Blast from the past. Here's the box score for the last game at Fenway Park that was not a sellout. It was freezing and I skipped a class to see A-Rod play at Fenway. It's tough to remember how much fun that we had in 2003 (well, up until a certain point...).
Congrats to the Sox for breaking the record tonight! Good luck getting the division lead back!
The Boston Bruins are in the same situation yet again - an excess of goaltending options. The B's have 2 vets ( Manny Fernandez and Tim Thomas) and 2 young options (Kevin Regan and Tukka Rask). The B's have to pick somebody, so what are they supposed to do?
The Pats pulled off a perfect regular season last year. The 2008-2009 schedule starts off a bit lean, making it seem like they could go 16-0 again.Things heat up in week 9 when the Pats play the Colts at Indy. The Steelers come to Foxboro in week 13, then the Pats go to Seattle for week 14. Notable - no matchup with the Giants.
They play a Sunday Night game against the Chargers on October 12th, a Monday Night game the next week against the Broncos (the 20th), Sunday Night again against the Colts on November 2nd, Thursday Night vs the Jets on November 13th, and Sunday Night December 7th against the Seahawks.
The Official 2008 NFL Schedule has been released. The 2008 Season opens with the Redskins at the Giants on Thursday September 4th. Lots of interesting matchups to look forward to this season.
It seems as if Don Shula has gone soft on his Asterisk suggestion for the Pats. He's done a 180 on the situation. Makes you wonder if someone reminded him of any skeletons that may be still in the closet from '72.
Not content with merely running up the score and embarrassing their opposing teams, the 2007-2008 Patriots have decided to eliminate any fantasy option that plays against them.
Injury: Ankle, pitifully hopping around the field, not being helped up by his teammates, destroyed confidence
Result: Already questionable with a pelvis injury, Pennington missed the next game, and has since only led his team to one win. The loss of Pennington was likely saddled on those who took a QB too late, autodrafted, or were an idiot and drafted Vick - obviously kicking someone who is already down.
Week 2: Chargers RB LaDanian Tomlinson
Culprit: Patriot offense, defense, special teams, cheerleaders, concession vendors
Injury: Pride, Fantasy Score
Result: Perpetual 1st-3rd fantasy pick "LT" had trash-talked the Patriots since losing to them in the AFC Wild-Card game the previous season. After this game, a subdued LT temporarily lost his magic. The Chargers lost the next couple games, also effecting the fantasy value of QB Philip Rivers and TE Antonio Gates.
Result: After a pass was off, an offensive lineman knocked Wilfork into Lossman. Fairly called roughing the passer (this needs to be called every time whether it is an accident or not), the play resulted in an MCL sprain for Lossman. People in the above situation with Pennington were also likely in the situation with Lossman... with lesser expectations.
Week 4: Bengals Players Chad Johnson, Lemar Marshall, Landon Johnson, various others
Culprit: D-line, Secondary
Injury: Crappy Fantasy Score/Pride, Ruptured Achillies Tendon, Eye, Hand
Result: After large amounts of bragging, Chad Johnson was held without a celebration against the Pats. CJ only put up 5.3 fantasy points in the average league. Various offensive and defensive Bengal players left, creating a number of mismatches in not only week 4, but also in the games since then.
Result: Jamal Lewis has a monster game in Week 2 against the Bengals, with 216 rushing yards. He had lost his step a bit in the two weeks since then, but was knocked out of Week 5 early with a knee injury. Lewis has been out since then, and has seen very little of the practice field. Joe Jurevicius going out of the game wasn't a major fantasy impact, but it certainly stung for those who patiently waited for him to put up numbers like he did with BC alum Matt Hasslebeck in Seattle.
Injury: Revealing that the Cowboys are not invincible
Result: While not every team will be able to reproduce some of the things that the Patriots did to curtail the then-perfect Cowboys, it did highlight how frustrated they can become when Tony Romo realizes that the defense can't bail him out every week. Who knows if Tony's shoulder could act up again later this season, as well.
Result: Ronnie Brown came up lame trying to tackle Randall Gay after he intercepted Cleo Lemon. In Yahoo's most popular scoring format, Brown was the #1 ranked running back by fantasy points, a few ahead of LaDanian Tomlinson and Adrian Peterson. Ronnie was also the #4 all around point producer in that format. This will likely rank among the biggest fantasy gut-punches of the year.
It's worth noting that Ronnie Brown, still ranked #1 fantasy running back, is nearly 80 points behind Tom Brady at #1 player overall.
