This looks to be the ultimate reverse lock game. Hopefully Wakefield will bounce back from his God-awful start in TB and lead the Sox back to the playoffs. Let's not rely on Toronto to do anything positive against the MFY.

Oh and Jed Lowrie and Mark Kotsay: Don't suck.

seal the deal

This thing is lingering like Hillary's Presidential bid. Just end this... TONIGHT!

9/23/08--Our Competitive Advantage

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

This seems like as good a time as any for Jose to point out the one small concern he has about this team: They may not be very good.

It’s an odd thing to say right now as the Sox stand with 91 wins, just one victory or Yankee loss away from clinching a playoff birth, but Jose really wonders. What exactly is this team’s competitive advantage? It’s certainly not the offense. Sure, the Sox have some guys at the middle of the lineup who can mash, but we also have a bottom of the lineup that includes a too old Varitek, a suddenly too young Lowrie and a too never very good Mark Kotsay-Hey Kid. (Note: Sarcasm.)

The relief pitching? It’s fine Jose supposes. Papelbon is still picking up saves for the most part, but somehow he seems a little unsteady. Like a drunk working the high iron, he never looks good but he always hangs on. Of course, when a guy on the high iron doesn’t hang on it’s messy. The same holds true for Paps. Oki’s been back on track and Masterson’s been good, but can they compare to the young guns in Tampa or the man from Anaheim who rendered Jose’s Bobby Thigpen card even more worthless? (Note: Jose traded a Lou Whitaker card for that Thigpen card the year Thigpen set the save record. In related news, did you know that Jose was once president of Lehman Brothers?) That leaves us with the starting pitching. This should be the strong point. Beckett, Lester and Dice. That’s a pretty good threesome. It’s like Garnett, Pierce and Allen, but without the foul stench of Connecticut. (Note: Just kidding, Jose is indifferent to Connecticut. By the way is Connect Four the official state game of Connecticut? It should be. And why is the second “C” in Connecticut silent? Jose bets it is for insurance reasons.) But how confident are you about Dice’s ability to not throw 150 pitches in the first three innings of a big game? And Beckett hasn’t looked like himself. And Lester? Jose is good with Lester. Lester is easily the best ventriloquist dummy of all time, well, after Franklin and Gabbo.

So maybe our competitive advantage is at manager. Tito is probably the best in the game right now. Jose thinks we should consider putting him in charge of the $700 billion bailout, since he’s already managed Manny Ramirez a.k.a. the $160 million bailout. The only problem is that his competition will be pretty good too. Scioscia has recovered nicely from his radiation poisoning in Springfield to emerge as a first rate skipper, Joe Maddon is a genius with his Tina Fey glasses and Ozzie Guillen… okay Ozzie’s sort of nuts.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us relying on Wally the Green Monster. Can you name the Tampa mascot or Chicago’s? The Angels have that monkey, but Jose has seen a bunch of monkeys up close in the last year, and they don’t seem so tough. As long as Korean tourists don’t give them any cookies, they’re generally not a problem. If Jose was going to take a bush animal for his mascot he would have gotten a hippo. Those things are scary. If the Angels had a hippo for a mascot, Jose would worry.

Anyway, Jose at least hopes that the mascot is our advantage or else he is going to be spending the next few weeks comparing and contrasting park organists and ushers in search of that one little advantage that will make the 2008 Sox special.

2. Jose has a new friend. He thinks we might be BFFs. His name is Justin… Justin Masterson. He will probably be the best man at Jose’s wedding. Okay Jose’s not engaged or anything, but at the very least, Justin will probably come over to watch WrestleMania.

It’s funny that Jose and Justin became friends so quickly. Jose usually takes time to build up friendships. Half of his friends are people he’s known since kindergarten. The other half are folks he’s known since college. The third half are people who are not great at math. Jose becomes friendly with people fast but he takes his time becoming friends. (Note: No he doesn’t.) But with Justin it was somehow different. The friendship was almost instantaneous. Jose invited Justin to become his friend, and Justin agreed.

It’s probably that they have so much in common. Justin’s favorite book is The Bible and Jose owns a Bible. It’s somewhere. Justin loves Jesus and Jose really likes Jesus. Justin likes to quote Virgil and Jose once saw Virgil with Ted DiBiase at the old Boston Garden. Justin is a right-handed pitcher and Jose often uses his right hand to pour from a pitcher. Justin loves Adam Sandler movies and Jose… well, there’s no link on that one.

