mosox

Tuesday night in Toronto in the 7th. Tito lets WMP face a righty (flies out to right on the first pitch) rather than pinch hit Drew. Is he paying attention? Can't Brad Mills shake some sense into him?

I now know how to write Dunkin Donuts in Japanese.

Ok, I'll take the bait. Tito's decision to stick with Pineiro to pitch to Lofton while the lefty Lopez was ready in the pen makes little sense. Then Tito brings in Lopez to pitch to the righty pinch hitter Cruz, who smoked the first pitch to Youk. THEN Tito brings in Paps to pitch to Young and get the last 5 outs. Tito almost blew this one big. If Cruz's line drive hit gets by Youk it's a one run game with bases loaded and no outs. Why warm up Lopez if he didn't want to use him againt the lefty Lofton? And then he uses Lopez to pitch to a righty with Paps ready to go in the pen. What's the difference in using Paps for 5 outs or 6 outs. Tito is more lucky than good.

Dice-K has arrived in the big leagues and Paps is back. Things look real good.

Save the ball, Coco got a hit.

Gordon looked like A-Rod.

In a game where they've score only two runs, it's better to get that one hit then hoping for 2 or 3 in a row.

Yes you play for one run. On the road and leading by one.

Didn't Pedroia lead off the inning with a hit? I am work trying to watch the game.

BUNT!!! HELLO!??!!

The guy is cool on the mound. He does not get rattled.

Dice-K is walking through a mine field right now.

solo HR's are ok. Better now than last inning with men on base.

Nice pitch by Dice-K to get the third out. I think at this point considering it's the first start and it's cold, this is going much better than anyone expected.

Here it is from Cable 360.net: By Shirley Brady At 8:30pm ET In Demand Networks and Major League Baseball announced that an agreement for continued carriage of the MLB Extra Innings subscription package on cable. The seven-year deal includes distribution of the MLB's Baseball Channel, which the league announced tonight will launch in Jan. 2009. Terms of the agreement were not announced. Robert Jacobson, president and CEO of In Demand Networks, a consortium owned by cable operators Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable—said in a statement this evening: "We couldn’t be happier that we have reached an agreement with Major League Baseball and are able to make these games available to baseball fans as we have for the past five years." Comcast, Cox and Time Warner Cable now offer the Extra Innings out-of-market games package for this season. In Demand will immediately able to offer the package to its other cable operator affiliates, which includes Cablevision, Charter Communications, Mediacom Communications and Insight Communications. In order to offer Extra Innings, other cable operators must also agree to launch the Baseball Channel. In order for cable's deal to be done MLB announced this week that DirecTV had to approve. In order for cable to agree to a deal, In Demand had been seeking an ownership stake in the startup network comparable to the 20% stake that MLB had granted DirecTV as part of its reported $700 million, seven-year Extra Innings contract. According to a statement this evening from DirecTV presidnent and CEO Chase Carey, the satellite TV provider maintains "a leadership equity position" in the channel that exceeds cable's cut of the channel. "We are extremely pleased with our revised agreement," said Carey. "It recognizes DirecTV's role in this process by providing us unique financial benefits in Extra Innings, a leadership equity position in the MLB Channel, an ability to develop expanded features available only to DirecTV customers as well as exclusivity of MLB Extra Innings against satellite and other key cable competitors.” MLB's channel will launch in 40 million homes, which MLB president and COO Bob DuPuy said accomplished the league's goal in expanding talks with cable this week and dropping the earlier deadline. "Our chief goal throughout the process was to ensure that fans would have access to as many baseball games and as much baseball coverage as possible," said DuPuy. "With this agreement, the MLB Channel will launch with an unprecedented platform," he added. "We are pleased with the launch of the MLB Channel to so many homes coupled with our agreement to extend the distribution of MLB Extra Innings with In Demand." As Jacobson told Cable360, the Extra Innings negotiations were "unique ... in that for the first time a league expressly tied carriage of a yet-to-be-launched channel to continued carriage of a package." DirecTV's deal for Extra Innings and ownership in the channel—a proposed exclusive that was challenged in a congressional hearing chaired by Sen. John Kerry—involved "equity that’s potentially going to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars," Jacobson added. Not mentioned in the announcement: EchoStar, the other incumbent distributor of Extra Innings, whose president and vice chairman Carl Vogel testified at the House Commerce committee inquiry last month.

My Tito bashing contribution for the week: From watching the game Monday it certainly seemed like the team was not ready for the season. I only say it SEEMED that way. Tito is a big "players" manager and he certainly gave these guys an easy time in March. McEwing played in every game this spring and he's not even on the team. It's obvious Tito wants to avoid injury, but hitters have to face live pitching and it seems like they'll spend the next few games getting up to speed.

Since the topic is radio. I like Dave O'Brien, but the other new guy, Geffner, seems to talk alot. I know it sounds ridiculous to say a radio guy talks too much, but at every pause he seems to blurt out some stat or repeat a point he's made. Almost every time Castiglione says something, this guy has answer back. It almost sounds like a college radio game. I thought you needed experience in order to land a big job like Red Sox radio announcer.

Keeping hope alive. Cable TV is still negociating. From Hollywood Reporter By Paul J. Gough April 2, 2007 NEW YORK -- Major League Baseball over the weekend extended the deadline for negotiations on the Extra Innings package with both In Demand and Echostar. MLB had originally given the two companies until Saturday, the day before the beginning of the regular season, to come to terms over the out-of-market package that both had carried until the end of last season. But that deadline was extended until Sunday and perhaps into Monday to try to work a deal out although it wasn't clear whether one would be forged with either Echostar, the parent company of Dish Network, or In Demand, which is the negotiating company for big MSOs Cox, Time Warner Cable and Comcast. "Talks are still ongoing," a MLB spokeswoman said mid-afternoon Sunday. She declined to detail the talks further. Another source said the parties hoped to wrap up a deal by Monday but that there were "no assurances." MLB in early March had reached an exclusive deal with DirecTV worth a reported $700 million over seven years. MLB agreed to extend for three weeks a negotiating window with In Demand and EchoStar to match the DirecTV terms -- which would be signficantly less financially without an exclusive -- and commit to carrying The Baseball Channel in a similar amount of cable and satellite households when the channel launches in 2009. DirecTV committed to carrying the network in about 15 million households on its basic tier; it also received an ownership stake. The MLB-DirecTV deal hasn't escaped notice from Washington, where the FCC has asked for more information and lawmakers including Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., have asked MLB and the companies to come to some sort of agreement for the good of displaced baseball fans. Kerry got agreement last week from MLB President/COO Bob DuPuy and In Demand president Robert Jacobson for a face-to-face meeting ahead of Saturday's deadline.

A couple of first inning runs would be a nice way to start the season.

Finally...games.

Just keep him to one inning saves. But the longer Timlin is out, Tito will feel the temptation to use Paps in the 8th.

I think it's great to break camp knowing that there is a kid like Buchholz in the organization. No walks and 3 K's in 4 and 2/3 for his first game above A ball. If he can work on a change up to go with his 95 plus fastball, he could one day be a front line starter.

If baseball wants media companies to compete for its product then Congress should drop the protections it gives MLB (no other sport has them) and allow another league to compete with them and set up teams in its cities. But that's competition baseball doesn't want.