Scarlet Fever: September 2006

Looking To 2007

And so the playoff race ends. I should be so disappointed, but I knew it was coming. A team this thin on starting pitching could not have swept the rest of our games. And now that we know we're out of the postseason, it's an oddly settling feeling. An abysmal August crushed the season that could have been. We were destroyed by injury. There is no one to blame. There is no scapegoat, try as people might to blame it on Theo, Tito, or any of the players.
And now Red Sox Nation turns its eyes toward the postseason. What moves should be made to make 2007 a legitimate year for contention?
The following is what I believe should take place. Arguments are welcome.

FIRST BASE
Kevin Youkilis. Hands down. A solid defender, very cheap, bats well anywhere in the lineup, occasional power.

SECOND BASE
Dustin Pedroia. He is looking more and more comfortable every day. I love Loretta, but I think he could be excellent trade bait for some pitching. Pedroia's hitting is getting better and better and his defense has shown signs of much potential. He is learning every day.

SHORTSTOP
Alex Gonzalez. Cheap, absolutely amazing on defense, and way above expectations hitting-wise. At one point he was hitting .292, though he has had a recent decline in production which I attribute largely to a DL stint.

THIRD BASE
Mike Lowell. He is awesome. The end.

CATCHER
Jason Varitek. Next year his hitting numbers should be closer to what we've seen in past seasons, and he is irreplaceable behind the plate. Doug Mirabelli for backup.

LEFT FIELD
Manny Ramirez, barring trade. Manny's defense this year was surprisingly solid, and occasionaly impressive. And his hitting... need I say more? If Manny is traded, which I doubt will happen, David Murphy perhaps?

CENTER FIELD
Coco Crisp. I completely believe that he never got a fair chance. His finger now requires surgery, and it has become apparent that it has been a huge problem for him all year, much more than he has been letting on. I'd give him another year to prove himself. He's cheap, young, spectacular defensively, fast, and should bat around .300.

LEFT FIELD
Wily Mo Pena. Trot Nixon will be traded. That's a fact. I love Trot more than life itself, but he's gone. Hopefully we'll get some pitching for him too. Wily Mo's glove is an adventure, but we have seen him improve offensively before our eyes this season. The more playing time he got, the better he did. Plus, being around Manny and Ortiz is surely a huge help for him. He seems to be a great clubhouse presence too.

DESIGNATED HITTER
Um, David Ortiz, thankyouverymuch.

STARTING PITCHING
1. Curt Schilling. Ace. His last season should be a memorable one. He'll want to go out with a bang.
2. Josh Beckett. He's been looking more comfortable in the AL, and we all know that he DOES have good stuff. His home run totals should plummet, and he should be a 15-plus-game winner.
3. Jonathan Papelbon. He's lights out. Being a closer he's gotten the opportunity to face pretty much every team in the AL and a little bit of the NL too. He should be amazing.
4. Tim Wakefield. I sure hope he gets healthy, because he's obviously not right now. A healthy Wake will be a very solid addition to our pitching staff. He can go deep in games, and when his knuckleball is on, nobody will be able to hit it.
5. Julian Tavarez/Somebody we trade for. Matt Clement is a has-been. He's getting surgery, he sucks, and he sat around all season with no real injury except to his confidence. I don't know if the FO will want to keep Tavarez for '07, but in his past 5 starts he's shown us that starting is where he belongs. He seems to love it, and he's been incredible. I would have no qualms about having him in the rotation. If we want someone else in the starting 5, Tavarez will make good trade bait.

BULLPEN
1. Someone new.
2. Someone new.
3. Someone new.
4. Manny Delcarmen. He's matured before our eyes. He's still learning, but I think he eventualy will be a very good pitcher.
5. A lefty.
6. Mike Timlin? Maybe?
7. Keith Foulke. He's been lights out for the past few weeks. Don't know where that came from, but I like it. It would be awesome if he could be the closer from '04, but if not, he could be a setup guy.
8. A closer.