The point is that we’re now excellent good friends, like Hamlet and Rosencrantz except without the Justin having Jose killed.

And now that we’re friends on Facebook, we will probably hang out a lot and get beers and jalapeño poppers. Unless, of course, Justin decides, based on this piece, that Jose is stalker… which he’s not. Seriously. Stalking seems like a lot of work and Jose just doesn’t have that kind of stick-to-itiveness.

If you’re worried, just ask Jose’s old BFF Curt Euro. He’ll tell you that Jose had almost nothing to do with his season and perhaps career ending injury. It was completely Euro’s fault for not tapping out of that hammerlock.

For KEY 3, a look at DJ Dru's prognosis, visit http://keystothegame.blogspot.com/.

Raymond. Yes, the fact that I know that completely disgusts me.

Go Jesse Litsch!

As long as this thing doesn't end like Hillary's bid....

Let's not make this week so interesting. Win it, have fun, gear up for the Angels.

And then win that, too.

Hopefully Coco can play against the lefty as opposed to Kotsay.

Except that it's the Yankees that are lingering around like Hillary did, clinging to every last shred of hope, refusing to accept the inevitible until the very moment of mathematical certainty is upon them. I'm pretty sure that's the analogy he was making. And rest assured it will end for the Yankees like it did for Hillary. Tonight or tomorrow perhaps, but the end is nigh.

Interesting fact on the BBTN Clubhouse: The Red Sox 3-4 hitters have had the highest OPS in the majors. They also have the highest difference between 3-4 hitters and 1-2 hitters.

1-2 Hitters
.702

3-4 Hitters
1.066

Difference
.364

I found it surprising considering that Pedroia has an .867 OPS. Even Jacoby's .687 OPS shouldn't have affected that number that much. I looked further into the numbers and it looks to be because:

Pedroia batting 1st: .520 OPS (17 games 79 PA)
Pedroia batting 2nd: .878 OPS (130 games 606 PA)
Ellsbury batting 1st: .677 OPS (110 games 523 PA)
Crisp batting 1st: .524 OPS (16 games 75 PA)
Drew batting 1st: .592 OPS (8 games 39 PA)
Lowrie batting 2nd: .634 OPS (9 games 38 PA)
Youkilis batting 2nd: .866 OPS (17 games 78 PA)

It's interesting how much our lead off hitter sucked. We need Ellsbury (who I assume will lead off the rest of the season and the postseason) to step up. Not just today, but this last week and the playoffs. We could really use his .500 slugging from last year.

Beckett on Ryan Garko

"Like Crystal Pepsi with a splash of cheap whiskey"

Clinch Day: Part Two! So I guess today is the sequel. Hopefully that means more runs, a sexy new female co-star, and, possibly, the introduction of Joe Pesci. Sox win tonight, eliminate the need for sequels forcing the producers to create a prequel tomorrow night focusing on a young Paul Byrd as he discovers the joys of pornography and HGH in a Christian household: "Jesus loves you, you cheating pervert."

As we all know tonight's opponent is Cliff Lee. In 2007 Lee hit Sammy Sosa with a pitch on the same night that Sosa was being honored for hitting his 600^th homer. This led directly to Lee getting into a fight with his own catcher, Victor Martinez. But he has also done some bad things.

Lee has had an up-and-down career. He was drafted three times, by the Orioles, Marlins, and finally Expos. He kept spinning the wheel of destiny and it kept coming up Yokozuna. He was traded, together with Grady Sizemore and others, for Bartolo Colon (fat quitter) and Tim Drew (no-talent brother of superstars). So basically he was traded for two different versions of Daniel Baldwin.

Anyway it is on tonight. Lee is the presumptive Cy Young winner. He is an excellent pitcher on an abysmal team. His winning percentage is .917 compared to his team's .506. He's Paul McCartney on Wings (more specifically the episode where Brian flys McCartney out to meet Linda in Nantucket and the two wind up stranded in the hangar and re-tell interesting episodes from their past lives in flashback format while waiting to be rescued). He is George Clooney on The Facts of Life (Sal Fasano playing Natalie). He's all the naked stripper scenes in Showgirls, surrounded by all the other scenes in Showgirls.

