Dojji

God help us. Ramirez has been regrettable close and late.

Aww c'mon guys can't it just happen the easy way for once./

I really doubt Tito's going to put a guy who was a headcase just 2 years ago (or, at least, has that reputation) into the kind of situation he'd come into in any of the relief situations last night.

Who do we have left who has bullets? Ramirez and who?

Note to umpire. A pitch on the outside corner at the knees is commonly referred to as a "strike." Yes, even if it's thrown by a rookie. Just FYI.

hurt already

A bad game I can stomach, if he was throwing it up there at 87 as usual and just had a clunker that's one thing, but this isn't the first game in this recent stretch when he's had trouble topping out at 85 or higher, and even if he gets away with it, it's a concern.

Last few nights, I've been noticing that when Oki came in he's been a bit light on the fastball. Last night for example I think he topped out at 85. He has the command and guile to survive at 87-88, but he really doesn't have a huge margin of error is that velocity starts to drop. I think it's time for an extended, 3-4 game rest break for Oki.

Huff is in division. The Orioles may make him available and they may not. I doubt we'll like the price for the guy either way since he's a "proven power hitter." Teahen is a better fit because Teahen you can bench without having attitude problems all over the place. I mean, if the guy was willing to move anywhere the ROYALS told him to I doubt he'll have a problem filling in around the edges for a team that actually wins stuff. I'm not so sure of that with Huff, whose attitude has been called into question in the past.

http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/ The authority on contracts and salaries. You can look up all the contracts here. Very rarely is this site wrong. Teahen is under an arb contract for about 3.5 million. He has a little over 3 years of service time, meaning we'd have cost controls on him for another 2 years if I know how this thing works.

I actually think Smoltz caught a break here. He got his workout and didn't have to throw a lot of pitches to do it. The one silver lining to all this is that Smoltz actually got a good opportunity to work out the kinks without being taxed to his limit, it was almost an ideal situation for a recovering pitcher.

He's the guy I want. As an LHH with good numbers against righties, Tito has a built in excuse to go to Teahen for a number of starts for reasons that Lowell will accept. Anytime Lowell is looking tired or sore, just bring Teahen in "against the righty" to smooth everything over. I could see Tito operating that sort of system very smoothly. Besides, he plays a decent right field and we have potential injury issues there.

Easy to blame Tito for this one, but every now and again a manager runs into a situation where he makes the right move over and over again and it doesn't work. That was tonight. Even if he was tired and it wasn't the smartest move to chance Masterson for a third inning of relief, he's still a talented pitcher -- he should have struggled, maybe let up a run or two, and then got out of it. Besides, he was rested, although perhaps that was part of the problem, since I noticed that he was throwing very hard in his first 2 innings of work and maybe the sinker just wasn't there for him when that wore off. Also, both Oki and Saito should have been their usual, effective selves. You can only blame Tito so much for trying to leave guys in for extra innings when the starter was only able to go 4 innings. And you can't blame him at all for going to dominant relievers who somehow don't get the job done this time. File this one more under "ideas that made sense or at least should have worked out better than they did."

Indeed. If we win tomorrow, we win the series. I don't care for the way we lost tonight, but the series is the thing.

HELPFUL REMINDER: The series is 1-1. We win tomorrow we win the series. On the road, winning the series is the important thing. I don't care what the Yankees do. They're streaky. THey'll hit another rough patch in a couple weeks. Take care of our business and get into the postseason. That means don't let this game get into your head past adjusting and learning from it. Just win tomorrow.

Game. Time for the Sox staff to take a long look and figure out what happened here -- so it won't happen againm.

Free baserunner. It's all down to Jason Bay. EDIT: Wow, is Bay really hitting .268?

That triple for the cycle is going to look really good right now if it happens.

At least we came up with a chance to turn it around. What a forgettable game.

Yeah, it still sucks though. At least we have good hitters up for the last 2 outs of the game here.

Whatever happened to Pedroia's 15 HR power anyway?

THis umpire is unbelievably bad.