Dojji

Then where's the $4M offer sheet?

So in other words, every number spouted has been spouted by a sportswriter and vehemently denied by Kessel. Love that little trick in the last excerpt. that $4M is clearly coming out of the writer's posterior orifice but if you skim it seems clear enough that Kessel wants $4M

Under. Beckett is doing well, but winning 20 games in this league is not an easy thing to do and it doesn't take too many no decisions to put it out of reach. I'll take the under on this one, too, for similar reasons. Bay's a great hitter, but it takes elite level consistency to drive in that many, even on a good OBP team, and Bay hasn't quite been that consistent this year. I'll take the over. Ellsbury's actually been doing better at getting on base lately, and in the bottom of the order I think Tito may be more aggressive with him. I want to say over, but if he follows last year's pattern, some other health related thing will crop up in August and weaken him. I'll still go with over because I want to believe in the guy. Mike Lowell needs to be shut down for the lion's share of the rest of the season to get his hip right for the playoffs. They made this mistake last year, they'll make it this year too, and it'll cost us his bat in October. Regrettably, over. But not very far over, and I'd take the under on .5 games in the playoffs. Over. Lowrie is versatile and plays 2 positions that are going to need warm bodies this year. whenever he comes up he'll be playing in most of the rest of the games unless he gets hurt again. Over. I'm thinking 8-6, ERA somewhere in the 3.8-4.1 range I'm not even sure Daisuke will start another game for us this year so I'll take the under here.

A truly dominant performance by Papelbon, even with the cheap little base hit.

Yo, ho, blow the man down!

2K

Looks like Paps has the good heat today.

Link?

I sometimes wonder how much higher some players' batting averages would be if they were willing to use bats that were less likely to break.

We need to pitch Masterson more often it appears. Sinkerballers don't like to be too well rested. Let him really cut loose a few times and go to him on back to back days, let's see that velocity go down a bit because I think it's a mixed sign for a sinkerballer to be throwing too hard.

Very good work by Masterson. Let's get a run and just let him pitch two. Or heck, just let him pitch two. Giambi and Cust are up in the next inning, that's a lot of concentrated strikeout.

Gameday puts Masterson's last pitch to Hairston at 97.

We don't know what his salary demands are.

THis seems to be a Tito move. Masterson needs some work to bring down his ERA so here he comes. Not everyone can bring their long man in the 8th in a save situation.

Great time for a run scoring infield hit

lol GIAMBI.

Yale I think. Pretty good stuff, too. If he hadn't made it as a baseball player, I think he has a degree in biochemistry or something to fall back on.

You know, this will come as a surprise to absolutely no one, but when he was with the Sox I had a soft spot for Craig Breslow. I still think he would have made more of a difference than Javier Lopez. I never understood why they just let him go.

Get in front of the damn ball, don't give me this ole ********! http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/7/m_26092f9d3fa38b88a17b18d55f966d14.jpg

That's because Carter mostly plays LF and DH these days. He is most definitely and extremely not an option at 1B. PEDROIA!

Wrong on both counts, Dutchy. Carter is on the 40 man and you only burn one option even if you ride the bus all year. THe problem is, Carter sucks. Bad defensively, bad year so far offensively.

Nice work by Bates on the walk.

I wonder if we could steal Kila Ka'aihue from the Royals. They have the kid blocked five ways to Sunday but I think he could hit if given a good long chance at the big league level. Could be a Ryan Howard type in the making.

The problem is if you're waiting for a list of teams that will be out of contentuion in 3 weeks, that's pretty much the same list as is out there right now. I don't see any reason to wait on picking up an option to play BEHIND Lowell. If Mikey goes down, or God forbid is done, then you look for the more expensive options that could REPLACE Lowell. But picking up a guy who could at least fake it at the position in the short term in case Lowell goes down in August or September when options are much more limited should be a high priority for the team. Maybe Teahen, maybe not Teahen, but SOMEBODY. How about Freddy Sanchez? Think the Pirates would give him up for a decent price?