jung

Man no wonder Madden tries to get every last out from his starters whether they are struggling or not. These guys are terrible. We have not even seen the worst of them yet.

And more cannon fodder out of the Rays pen

Madden relegated to using AAA call up relief pitchers already.

And we complain about our bullpen????

Madden already regretting letting a reliever pitch to more than 1 batter. He will be out to get this guy any minute now.

Man Madden must just love the camera time. Go ahead...run them all out there again Madden.

Get that conveyor belt of relievers rollin' Mr. Madden

Well if there is one thing that has been established it is that V is not afraid of the number 100. The way Tito handled pitch counts you would think there are no numbers above double digits.

Ortiz got all of that. Madden has left starters in longer than I thought he would two days running. At least yesterday once he went to the pen it was like a conveyor belt of pitchers. Wonder if the same will happen today once he pulls Helickson. Sure did not look like he had much confidence in his pen yesterday. I guess we know why now.

I keep saying it...we need to worry about our starting pitching....never mind who the hell is closing the damn game

Having Echabod Crane playing in right field will eventually catch up to us.

I don't know what baseball is going to do with guys like Clemens and others that fall into the same category of "preponderance of evidence" more than just suggests steroid use but for whom no definitive verdict has been rendered. If I had to go by what I think I have seen so far, it looks like baseball is going to try to bury those guys. No induction into the HOF but no final, definitive decision one way or the other. In this specific instance I think MLB has been pretty gutless. Either MLB should have the courage to deal with these guys or treat them like they were clean. It is not like we will not recognize what is happening when ten years from now Clemens and others like him are not allowed into the HOF. I would love to know what really happened in Clemens case. From the outside looking in it looks to me like the government and MLB simply found a convenient way to side step the issue cause MLB was unwilling to deal with it. While Clemens ends up let off the hook on a technicality, I will bet you anything that he and others like him will never see the inside of the HOF as an inductee. While Clemens has to be responsible for his own actions, there is a basic dishonesty here that is the responsibility of MLB. That said Clemens is not exactly shouting to the heavens to have his day in court.

For those that are thinking that Ells is gone for the year are you thinking that this is worse than a shoulder separation or are you thinking that a shoulder separation will be the end of his season? I just hope they don't rush Crawford back because of this injury to Ells. Whether by his own decision or somebody else's decision it seems like every time Crawford pushes it, he ends up dinging something else and we end up with another delay. Maybe this becomes a chance to look at a guy or two in the big league uniform. I would prefer that to pushing Crawford into yet another injury of some sort.

Price seemed to unravel oddly today. Once he started to have trouble with his control and was stuck out there on the mound it looked like he started to overthrow in an effort to keep his velocity up where it had been. Once he started overthrowing his rhythm was shot and he was all over the place. He reacted very badly and really did not have a good answer to what was happening to him on the mound. Toasted himself more than anything else as at that point the Sox had not really done much damage to him. Looked like he was insistent that his FB was going to get him off the mound and in the dugout. There he was out there insistent on throwing the FB and intent on keeping his velocity up regardless of the fact that he was clearly tiring and overthrowing. Even tweaked his back at one point trying to throw the thing. So you might be right in that he did more to self-destruct at that point than the Sox had done to distroy him. The Sox were pretty patient at the plate today though and that clearly contributed to Price's demise.

The Sox did get Price out of the game. Every once and awhile it seems to me that as good as he is, Madden is sometimes guilty of over-managing. I did keep track of it but it seemed to me the Rays had a conveyer belt of relief pitchers coming into that game and by the later innings they could not get anybody out.

Mcdonald has the bat for corner OF? Seems to me that Aviles is going to be a bat in the Sox lineup anyway. Not sure they have enough bats to scoff at Aviles bat at corner outfield given the guys they send out there on a regular basis.

Aviles would be an immediate improvement on the Sox OF arms. Maybe he would make sense out there.

I guess they really can't rush Crawford along as that has seemed to backfire already. However Ells did not look good leaving the field today. Would seem they need Crawford more than ever.

I wonder if Shoppach will catch more even if Beckett is not pitching. I would prefer to see a better defensive catcher especially the way Salty is hitting.

Is there something more definite yet on Ells injury? Hoping he won't be out for long.

Is Melancon still throwing lollypops....yup

At least this might be a harmless spot to see if Melancon can stop throwing lollypops

Hate the Rays. How can Luke Scott have anything bad to say about Fenway given his home park?

Youk has looked better today. As good as their starting pitching is, maybe the Rays bullpen will be their achilles heel. They have been pretty bad today.

Beckett is not living on the black with his FB. Did you see where his FB was when he was throwing it today? Again I do not think he can get by with a FB 91-92 with bad location because he can't really depend on the offspeed stuff the way he has today. Once he realized he was wild in the Strike Zone with his FB today he went offspeed by necessity. The Rays never picked on it and did not lay off the offspeed strikes early in the count which is why Josh's pitch count through 8 complete is so low.