No game thread yet? What's up with that?

New winning streak starts tonight.

If Paul Byrd were in fact, a bird...he'd be a battle-scarred War Eagle.... not some fruity Oriole. He'd tear that little bitch to shreds..leaving nothing more than a crimson mess. I expect nothing less from Mr. Byrd tonight.

Hot Byrd on bird action!

Get ready to prey

9/1/08--Vestigial Belts

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.

1. It has come to Jose’s attention recently that baseball players are the only athletes in any major U.S. sport who wear belts. Jose thinks that football players may wear belts too, but he thinks those are built into their pants, so they don’t really count. What Jose is talking about is an honest to God, ass whippin’, Michael Huthcence-style autoerotic asphyxiation belt. Hutchence never could have killed himself with the belt in a pair of football pants. Even boxers, who are forbidden to hit below the belt, do not, technically, wear belts.

So baseball players are unique among American athletes in wearing a proper belt. The question, as always, is why?

The answer is clearly not “to keep their pants up.” A significant percentage of major leaguers are of sufficient girth that having their pants fall off is not an issue and they still wear belts. Another counterpoint to the “keep their pants up hypothesis” is Manny, who wore a belt and yet constantly seemed to have his pants falling off.

So Jose has come to a conclusion. The belt on baseball players is a vestigial structure dating back to when players needed them in the old days of baseball before nuclear science gave us the elastic waist. It is something left over from a distant past when it had use, like the appendix or Mike Timlin.

So, we have established that the belt on baseball players serves no purpose. This troubles Jose. It strikes him as wasteful. Isn’t there something that could be done?

Yes. Yes there is.

While attending a minor league game last week, Jose had an idea. He became frustrated with the fact that he could not tell which players were former major leaguers and which had yet to visit the show. And then it him… belts were the answer, and for once he was not talking about belts of scotch.

Baseball should take a cue from karate. Each player should wear a belt reflecting his highest level of baseball achievement. Little leaguers would wear white belts, high school players yellow belts and rookie leaguers orange belts. A ball gets a green belt, AA a blue belt and AAA players would wear brown belts. Only a major leaguer would have the honor and esteem of a black belt. Once in the majors, a player would get a degree for each All-Star Appearance. For instance, Scott Cooper would be a second-degree black belt.

Wait, scrap the whole idea. Jose is pretty sure that the karate equivalent of Scott Cooper is not a second degree black belt, but Daniel LaRusso before he met Mr. Miyagi.
2. As the Red Sox come down the stretch run, Jose has to confess that he feels remarkably confident despite the Sox having only a slim lead for the wild card and approximately three quarters of the team on the disabled list. Jose isn’t exactly sure why he feels confident, but he’s been thinking about it, and he has developed a theory.

Here’s what Jose’s come up with: Jose feels completely confident because the Red Sox now have Jonathan Van Every on the team.

At first Jose didn’t really feel that way, after all was there any evidence that Van Every would make a difference? Had he made a huge difference in AAA? Had he demonstrated any real aptitude for Major League Baseball? Was there any evidence that he was ready to succeed DJ Dru in right field right now should the need arise? After all, his experience was mostly in center and left, which is totally different from right. The answer to all of these questions is no.

A week ago this would have unsettled Jose profoundly rather than elating him, but not anymore, not after the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President. What the joyous reaction to Gov. Palin’s nomination among social conservatives has shown Jose is that preparation and aptitude are irrelevant, provided you belief in the right things and represent a critical interest group.

So does Van Every believe in the right things and represent a critical group? Well, Van Every believes in both hitting the ball AND catching the ball. Moreover, he is guaranteed to capture the critical demographic of Mississippians of Dutch extraction. That’s huge. And who cares if prior to making the majors, his only real success was in AA?

Sure, Jose was supporting the Red Sox prior to Van Every’s call up, who else was he going to support, Tampax Bay? But his support was wan and unenthusiastic. Now that we have Van Every, Jose feels confident and fired up. Besides did you know that Van Every has exactly as much Major League experience now as Ted Williams had after his first four At Bats? Of course, Ted Williams probably didn’t strike out in three of them.

For Jose's thoughts on instant replay, visit http://keystothegame.blogspot.com/

Win it for Jose and Sarah Palin, the next Vice President of USA!!

I see her more as starring in MILF porn than as a Vice President.

Have you heard?

Word up Byrd. Get this done tonight. Win!

She's certainly more qualified for it.

He got HGH from a dentist, and then stole our hearts.

Go get em Paul.

Pedroia's season, 15-game rolling averages. OBP, SLG, GPA, BABIP



Large version

Between May 22 and June 8 he had a .212 OBP.... crazy to think about.

Tek, Bay

NESN.Com has posted our Red Sox lineup as follows:

Jacoby Ellsbury, RF
Dustin Pedroia, 2B
David Ortiz, DH
Kevin Youkilis, 3B
Jason Bay, LF
Jed Lowrie, SS
Jason Varitek, C
Jeff Bailey, 1B
Coco Crisp, CF

1-6, that is beautiful.

No genius?
How can we possibly win?

In all seriousness, I am so happy to see AC out of the lineup that I could drive to Boston to thank Tito myself.

Byrd must be ecstatic. Now he can allow grounders toward shortstop without automatically giving up hits.

This might be the best lineup not to feature JD and Lowell all year.

No Cora makes me happy in the pants

Edit: Any word on who the Sox called up for today?

There he is! WEINER DOG FOULKEY REESE CUTIE PIE pet him!

I seriously doubt Sarah Palin gives a shit about the Red Sox, dauber.

Fixed it for you

From the Herald Blog: "The Sox didn’t make any September call-ups and may not do so until Pawtucket is done with the International League playoffs."

Ok I just heard that Alicia Sacramone is throwing out the first pitch tonight... PICS PLEASE!!!

WIth her clutchness she will give up a homer somehow.

Clearly the Sox are doomed tonight.

Not that Byrd pitches well in the first inning anyway.

And the vice, and the versa.

Wait, I'm confused.
I looked at Tek's and there's actually parts of it that are red.
Shouldn't pretty much the whole thing be midnight blue?

Seriously, though, that's a pretty cool display of data.

NESN playing that song too

Well, except for when they still had that Manny guy

1 of at least 3 homers today, I presume.

Oh golly that was SMASHED.

Wow, Pacman wastes no time.

Something about hearing Don and Jerry's voices is really comforting...

...Good job Byrd.

NM

Glad that Adam Jones could make it back

JE goes deep here.

Or doesn't.

Did Don just say Brandon Moss was in the Sox dugout?

Sox need to score at least 8 tonight

Yes, six feet deep.

I miss having a good lead off hitter

ban? hehehe

Nice to see the little guy walk. Let's go Big Papi! Put some runs on the board.

Papi not such an elite hitter this year

I'm prepared to be rather annoyed by the results of this half inning

He's wild out there, wild I say. Take take...

Wallball right here Jed.

I wish I could say I have confidence in Lowrie here, but after yesterday's squanders....

That looks like hittin' speed there boys.

Thought he was hitting that inside corner, but it seems like those pitches were inside on Jnai's Pfx site.

Well that sucked.