There was cause for celebration at Fenway Park last night, as Daisuke Matsuzaka and his teammates celebrated the rookie's five-inning outing. "This is a great and honorable achievement," Matsuzaka said through his personal translator. "I look to maybe pitching six innings soon!"
The season will possibly start with a trip to Japan, playing the Athletics. The home schedule starts on April 8th with a 3 game set against the Tigers, followed by three with the Yankees. Much like the 2005 season, the Sox will close out the home schedule with three games against the Yankees.
Curt Schilling resorted to casting a "magical spell" on his baseball after giving up a three-run home run to Jhonny Peralta in Saturday night's ALCS matchup. The spell, known as "Intoxicating Fury," is a detrimental type spell cast on single players in the online RPG EverQuest.
As the 2006 season approached, I was very excited about the addition of Josh Beckett to the Boston rotation. As hard as it was to say goodbye to Hanley Ramirez, who was sure to be a star, it was worth it to obtain a young pitcher that could immediately become the ace of the staff.There was also a lot of talk about the albatross that would be making the trip north with Beckett.
I never really followed the senior circuit, but was aware that Mike Lowell was a pretty damn good player, throughout his career. The problem was that he was awful in his last year in Florida. I heard that he was so desperate to solve his problems at the plate, in 2005, that he tried wearing only one contact lens, while batting. Maybe he wore it only in his lead eye, and the disparity between the two eyes would help him pick up the ball better? I have no idea how that would work.
Compounding the idea that Lowell's days of being a productive player may have been over was that he made a lot of money. This isn't a good combination, when playing in Boston. Just ask J.D. Drew. When a large part of the fan-base feels priced out of going to ballgames, they are often offended by high priced ballplayers -- especially when they play like 'bums'.
I found myself hoping that Mike Lowell would just add a little something to the team, and people wouldn't pay attention to him. Just blend in, and dance between the boos like a witch in a rainstorm. To my surprise, the rain never came.
I was encouraged when I heard that, immediately following the end of the last game of the 2005 season, Lowell got in his car and drove some outrageous distance to work with his minor league batting coach. Now, after two seasons with the Red Sox, Lowell has been tremendous. He's played outstanding third-base defense. He followed up a very solid 2006 season with a monster 2007 season -- leading the team in RBI (setting a club record for runs driven in by a third baseman).
George Clooney is a ridiculously handsome man (note -- let it be known that I speak only for myself on this. The statement does not extend past my own observation, and will not be attributed to any group of people, whether they are man or woman, short or tall). Since Lowell arrived in Boston, I thought he bore a resemblance to the modern day Carey Grant. Granted, Mike is not as striking as George. So, if moving up the scale, towards Clooney, is to be more handsome, moving down the scale is to be uglier. The Red Sox' third baseman has been known, in my house, as "Ugly Clooney" since his first week in Boston.
Lowell, also, happens to be my girlfriend's all-time favorite player. She loves everything about him, except, maybe, the questionable goatee (highlighted by the wafer thin mustache). Kevin Youkilis, on the other hand, she loathes. Part of it is his not so thin goatee. Part of it is the balding head. I also think she dislikes the butt-wiggle batting stance, and she doesn't have an appreciation for OBP. She is not down with the OBP.
Alex Rodriguez could join Mike Lowell on the list of high profile free agents, if he opts out of his landmark contract, following this season. I really hope that, despite the seemingly unlimited funds available to the Boston Red Sox, Theo is not blinded by regular season numbers and largely meaningless personal records. If he concentrates on how much a player contributes to team success, I can't imagine he'll find anyone more valuable than Mike Lowell. Sign him, and let A-Rod fail in the post-season for some other team.
[Editor: I almost changed the title of this article. Every woman I know thinks Lowell is a sexy beast.]
This is one of the more entertaining times of the year to be a baseball fan. When the calendar turns to October second guessing and scrutinizing every move made by the manager becomes a birthright exercised by every fan of the game, regardless of the intensity of the fan. As a guy who can say he's nearly always agreed with the way Tito has managed I figured what wiser thing for me to do than to second-guess everything he will do in advance.
Of course what this really means is I just gave my friends a list of things that I will likely be wrong about. But lets start with the hitters in the likely batting order:
1st Grady Sizemore: (LHB) It's never easy to get a high-energy high-talent player out, but if the Sox are going to be able to get it done it will most likely come on inside-pitches where he is only slightly above MLB average. Also very important in getting Sizemore out will be getting off-speed pitches to land for strikes. He may struggle at hitting off-speed stuff, (Hitting .222 vs the league average of .240) but he's also not going to chase junk pitches out of the zone as evidence by his .391 on base percentage and low rate of chasing pitches out of the strike zone (14% in counts with less than 2 strikes and only 26% in counts with 2 strikes). Hits lefties for better average but with less extra base-pop.
