Hey Corey, we loved your work against the MFYs but you're in the jungle now baby. No one will be there to stand by you tonight. Well, except maybe for some goonies.

Alright Wake Junior, it's time to show your stuff in The Show.

Charlie Zink is free!

I'm actually excited about this.

Welcome to the Show, kid.

If you do a bad job you'll be locked in here with the cockroaches for two weeks without food or water.

Bullpen is good and rested, so if Zink can go 5-6 they should be in decent shape.

Win!

I'm catching cold and a little Zink is just what I need.

Win!

I am a bit nervous about this one.

I hate to think of what you'll be like when it's Buchholz vs. Halladay.

What? This face doesnt inspire confidence in you?





Eye of the tiger! - Lets see some bats tonight

8/12/08--What Day Is It?


It’s time for Jose Van Winkle’s KEYS TO THE GAME.


1. Yawn.

Yawn.

Sttttrrrreeeeecchhhhh.

Yawn.

What time is it where is Jose?

What day is it? May 23rd? No?

Twenty-fourth then? No? Really?

August 12th? Are you serious? August? How can that be? The last thing Jose remembers is that he was taunting some gnomes, some place in upstate New York, it might have been Dustin Pedroia, and the next things he knows he’s here and now.

Oh woe! Oh terrible woe! The things Jose must have missed. At least he’ll still have a chance to vote for Hillary Clinton for President. He won’t? Oh wow.

He’ll just have to try to put up with watching Kobe and the Lakers try to repeat as champs. No? Not that either huh?

Well, at least there are the Red Sox to fall back on. How’s Jon Lester doing since that no hitter? Still walking the park? He isn’t? Wonders of the future Jose guesses.

Jose can hardly wait to see Papi and Manny slug back to back again. What do you mean that’s not going to happen? Is Papi hurt again? We traded Manny?

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!


Dear God the things Jose’s missed, the loss, the horrible loss. The future is a sad and evil place. Woe! Woe! Woe! (Note: Woe!)

Wait. They didn’t trade him for Aubrey Huff and Mike Cameron did they?

This is brutal. Jose needs to try to chill out. Maybe there’s a new Bernie Mac movie out that he can watch?

What about a new Isaac Hayes album?

Oh the things Jose has missed! Oh the time that has gone by? Is nothing still the same? Is there no constant in Jose’s world?

There is you say? Praise the Lord! What is it? What has remained the same?

Julio Yugo is still not contributing in any way?

Good to know that some things never change.


2. As Jose returns after nearly three months without seeing a baseball game, there is one question the burns in his mind: Why isn’t this team better?

Jose does not mean why aren’t specific players better, or why isn’t the team as a whole putting up better numbers. What he wants to know is why, after a cursory look at team statistics, the Red Sox don’t have a better record. If you had told Jose at the beginning of the year that the team ERA would be 3.79, that St. Josh a Beckett would have the worst ERA of the regular starters at 4.08, that Youks would have 20 home runs and DJ Dru 19, Jose would be sure the Red Sox would be in first place, or would at least have a comfortable lead in the wild card.

And yet here we are in August and the Sox are four games behind Tampax Bay and just a shade ahead of the Twins for the wild card.

How is this possible?

Jose has done a lot of thinking on the subject and he has come up with a theory: The Red Sox ERA team ERA is actually, 379.000, but the Red Sox, following the lead of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, have decided to cut off some zeros. For the few of you who may not have been following the economic crisis in the troubled African nation, inflation there has, for some time been in excess of one million percent. The result has been a nation of impoverished billionaires. The highest bill printed, technically a “Special Agro-Cheque” rather than actual money, is for 100 billion Zimbabwe dollars. However, at the beginning of August, Dr. Gideon Gono, Chair of the Reserve Bank decided to slash 10 zeros from the currency, issuing new one dollar notes equal to the old 10 billion dollar notes.

