ksushi

Thanks Red Sox! Woulda never known.

Edwin Jackson (3-4, 3.70 ERA) vs. Josh Beckett (5-4, 4.30 ERA) Showers early for today, but the weather will probably hold off late and we'll see a game. I like Beckett to improve to 6-4 tonight. I want to see Angry Josh Beckett out there taking the division back and putting us one game closer to a sweep of the rays. BTW, if you're having a s***** day, just look at the AL-East standings. It's beautiful. Especially if you have a sweep on your mind... but even if you don't the basement never looked so good. Dan Quayle mojo. Why not? I'm sure he is rooting on the sox somewhere. http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060721/060721_quayle_vmed_3p.widec.jpg WIN.

See, everything I've heard about his off-speed has been more or less glowing. Only good things. When I saw him in portland last year, and what ive seen on nesn from time to time, its looked pretty good. No Buchholz, but pretty good. Especially the curve. His control numbers have always been great, and thats one of the biggest hurdles for a young kid. I'm not saying people have to buy into every label tossed around out there, but i just like to see people get into the farm system? maybe im too crazy about it. I love the fact that we have actual promising young players. I think, personally, Bowden will never pitch for the Red Sox, it makes too much sense for him to be dealt. But I love the stuff he is doing for us right now, its really exciting, imo. not used to it.

I mean, what skin is it off your back if you get pumped about a guy doing as well as bowden and he suffers an injury or a hitch in development. The signs are encouraging. Jeez, enjoy the farm system man, we suffered through some awful, ugly and talentless years of farm system futiliy. Minor league talent was non-existent in Boston forever, our farm was vapid disgrace. The kid is a beast, maybe try to watch him, or follow him. He's doin' good stuff. tis all

K. More of that. Hansen is attempting to do something pretty cool right here. It would mean a lot going forward if he gets out of this now, and we could potentially depend on him to do it going forward.

Yes... this was a bad... bad idea. At least if you try Hansen and he fails you learn something about your organizational depth... we already knew Lopez sucks.

Four pitch walk to lead off an inning, the sign of a reliever who will ultimately contribute nothing to the success of a team. Thank you, sir.

Dustin is looking bad right now.

I'm on a lollercoaster right now. This is a fun inning.

Can't argue with his potential right now. Results like these come from good pitchers. He is very young too. Ahead (age wise) of every pitcher to come through our organization thus far, and putting up some pretty elite numbers. I mean, I guess its always prudent to curb your enthusiasm for a 21 year old who isn't out of the woods development wise (or in the potential for serious arm injury, barring misuse, after the age 21 season that should be out the window), but with what he has going on at AA right now, future is is gonna be a tag widely applied to him out on the open market this july and I think that might be his biggest contribution to the red sox this year... will be interesting.

They more or less atoned? Eh?

Thank you. I thought this was gonna be one of those games. Sincerely, coco, thank you.

Tek seems to be coming through in those situations.

.600+ slugging in may for carter. thats pretty manly. I am anxious to see what he can do.

Much happier prognosis: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3424740 Two ortiz threads merged for convenience. Happy time.

Great rebound by Masterson to strand a sucka. I like to see that kind of nerve in a kid.

Just because they are yankees fans (owners) doesn't mean they aren't people... until science proves otherwise.

For point number two, I would contend that confidence plays a big role in baseball on both sides of the diamond, if you've played you would probably agree - I think I remember you saying you played for kind of a while, no? When is a team more confident as a whole than when they're ace is going? To undermine Beckett's performance in that game, or say the outcome would have been the same with say Bronson Arroyo going that night, isn't fair, IMO. I don't think just because the sticks came alive it should be a knock on Beck, thats all. I think Beckett's big game track record was part of the reason they Lucchino jumped on him, whether or not big game track record is the right criteria to go on is another thread entirely. Does it mean anything? Is it luck? Who knows, but of the 2 losses he suffered in the '03 post season he gave up a combined 2 ER in 14 innings and struck out 18. You can verify those numbers if you want, but I'm pretty confident in them even though they are from memory. Beckett has been my favorite player since he debuted. Which might taint my argument with a little bias, not gonna lie. I think it is a win win either way. We keep him, we have the best shortstop in the game and the revenue to fix any weaknesses we addressed in the Beckett trade. I also am of the opinion that our WS victory was more the product of organization-wide success rather than the success of one trade in particular. Without Papelbon, Pedroia, Ellsbury, and Lester, things would certainly be different. I think over the next ten years we will see more organizational victories like '07, and attempting to trace them all back to one trade would be an exercise in futility. Agree? Maybe we could have made out better with the value we had in Hanley. I don't think it was a catastrophic failure by any means, I think it was a moderate success. I do see Hanley do pretty beastly things and kind of wish and wonder... but hey, thats baseball. I was a big fan of the idea of acquiring Burnett at the '06 deadline, just like I was a big fan of trading Damon in '05. We shoulda done it. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. If I knew all of those things, and I could put my Larry Lucchino pants on and take a walk through the FO that winter, I probably wouldn't make that particular deal even with my massive man-crush on Beckett. But, at the time, Hanley was coming off a less than inspiring AA season, his attitude was being called into question and his desire to become the player he had the potential to become wasn't exactly a sure thing. All of those things went into trading him. Sure, there were better possible moves. I don't doubt it. But we made out ok. We didn't get burned like we did in the Gagne trade. We don't even know how burned we were yet, wait until we start hearing about Engel Beltre. I don't think Theo knows what he wants in a SS and I think it is really becoming a concern. One year he wants defense(O-cab), one year he wants offense (Renteria - who came here with a sparking Def. rep), then defense again(Gonzo Only adamant that it wasn't a horrible thing. I don't think it is the end of the world because we came out with value. I do think Josh Beckett was a huge part of why we won, but I don't think got fair value when you just look at their players alone. That said, I like trading hitting for pitching. Especially prospective hitters for established pitchers. I think pitching, in large part, is much harder to come by so it doesn't really rub me wrong at all. Jesus Hanley is good though. This is the first post I've spent more than two minutes on in like a year. I love summer.

FINALLY. she looks like a beat up chesire cat with unreasonably fake tits. I hate Hazel Mae.

Yeah, I wasn't too sure what his experience was, I just knew he had some limited experience. Figured he was probably a butcher. And obviously, if you excel at AAA and are still there when you are approaching 30, there is something about your game that doesn't translate at the next level.

I'm not sure I saw anything from him in the field at SS that made me believe he wasn't ready. I certainly didn't see anything at the plate.

For those of you who like to keep track of what guys are on pace to do a third of the way through the season by taking their totals and multiplying them by three (makes us all feel like sabremetricians): Julio Lugo is almost exactly on pace to tie the major league record for GIDP at 24. Wooo, yeah.

I know this is reactionary, but this is a reaction to almost a year and a half of god awful play in the field and at bat... Can we just dump lugo? When I'm 5-5 on GIDP calls against a particular player, thats just atrocious. He is terrible.