LINEUP
1. Kevin Youkilis 1B
2. Coco Crisp CF
3. David Ortiz DH
4. Manny Ramirez LF
5. Wily Mo Pena RF
6. Mike Lowell 3B
7. Jason Varitek C
8. Dustin Pedroia 2B
9. Alex Gonzalez SS

A great lineup 1 through 9. Youk leads off, Wily Mo gives Manny some protection, Gonzo hitting 9th gives us a 9-hitter who isn't an automatic out.
2007 will be fun.

Julian Tavarez Rocks My Sox

So apparently the combination of extremely good starting pitching and home run hitting will win you a ballgame. Who would have thought? Tavarez last night was outstanding. A complete game with only one run allowed. He has been way, way above and beyond expectations as a starter. He was given one or two starts because we were running out of options, and he took the opportunity and ran with it. He seems to be having so much fun out there starting. And he helped his team stay in the playoff race for one more day. In the past two games, our starting pitching has given up only one run in 17 innings pitched. Incredible. We are hanging by a thread, but we are still in it. And Tavarez clearly realized this.

David Ortiz is Freaking Amazing

Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell aren't too bad either. Beckett shuts out the Twins for 8 beautiful innings, Foulkie closes it up like he's been doing for the past month-ish, Lowell homers, and Ortiz creates an instant classic with homers no. 51 and 52 off of no other than Johan Santana, who will probably win the AL Cy Young award.
I love it.
Please pardon my lack of posts. My baseball time has become greatly diminished thanks to a very hectic schedule, and my blogging time has shrunk even more. But I'll do my best.

Joe Morgan and the ESPN Guys Need to Hang Themselves ASAP

I had to turn off the TV after the sixth because my thoughts were getting increasingly violent towards the ESPN announcers. If anyone reads an article about them getting murdered in their sleep tonight, yeah, that was me. Honestly. They don't even care about what's going on in the game. Coco Crisp got a single, and they didn't acknowledge it a single freaking time. Not once did they mention it. They totally weren't paying attention. And it's so obvious that they are Yankees fans. They don't even try and hide it. They blabbered on and on about how the Yankees have had so many injuries this year and last, but did they ever mention the rediculous amount of injuries the Sox have been plagued with this season? Again, not a single freaking time. They do so much more commentary when the Yankees are batting, but even so, they talk way too much about absolutely nothing and they say the most retarted things that make me want to repeatedly punch them. In the second Mike Lowell doubled and then Trot homered and Joe Morgan goes "Three run homer! Mike Lowell!" and it takes him like a year to realize that it wasn't a three run homer. Because, of course, he wasn't paying attention. And the little "trivia" he gives are all so obvious. Like Ortiz' being hospitalized for heart problems. He said that as though it was brand new information that none of the viewers had heard before. At least three fourths of the people watching knew that, Joe. You. Are. Retarted.
I couldn't watch anymore. I tried to mute it but my family got mad. So I gave up. A Sox win and a Pats win is enough to make me happy. I can read about this game tomorrow.

Hurled into Obscurity

This morning I found the Boston Globe sports section sitting in between my brother's and my seat at the kitchen table, as it is every morning. As I poured syrup over my waffles, I scoured the front page for news on the Sox. There was none. Not a single baseball article was worthy of the front page. So I flipped to the second page. Again, nothing related to baseball. I checked the front page again just to make sure, and I saw at the very bottom, in tiny print, "Red Sox, C12." Page 12? Is that how insignificant the Red Sox have become? That, to me, was more of a heads-up that this season is over than any of Dan Shaughnessy's incredibly annoying "this team sucks and I'm doing my best to make Julie hate me" articles. Have we really fallen to page-12 obscurity? Eleven freaking pages of other sports are really of more interest to the public? I'm disappointed in the public then. We won a game against the Yankees. We lost one, too, but beating the Evil Empire felt so good. Apparently nobody else thought so.
Pats today at 4:30 with Nick. Two Sox games. It's going to be a fun day of sports... if I finish my To Kill a Mockingbird essay in time.