Jose is pretty sure the Red Sox must have done something comparable, slashing three zeros from the team ERA to come up with the officially reported number. Jose hopes they have taken one more innovation from the big brains at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. The RBZ remonetized old coins that have for years now been worthless. In other words, one dollar coins, sitting in Zimbabwe’s sock drawers that had fallen in value to less than one-ten billionth of a U.S. dollar are now back to being worth about .10 U.S. dollars. Jose hopes that the Red Sox have replicated this and remonetized Pedro Martinez’s 2000 ERA.

For KEY 3, some good golf talk, visit http://www.keystothegame.blogspot.com/

Jose, "Julio Yugo" is the best thing you have ever written, and I love lots of your "keys."

And to think the Sox paid $36 mil for a Yugo! They should have at least gotten a Ford Falcon for that much treasure.

Wait for it...wait...wait....

JOSE'S BACK, AND HE'S BACK BIG.

I picked the right games to attend this past weekend....2-0 Baby!

I sense a turn in this season coming right now. J.D. Drew's double may be the hit that got the 2008 Sox started on the road to Repeat.

Let's fuggin do this!

Long awaited big league debut to liven up the Fenweay Faithful? Check.
Positive vibes after winning a game against a very good pitcher? Check
Jose's return to civilization and his Keys-board? Check
Mouth starting for the opposing team? Check
Hopes up that Gerald Laird will do the Truffle Shuffle to complete the Goonies theme for the Texas battery? Check
Win tonight? Check

Get this done fellers.

THe title to this thread reads more like a chess match than a baseball contest.

"Thank goodness I still live in a world of telephones, car batteries, handguns and many things made of Zink."

from AArdsma to Zink, lets kick some ass! Ive been following Zink his whole career and heres to hoping he has the same effect that Wakefield had in his debut with the pirates!

My nervousness about Zink was the driving force behind the Byrd trade.

I guess it's just time to accept Lowell batting in front of Bay....

Lineups for tonight's game against Texas:

Sox:
1. J.D Drew CF
2. Dustin Pedroia 2B
3. David Ortiz DH
4. Kevin Youkilis 1B
5. Mike Lowell 3B
6. Jason Bay LF
7. Jed Lowrie SS
8. Jacoby Ellsbury RF
9. Kevin Cash C
SP -- Charlie Zink

Rangers:
1. Ian Kinsler 2B
2. Michael Young SS
3. Josh Hamilton LF
4. Milton Bradley DH
5. Marlon Byrd LF
6. Frank Catalanotto RF
7. Gerald Laird C
8. Chris Davis 1B
5. Ramon Vazquez 3B
SP -- Scott Feldman

Care to try again?

Nice to see Bay back in the 6th spot. Wouldn't want to put too much pressure on him.

Those lineups also had Drew CF / Dreamboat RF...

I'm going to assume that Drew in CF and Ellsbury in RF is a typo.

Odds on Catalanotto going 4-5 tonight with a double and three RBI?

3:4.

Woohoo, just murdered a member and stole his tickets. Good news for your gamethreaders, in that I won't be here.

Look out for me, I'll be wearing a Red Sox hat.

I hope it was Zomp.

It would be nice if they were both playing leftfield.

Dustin Pedroia needs to show Hamilton how to hit homeruns. Laser-style.

FREE BEAKER!

Hold up a "I love Remdog" sign so we can see you.

Has anyone ever seen Millsy and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew in the same room together?

Good luck, kid - you've got big shoes to fill. There's only one first time, so make it a good one and kick ass major league style.

GO SOX - WIN TODAY!

Zink's Hall of Fame voyage begins tonight.

I've got a good feeling about this game.

81 MPH HEAT

edit: 83, smoking!

Interesting windup...

High leg "kick" followed by what looks like an almost anti-climatic stride to the plate.

Yay! new pitcher!

Boo old camera view

1-2-3!

Nice first inning.

Look at that poise.

So, between Aardsma and Zink, we now have the pitchers from A-Z?

So for those of us who don't get the video -- which number did they give him?

Please let it be 99. Please.

I'll take something like this:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/gl.cg...p&year=1992

51

51

I like Drew leading off.

Cares

Come on, you could have used the obvious vitamin reference and said A to Zink. That was too easy I guess.