Dojji

That's how ya do it. Nice bunt,. Mr. Crisp. Hope he's OK

Can't even bunt... EDIT: Might just as well have bunted

Whew.

Oooh, I don't like falling behind Wells... *worried*

TRUST your defense, Justin!

I think it's possible that the Expos have been forgotten to that point, yes. Command, Justin.

Love that sinker.

And gives up a hit to the no-bat shortstop.

Heck of a battle by Youk.

Well no, the other question was could he sustain it, and he didn't.

How many times have we seen a pitcher laboring and then here comes Farrell, and two or three pitches later the pitcher is out of the jam? Too bad coaches can't compete for the team MVP award.

Do NOT mess around. Take Byrd out.

You take Lester, Lowrie, and Masterson and Crisp off the Boston roster they probably have 4-5 fewer wins, a worse bullpen, a much weaker rotation, and Cora as a long-term SS down the stretch.

That makes it really easy then. The Twins drop their money on Morneau and Mauer and sign them both to 7 digit salaries until they're on the wrong side of 30.

But here's the thing -- Minnesota WILL pay top dollar to resign two or three core players at a time. You know that, I know that. Maybe they choose to keep Liriano and Morneau and drop Mauer, but I strongly suspect that they'll throw a ton of money and creative deals in his path to get him to stay in Minnesota.

Actually, you wanna know something funny? As a team the 2006 Sox even at their worst were a .500 ballclub or so with Doug Mirabelli catching. The problem there wasn't so much the absence of Tek as it was the presence of the corpse of Javy Lopez (the catcher, not the refreshingly adequate lefty) Getting .500 ball from your backup catcher is fine, and I really doubt we're going to pick up anyone who has the defensive issues Lopez had, so I don't see the problem. In all likelihood the guy who eventually replaces Tek, the FO is going to be careful doesn't represent that much of a step down from the vaunted staff-handling skills.

And who can forget the sterling rotation of Josh Beckett, Kyle Snyder, Kason Gabbard, Julian Tavarez and Kevin Jarvis?

And Delcarmen, for that matter. Here's a startling thought -- what do Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, and Jed Lowrie have in common? Three things. 1: they are eassily the three most successful homegrown position players of the Theo Epstein era 2: Each one had significant concerns about their performance that held them in AAA longer than perhaps was absolutely necessary (Pedroia, conditioning and swing mechanics, Youkilis, power, Lowrie, defensive range) and 3: becaise of those doubts they were held back until they proved they had overcome those difficulties. (Pedroia could have had the job in 2006, possibly, except that he showed up to camp out of shape, we all know the story with Youkilis, and Lowrie is still working to establish this) The amazing thing about this is that Boston's archconservatism when it comes to promoting young position players has resulted in a stable cadre of very solid young players coming up and definitely being ready from the moment they arrived. Contrast this to how they've handled young pitchers. Hansen, Delcarmen, Lester, Buchholz Masterson, and Papelbon were all in a sense rushed. None of them really saw all that much AAA time before their first MLB taste and if Masterson in particular is stretched back out into a starter his next injury rehab will be more time in AAA than he's seen thus far. We got lucky with Papelbon and Masterson, and Lester eventually worked through his issues despite some extra adversity, but Hansen, MDC and Buchholz are all struggling, at the major league level, with issues the position-player parallel of which would have held them in AA or AAA until they sorted it out there. What I'd love to see is some of that vaunted conservatism that has helped shape successful beginnings to the careers of Youk, Dusty, and Jed, translated to the other side of the ballgame and put to good use as a pitcher-development philosophy. Unfortunately, though, the Red Sox got lucky a few times early on in this wave of player development, especially with Papelbon, so I'm not sure it's going to happen that way.

Yow. Message sent, I guess. Any chance of maybe seeing Bowden this year? Or would that qualify as "repeating your mistakes?" (actually considering that he's 21, I wouldn't be shocked at all to see Bowden get a full year of AAA before even being added to the 40-man roster)

At this point forcing him to remain in the majors is cruel to Buchholz. Not to mention the fans.

And for the first time since May, he actually held a lead for more than 1 inning after being given one. The fact that this is an accomplishment signifies just how much Buchholz sucks.

GET HIM OFF MY TEAM!

DFA! DFA! DFA!