2nd Asdrubal Cabrera (RHB) Go outside (.121) but stay away from the middle (.304). Easy enough right? Another guy who has a harder time with Offspeed pitches with a .214 average. Obviously anybody who knows which pitch is coming is going to be able to hit anything so a large part of the Sox success will be dictated with how well their offspeed stuff is mixed in and how effectively they can throw them for strikes. Cabrera's game doesn't have any glaring holes in it at this stage, except he hits lefties (.950 OPS) at a far better clip than righties (.720)
3rd Travis Hafner (LHB) Down and Inside. The more you look at the top third of this lineup the more concerned with how economical any pitcher will be when facing this trio. (Daisuke?) Hafner's ability to hit offspeed pitches is even further behind Sizemore and Cabrera. 'Tek will need to resist the urge to set him up with a high-fastball for a swinging third strike; that's where Hafner murders the ball.
4th Victor Martinez (Switch) The most likely of the guys so far to chase a bad off-speed pitch out of the zone with 2 strikes (36%) though excellent at putting the hittable stuff in play (46%) His strike-zone is top-heavy in that he hits high stuff much better than stuff lower in the zone. Slightly better at hitting fastballs.
5th Ryan Garko (RHB) His two weakest spots are Inside and Low, and while he's another top-heavy strike-zone hitter he's not a tremendous threat with the high cheese. He hits roughly the same against fastballs and offspeed stuff. Hits lefties better (.914) than righties (.812)
6th Jhonny Peralta (RHB) Expect a feast of curveballs, sliders, and changes coming his way where he is substantially worse than against fastballs. Lets more than his fair share of plate appearances get to two strikes than average (43% vs 35%) which should help out Sox pitchers with good strikeout rates (Beckett, Daisuke, Paps, Delcarmen etc.) The key will be getting through Peralta's at-bats as economically as possible as he's not a hitter prone to chasing bad stuff.
7th Kenny Lofton (LHB) Probably the hitter most likely to face Javier Lopez, in fact he faced him eight times already. That's because Lofton sports the biggest splits between facing lefties (.545 OPS) vs righties (.838). Of course this brings up a whole other problem that not many noticed so far; Javier Lopez isn't all that great at getting lefties out. I'm sure the temptation to bring in a lefty-specialist for a guy who cant lefties will be too great. Lofton only managed one hit in eight plate appearances against Lopez but got walked twice. Before those later innings Sox pitchers should try and blow fastballs by the old man with the slow bat speed.
8th Trot Nixon (LHB) Lived up to the off-season billing of being a poor man's J.D. Drew except with much worse defense. Nixon wont hit for much power (3 homers this year) unless matched up against the right pitcher (Old Man #22). Lopez may also end up facing Nixon a few times especially if he's stacked after Lofton where he posts similar numbers without the big jump against righties. Trot even started to lose his reputation as being a great fastball hitter -- though he does still excel at getting them in play. Can get buried if he lets the at bat get to 2 strikes -- which happens more than often. Sadly at this stage of his career he's a shadow of his 2001-03 self.
9th Casey Blake (RHB) Not bad for a #9 hitter, just very average. Hits better on outside stuff, so the Sox will be wise to pitch him inside. Typical right-handed batter splits. Decent pop to his bat but strikes out a ton in the process. Similar in a way to Kevin Youkilis, without any of his signature plate-discipline -- the only thing that gives him value.
Sure, Josh Beckett has been sweet this year and should probably be the unanimous winner of the American League Cy Young award, but he's doing even better in my MLB2k7 (XBox 360) season.
I mean, I read all these columnists going on and on about his 18 wins and his Cy Young run and his 180 strike-outs or whatever. Big deal! MY Josh Beckett is 25-1 with 352 strike-outs, 5 walks, and a sub-2.00 ERA. Let's see the real guy match those numbers. Not gonna happen, sorry.
Best of all, this is on the "intermediate" setting. I'm no beginner. I'm playing with the big boys now.
Just last night I was matched up against that Vlad guy. Bottom of the ninth with two-strikes on him. What do I do? I totally punch him out with a nasty 12/6 curve. Beckett's 16th complete game.
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