"He'd seen in it in the war work the same way. More of a change than any loss of virginity. Fear gone like an operation. Something else grew in its place. Main thing a man had. Made him into a man. Women knew it too. No bloody fear."

Our pitcher throws rocks, their pitcher throw scissors. Rock beats Scissors.

WIN!

Bay batting 6th and Alex Cora starting...nice.

I wonder how many times Bay gets stranded on base tonight....


1. J.D. Drew, RF
2. Jed Lowrie, SS
3. David Ortiz, DH
4. Kevin Youkilis, 1B
5. Mike Lowell, 3B
6. Jason Bay, LF
7. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
8. Kevin Cash, C
9. Alex Cora, 2B

-- Tim Wakefield, SP

Jed Lowrie batting 2nd. Interesting.

Cora and Cash in the same lineup is just so brutal. There should be a rule about this.

I think Tito just threw down dice to decide the batting order. Not that I'm complaining, what are you supposed to do when a major market team is throwing Alex Cora and Kevin Cash out there?

Lowell - 277/340/457

Bay - 290/382/531

Which one do you want possibly having the last Red Sox at bat of the game?

Cash.

For a team of this caliber not have figured out how to jettison Alex Cora by August is staggering.

Since May 24:

Tek: .166/.265/.234 .499

Cash: .140/.204/.300 .504

Cora: .208/.309/.292 .601

---

Cashitek: .222/.306/.353

MLBavgC: .258/.327/.392

So what you're saying is that Alex Cora should be doing the catching.

Shhh! Tito might be reading Souche right now...

Just two separate thoughts

I also just looked at Kot and Brown's basic MLEs..... ugly, but would be pretty right now..... OPS's of .638 and .673

Ugly? That's downright Piazzan compared to what we've been getting.

Right, here are what they are:

Kottaras: .191/.294/.344
Brown: .226/.314/.359

Others:

Bailey: .245/.335/.429
Carter: .243/.298/.400
JVE: .218/.300/.393

So I'm guessing the pre-game mood is not one of optimism?

Why start now?

Excellent point. I hadn't thought of it in those terms.

TB scored 6 in the bottom of the 9th to win 10-7?! Wow.

TB is starting to really tick me off.

If Tito does read SOSH, you think he would ever get the message that you can stagger the days off you give to players and they do not have to happen on days Wake starts??

WAIT A MINUTE!

Jason Varitek would throw his own body on top of a live grenade just to save a lost scout ant that was trying to bring a piece of cracker jack back to it's ant hole near the home on deck circle at Fenway.

Jason Varitek is the Dimitri Mendeleev of clubhouse chemistry! All this talk about how 'Tek can't hit for shit must stop and stop NOW!

Message number one would be "bat Jason Bay 4th stubborn bald man!"
I understand the thinking behind wanting to give Wee Man today off. The two day break can really be beneficial.
Tampa has already won today. Continue the good outings tonight Wake. Striek fear into the heart of this Greenhorn, Lineup. Win today Sox.

Yeah, it's the two day off thing. He's done it for a while now.

Do you think Tito knows this and would just rather load the lineup with suck on one day instead of spreading the suck out over multiple days?

I can't believe Alex Cora is starting another game for the Red Sox. Must be some pictures he's got.

So...... fuck the Indians.

Ok, the problem is that Tito knows he has little chance to win a game on No-Ted days. So he punts em, and puts Cora in there. It's perfectly sound logic. My problem is that it's not like ted couldn't pinch hit later, so there's no reason to wave the white flag.

Is that a joke? The difference between winning and losing is the downgrade from Tek to Cash?

Ok.

Well, thank God we have the option to pinch hit Jason Varitek.

Why start now? Wake always seems to have Alex Cora behind him.

You and I and possibly even Skrub know that Ted is roping a double tonight.

Except that he hasn't started the last 5 times Wakefield pitched.

He sends out genius vibes

Pedroia has played 112 games this season. That's 7 more than anyone else on the team. He probably needs a day off. Leave it to Francona to do that when we need to start a winning streak.

Yeah, he should have waited until there was an unimportant game.

Don't confuse me with the facts. What about the previous 5 starts, smarty facts?

The truth is that having Cora start in games when the offense was already weaker by virtue of the fact that Tek was out and Cash or Mirabelli was in never made much sense to me, especially since Francona was often seemingly relying on a small sample size in that Cora was something like 5 for 14 against a particular pitcher. But with Tek scuffling at the plate, it's probably less of a big deal.

Someone needs to screen shot that split between Heidi and Kathryn.

I have no idea if this factors into his thinking at all, but it could be that Wakefield is a Flyball pitcher and it probably makes better sense to rest your middle infielders on days that he is pitching.

Just a thought.

One of Wake's last 8 starts.

Again, it's possible that Tito would rather put 2 weak links in during the same game, as opposed to spreading them out. Get all the suck out of the way at once.

Wakefield
2008: 16.4 LD% 34.9 GB% 48.7 FB%
Career: 17.2 LD% 40.5 GB% 42.2 FB%

Beckett
2008: 24.4 LD% 39.8 GB% 35.8 FB%
Career: 19.3 LD% 44.0 GB% 36.7 FB%

Lester
2008: 20.5 LD% 48.3 GB% 31.2 FB%
Career: 20.5 LD% 43.1 GB% 36.3 FB%

Buchholz
2008: 22.5 LD% 48.8 GB% 28.6 FB%
Career: 23.8 LD% 46.8 GB% 29.4 FB%

Matsuzaka
2008: 18.0 LD% 36.3 GB% 45.8 FB%
Career: 18.0 LD% 37.7 GB% 44.4 FB%

He has the lowest GB total this year, but Dice-K has the lowest career numbers.

Cora or Pedey. . . Ellsbury or Crisp. . .Tek or Cash. . .Bay or Manny: Don't care who is in, or why they're in - just care that they win. Kick ass and keep it going.

GO SOX - WIN TODAY!

Combined hits for the last 3 in the order?

My guess: 2

JD is better than the Ho Shaver.

Jed Lowrie is my new BFF

More importantly is how many timely hits they get...

Where the fuck is everyone? The lineup isn't that bad.

Good start, guys. Now walk Papi and we're golden.

Ortiz had two good pitches to hit in that AB.

Heads up base running by David Jonathan.