Rainout

The rain washed away the game tonight. I was pretty disappointed. Tonight's game was the game I had the greatest chance of watching in its entirety all week. Tomorrow I might be with Nick all day and Sunday I have homework and Patriots.
But I'll get through it. With a daily starting rotation consisting of school, volleyball, dinner, homework, and bed, my Sox are having a tough time getting any playing time in my life. And it's strange. I'm finding how easy it is to completely cut the Sox out of my life. Which is not something I want to or plan on doing. It's just a realization. Baseball's a summer love. A quote from my favorite movie, The Notebook, goes something like this: "Summer romances all have this in common: they are shooting stars. A burst, a fleeting glimpse of eternity, and then they are gone." Baseball is similar. In the long, lazy days of summer one has plenty of time to absorb all the baseball there is. And suddenly the season that seemed so long back in April is gone. The Patriots are more suited for fall and winter. Their once-a-week games ensure that I am there for every minute.
But I miss baseball. I miss my family rushing to finish our barbequed dinner to get on the couch at 7. I miss my mom and I throwing Peanut M&M's at each other, and going out to ice cream while listening to games on the radio. It's only been three weeks, and it seems like a lifetime ago. Once school starts it's never the same. The magic of the season is over when you watch a maximum of two innings a night, and get all your information from the Boston Globe the next morning.
It seems as if the offseason has already begun.

=]

I just tuned in to the game for the 9th. The rest I missed due to a volleyball game that went very late, followed by a boatload of homework. But before I went to bed I had to see the outcome of the game. Now I know. Mike Timlin, an abysmal 4 for 11 in save opportunities going in to the night, left the tying run on third and the go-ahead run on first with a double play, and the result made my heart sing. Even if Mr. Wild Thing Papelbon wasn't the one to do it. I miss him, but today we got along without him. Barely, but we did. Mark Loretta had an awesome night, driving in the tying run and the go-ahead run in successive innings. Yay. Now time for bed.

Hot Coco on a Cold Night

Coco Crisp contributed with 3 of our 6 RBI of the night, and Kason Gabbard gave us a scoreless 4.2 innings. It's too late for me to write out a good post, but I just wanted to share that Coco is great and I have always loved him despite his subpar season.
And Bobby Abreu is freaking awesome. I'm sorry that I have to say this. Really, really sorry because it sucks for us. But that deal turned out wicked well for the Yankees, way better than I expected. And I knew he was really good, so that's saying a lot. And thanks to him and his freaking six-RBI first, the Yanks won too.

Good Day Sunshine

A good day all around. The Patriots won, thanks to a second-half revival and a 2-point safety. The Sox won, thanks to the cureall of good pitching, good hitting and good defense. My Indians beat the White Sox, Wild Card competition.
We managed to salvage the series versus the Royals. Thank God for that. Tavarez pitched well, and our bullpen didn't allow any runs. Ortiz blasted his 48th and our offense combined for 13 total hits. This was a fun game to watch. Even if we aren't headed for the postseason. It makes it less nerveracking. It's just plain fun.

Reflections

There is a really big chance that this season is over for the Boston Red Sox. Barring miracles or another 12-game winning streak, we won't be making a postseason run. But, guys, the postseason only lasts a few weeks. The regular season lasts six months. The regular season is why we watch games. The regular season is the real baseball. So we lost to Kansas City. Take it all in stride. Even if we don't make it to the postseason, this was a great season.
I was with my boy yesterday and we walked around Boston for like four hours. Suddenly I realized I could see the Citgo sign. So I freaked out and started walking in the direction of Fenway. We went to Yawkey Way and I just kind of stood there and stared at the lights at Fenway for a minute. The Coke bottles. The retired numbers. The radio booths. I could see all that. I asked a guy at a nearby bar what the score was, and he said 4-4 in the eighth.
My boy is from Connecticut, and he just moved here to go to Bentley College. He's a Sox fan, but nothing like Bostonian ones. He asked me why I love the Sox so much. He said some people like it because they can bet on them, but why would anyone else care so much?
I had to think for a minute. I told him I want to be a sportswriter. I told him the passion of the Sox draws me in. And I told him that they make me happy. They make me so happy. I told him I could think of nothing that would make me happier than a walkoff win. Nothing.
And this is why I sit down in front of the TV every day at 7. This is why I do my homework the second I get home from volleyball practice rather than procrastinate. I don't want to miss a minute of this dwindling season. The postseason is a long, lonely one. Football games are only once a week. I miss baseball so much during the winter.
Soak it in now. Forget about wins and losses. Just watch. There's not much left.

