rician blast

I htink you're right, we've seen his best. At the beginning of the year I figured he was good for .270 and 27 HRs..the average could be attainable, not sure about the dingers. Hitting 20 HRs is not only underperformance for Ortiz..it is also underperformance for a #3 hitter on a team with around $130m in payroll. The Real #3 hitter on this team is probably Youk at this point...but Tito is loyal and wants Ortiz to work this out, pressure free, if possible..plus Tito likes the lefty, righty etc. line-up. I suspect if the Sox had a left handed bopper with decent OBP (i.e. a Bay or Youk type hitter, but a lefty) we'd have seen Ortiz slide down to the 5-hole or something like that. Here's to hoping he turns things around in a big way...I'll be the first to say I underestimated him if he somehow exceeds the numbers I expected of him this year.

CEG? Yeah, ok, whatever. Still missing the point...now you're saying it's ok to be concerned if you had expected 35/120 but he "doesn't need to carry that much of the offense." That's not at all what this recent discussion was about. It was about someone stating that for a #3 hitter Ortiz has thrown up a half season of suck between the last half of last year and beginning of this year and that there should be concern. That poster caught s*** for it. My point has been that the concern expressed by the individual..any individual for that matter...is very valid. Some people simply won't acknowledge that point of view being legit. Should probably drop it since the message isn't getting through, for whatever reason.

from this link : http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4148907 comes the following: "testing by Major League Baseball showed that Ramirez had testosterone in his body that was not natural and came from an artificial source, two people with knowledge of the case told ESPN's Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn. The sources said that in addition to the artificial testosterone, Ramirez was identified as using the female fertility drug human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG." OK, so he had unnatural testosterone in his body AND HCG, which as I mentioned in earlier posts is a key post-steroid cycle substance in order to avoid a host of problems that accompany steroid-induced shut down of natural testosterone production. Guilty as a motha f***a.

I thought I heard Tom (sp?) Kurchian'Kerchian/Kerjcian..whatever the f*** his name is... say that in the last CBA the player's association won on that front, but it was something owners had raised. Thing is I wonder how that would work out cuz if they have a void clause and opted not to exercise it, the franchise looks like a sell-out. I'd suspect it's something that'll be very contentious during the next negotations.

On WFAN some callers went down the "Red Sox championship is tainted" path. Loved it when the callers were told, by a Yankee fan, that the Red Sox have been the better team this decade and that they are better now. Anyone turning this into a Yankee-Red Sox thing is a fkn douche.

Not to stir the pot after it's stopped simmering, but I gotta throw this out there...when IS it ok to worry about a guys production? Do we have to sit silently by, not expressing concern over what we see as a trend? Christ, this is very similar to when some of us called JD Drew the 'F'-word (hold on, I'm gonna say it...here goes...f-r-a...f-r-a-g....fragile" and were lambasted for it. It is what it is, and I'm not putting the blinders on to what I see because it's "only May." To express concern is not to say "he's done"...while not optimistic, it is a realistic and justifiable concern.

True, they do not currently test for HGH. HGH would not have depleted his test levels, to my knowledge, so I don't see the HCG connection with HGH. Read my post above, I have a little experience with this stuff, at least from the perspective of what guys used and why. As far as post-cycle drugs, like HCG, are concerned, while HCG may not be specifically a female fertility drug (as it does have valid use as a male testosterone enhancer) there are such drugs being used post-cycle by heavy 'roid users. Clomid is female fertility enhancement drug that guys are using post-cycle. Then there is a drug called Nolvadex. What is it? Oh, it's a drug prescribed for women who are at a high-risk for developing breast cancer. Each of these drugs supresses estrogen spikes that are common after a steroid cycle. I'd be willing to bet they're all on the banned substance list.

you got that right, Doj. If they fall behind, I say make it a fkn blood bath.

I don't know. That's the unfortunate part of this. To be fair, and more accurate, I should adopt ORS's word "assumed" when I talk about PED use. It's gotten to the point where if a guy's production spikes, or if he gets even the slightest bit bigger/stronger the assumption is that he's using. I simply don't find myself thinking "wow, he must have worked very hard in the offseason." Years ago? Sure, that's what I thought when a guy came out and tore it up. Now? I can't help but think the player is using.

Pretty much where I stand...kind of guilty until proven innocent. And Pujols and Howard and Ortiz are on my list along with a whole shitload of guys I don't feel like posting right now. As for the HOF? Let 'em in, keep 'em out, I don't really fkn care, I'm not a HOF fan.

