace from our other pitchers, who issue BBs late in the game. Early in the game too.

7-8-9 hitters = Buchholz back out for the 8th. Apparently he has decreed that all Rays will strike out for the rest of this game.

True enough, on both counts. Jackson was pretty hoss. What's up with Manny looking at strike 3?

Unless I'm mistaken, the Ray bullpen is really good so far this year. It's a safe bet that it's better than ours...

12 in a row retired... that's doubleplusgood.

I could get used to the (almost literally) unhittable Buchholz. Insurance please!

Gamecast shows the ball/strike calling to be pretty rough - at least two pitches in the meat of zone were called balls. How does it seem to those of you watching the game? If it's true that the umpire is squeezing the pitchers, it makes their performances all the more remarkable. Edit: And the first pitch to Lugo is outside the zone and called a strike? Maybe the ump just sucks? (Or maybe Gamecast isn't representing the locations well.)

I called it. Internally, you know, in my heart of hearts. You'll just have to take my word for it.

The Papi bomb at least makes things look respectable.

This isn't exactly a major discovery, but: Masterson: 6 IP, 1 R, 95 pitches Bullpen: 3 IP, 6 R, 94 pitches They really flushed his game down the crapper.

Some pretty dang clutch pitching there from Okajima... seven batters too late though. Who pitches for us now that Okajima threw approximately 759 pitches that inning?

So... how do we get our come-from-behind-to-win runs tonight?

I'm sure the rest of the league is happy to see Paps throwing 100.