Senseless Wandering

Never give up. Never never never. That's what we're told.
My dad remarked when we were at Fenway how strange it was not to see us in the pennant race.
We just lost to Kansas freaking City, despite scoring 9 runs, including a Tek 2-run shot and Papi's being a homer shy of the cycle.
I don't give up on anything this important to me. Ever. But this is as close to it as I've been all season.
I know anything could happen. But every day when I hear that, there's less and less of a time frame for that anything to take place. Something about being a true Sox fan commands faith. I'm getting sick of seeing "keep the faith" posts though. If we don't make it to the postseason, this season will have been a heartbreaking one. Because this team could have been so good.
I don't really even know what I think anymore. My life is so confusing right now. I'm lost and my mind seems to be spinning out of control. My thoughts are unattached and senseless and the one person who can usually bring me back to earth is the one causing this.
So bear with me. I'll be normal again in a few days. Hopefully the Sox will too. The news has been getting better. Schill and Wake should be coming back soon. That will be huge.
I do believe in miracles. I do believe in the magic of late summer baseball. I do believe that, no matter what the odds, this team is capable of taking an entire Nation by surprise and giving them the hugest feeling of happiness it could possible imagine.
I do. Because it does that every day. Every base hit, every strikeout, every slick double play is why I watch the game. That is the joy of baseball.

Me Being In A Really Good Mood

We are looking like a Major League team again. Our pitching has been lights-out, bullpen and starting; our defense has been dazzling; and our offense has given us enough runs to win in a dramatic fashion. We have our starting lineup back. And so far, it's showing.
Congradulations to Kason Gabbard on his first major league win. And a well deserved one! He was phenominal today.
Welcome back to Papi. Even though he had a quiet offensive night, we didn't need his homers today. I'd rather he save them for a night when our pitching isn't as good.
Nixon has reminded us of his importance by doubling and scoring the winning run.
Coco Crisp knocked him in. I really think we should give him another chance next year. This year was a total fluke with the injury and all. What do you guys think?
Mike Timlin got a 2-shutout-inning save, and he looked like the old Mike again.
So pretty much I love this team again. I mean, I always have and always will love the Boston Red Sox, but I'm loving the players again. Love love love them. Because now I can go to bed happy.

Awesomeness

Last night's game was amazing. After Pena's walkoff I was in shock. Absolute shock. It was probably the single best baseball moment I've ever been present for. His first major league home run, and it comes as a walkoff in the bottom of the 10th. I was the happiest person alive. Okay, maybe Pena was the first happiest, but I was a close second. That euphoria, that eruption in the stands, that dogpile at home plate, it was all amazing. I can't even believe I was actually there.
And Tavarez pitched way better than anyone would have predicted. Six scoreless innings and one run in a third of the 7th. I was there for his last start, too, and I was expecting another 3-inning, 3-run job. Schilling couldn't have done better; it seems everybody forgot who had to miss a start for Tavarez because he was absolutely fantastic.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I got to spend the day with my boy! I'm not going to talk about him here because it's really not the place, but he was really lucky and he got a ticket to the game with me and we found some seats together. He's a Sox fan, but not a Soxaholic like me, and the only time I shut up the entire game he asked me where my commentary was. I guess I talk a lot :)

Pictures... Really This Time

Ok here are all my pictures! Sorry they had to be split up into a bunch of posts but if I put them all in the same one and something went wrong I would lose them all. That already happened yesterday and I didn't really want it to again.
And just so you know, none of the pictures are of me because my parents won't let me post pictures of myself on the Internet. For obvious reasons.

Carlos Pena and Tavarez:

Again:

Hinske, I believe:

Paps, Pena and Catalonotto:

Hinkse:

Tavarez:

Papelbon:

Hinske:

Hinske and Coco:

Tavarez warming:

Blurry Hinske:

Gabe Kapler:

I am planning to marry him:

Youk Hinske and Coco:

Belli and maybe Kapler:

Hinske Coco Lowell and Youkie:

Belli and Hinkse:

Hottie McHottson:

Dougie:

Youk works a full count walk, as usual:

the hottie in front of me!!! he got up to get a drink or something so i went and sat in the empty seat next to him and he never came back cause i guess he went home. i was sad.