I'd say that the chances that he did PEDs in LA only are roughly equivalent to the odds that my great grandmother grew a finger nail on her cock. He did 'em in Cleveland and Boston too, of that I am very confident. Proof? Don't need it.

Not surprised, not disgusted, not really even dissapointed. Just confirms my suspicions. I've been saying for a long, long time that PED use was much more widespread than most want to admit, and that I understand why these guys do what they do...and Manny is just another name that has been confirmed on my own list of PED users. Now of course the talk will be how far back does this go? Considering he played with Albert Belle, one of the biggest juicers of the 90's (IMO), I'm guessing Belle wasn't the only one injecting himself in that Guardians clubhouse (from that partiicular time period and team I also suspect Thome, Grissom, Justice, Williams, Sorrento, Sexson, to name a few). Certainly could make one look at Manny's 1999 season stats a lot differently, his numbers that year were unf***ing real.. Of course he'll say he only did it this time, to heal from some nagging injury or deal with some medical problem, and he has no idea how he could have tested positive. Make no mistake though...he got caught but he is far from the only one doing the stuff...just because a player doesn't test positive doesn't mean they're innocent. They're virtually all tainted now.

Very frustrating game to watch last night. No flow, no real command of the game. There were periods where the B's carried the play, no doubt, but the Canes did a tremendous job of keeping them to the outside, battling for loose pucks, and once again were very opportunistic. B's weren't really "outplayed" per se, but they did make more, or bigger, mistakes. The Montador attempted clear...why is he winding up for a slapper of a bouncing puck when the puck just squirted out of a scrum...obviously their are opponents nearby....that was one of the most lame decisions I've seen in a long time. Then to OT goal, Chara's attempted clear gets picked at the line...not sure if it's him or the forward who is more to blame, but that can't happen in OT...of course on the ensuing play, he got absolutely owned on on one. Now I'm remembering why this was the one team I didn't want the B's to play. They are very well coached and totally buy into the system they're using.

I think there's a huge difference between saying "Ortiz is done" vs. Ortiz hasn't hit a HR in 80 games and is killing the Sox offense as their #3 guy and that perhaps some changes are needed. As for the Tex comparison, I thought about that when considering my post, and I'm of the mind that Tex's slow start is more palatable to fans (for now) because he's new to NY, he's only 28, he doesn't show a couple of years declining performance, he's not coming off injury that we know of, he's shown some pop, he does play the field and he doesn't exhibit the body of Mickey Lolich or mid-1970's Elvis Presley. Tex' performance, for now, is easier to accept as an anomoly...while Ortiz's can objectively be viewed as a potential trend. None of wishes anything but the best for Ortiz, and I think we're all united in our hope that he turns it around. But those of us who cheer for the name on the front of the jersey are justifiably concerned with the performance of the Sox #3 hitter.

Jeez, good question. Probably a long shot, but it MIGHT be in the the following 2009 stat line vs. the Yankees: 10 for 18 (.556 avg.) 2 doubles 3 Hrs 10 RBIs .667 OBP 1.167 Slg % 1.833 OPS Hmm...yeah, you guys are right...what motivation?

niggaz? Wonderful vocabulary. I must be getting old, but God help me, I don't fkn get it.

Holy crap, bro....am I missing something? I read that post, and I think it's pretty much on the money. Ortiz has been getting on base at a better clip, but hasn't hit a bomb in a long, long time...is that not valid reason for concern, regardless of the cause of his power outage? I think you're a bit off-base on your critique of the post. As for the "jerk fans" imagine if Ortiz started out this way for the Yankees or in Philly? They'd have his fkn head. A #3 guy on a contending team has to hit with some pop and it would be nice to have some power from the left side. Right now, Ortiz is not providing that, and that is not debatable.

so too will any chance of getting wood.

From the article: "For the sake of perspective, it is worth mentioning a couple of facts related to that negotiation. The Sox made clear at the time that their four-year, $40 million offer (which represented a raise from the four-year, $32 million deal that Damon was concluding) was sincere. However, they felt that it was important to set and establish a value for a player who would be in his mid-30s for the life of a four-year deal. Boston was willing to nudge its bid upward towards $11 million a season, but refused to be drawn into a bidding war. Even in the final hours before news of Damon’s signing with the Yankees broke, agent Scott Boras was calling the Sox to insist that he had a six-year, $72 million offer in hand. That being the case, though the Sox were unsurprised to learn that Damon had turned down their offer and signed with the Yankees (who had both a need and money), they were stunned to learn that he took a four-year, $52 million deal." Very good points...unfortunately, points that the Johnny "cro-magnon" Damon couldn't possibly understand when he tries to compare NY to Boston.

Just playin' with ya, 21.