Sure he is great, but his team sucks and if there is one thing that sequels do, it is try to give the audience what they want. So tonight needs to end in a Sox victory and a Heidi Watney/Amalie Benjamin surprise threeway with special guest Hazel Mae.

I'm ERR and now you know

... and after him, Burnett, Halladay and Lester. I view this as six opportunities to score one win, and these are our starters in four of the six. If, somehow, the MFYs run this gauntlet, then Jack Daniels will be my starter Friday night.

Mercifully, the Rays will likely put the finishing touches on the division by Thursday, bringing this two-week root canal appointment to an end.

With any luck, the whole goddamn thing will be settled within 60 hrs.

This is the type of quote that gives me raging man love for JB

Southpaw is the mascot of the CWS. See post above in regards to self-disgust.

Beckett raises a good point. I remember (in 2002?) MLB coming out with that guidance saying they would require doctor's approval for any body armor. Then nothing. Whatever happened?

Sox will wrap it up tonight. Just a Morgan-esque hunch.

Who cares what Ryan "The champagne tastes just as sweet on the road" Garko does or says? He's a piece of shit and one of the best parts of winning last year is always referring to him as that to my Indians fan friends who wanted to talk shit to me. Beckett shouldn't even comment on him, Garko is not worth his time.

I hope we get good Wakefield tonight.

Fat chance. Get ready for another stinker, boys.

Red Sox
1. Jacoby Ellsbury, RF
2. Dustin Pedroia, 2B
3. David Ortiz, DH
4. Kevin Youkilis, 3B
5. Jason Bay, LF
6. Jed Lowrie, SS
7. Sean Casey, 1B
8. Kevin Cash, C
9. Coco Crisp, CF
-- Tim Wakefield, SP

Indians
1. Grady Sizemore, CF
2. Jamey Carroll, 2B
3. Shin-Soo Choo, LF
4. Jhonny Peralta, SS
5. Victor Martinez, 1B
6. David Dellucci, DH
7. Kelly Shoppach, C
8. Franklin Gutierrez, RF
9. Andy Marte, 3B
-- Cliff Lee, SP

wtf reverse m0j0

Ummm... Jose, Justin told me *I* was his internet BFF.

Looser.

No more of this pussyfooting bullshit. STEP ON THEIR NECKS.

It wouldn't kill Lowrie to hit the goddamn ball tonight

Given the two pitchers going tonight, I strongly doubt that the Sox will win. I still maintain that it will come down to this weekend, which I really don't like.

There's no way that the Sox get swept at home in a 4 game series while the Yankees beat Burnett and Halladay in Toronto.....right?

When you put it that way Foulkey I gotta agree.

Right....I'm not afraid to say it.

It will happen one way or another.

No chance. It ends tonight, worst case tomorrow night.

Zippy chance that happens.

Given present constraints...I don't hate that lineup.

I woke up today thinking "Kevin Cash is going deep tonight."

WIN.

Clinch!

Cliff Lee has not been that sharp his last couple of starts. He's already set a career high in IP and is at about his career high in pitches thrown this season, so he could be getting tired. I say we can get to him. So it really does come down to whether or not good Wake shows up.

Andy Marte?

Tito on Lowell/DrewExtra Bases

I hear he's the real thing

Wow. This Adam Kilgore is really bad. He is just mumbling and bumbling all over.

Maybe Don should interview Kilgore instead of Heidi so he is not as nervous, this is not going well... Also, he is not sure where to look, someone should tell him to just forget about the camera and talk to the interviewer.

The champagne is chilling, I've covered the walls with Saran Wrap tm, the balloons are ready to fall from my playroom ceiling, and I'm ready to set fire to my car.

Its time!!!

Clinch or the kitty gets it.

His blog writing is fantastic, though.

Can we take a deep breath and get rid of the Yanqui angst once and for all?

The defending World Champion Boston Red Sox will win the wild card and face the Angels in the ALDS.

Champagne, hugs, et. al.

Good Wakefield will show up tonight, and kick ass for 8 innings - offense (such as they are) will step up and hit Lee early, often and safely. Get it done, guys - time's a wasting.

GO SOX - WIN TODAY!

Some fight from BAL wouldn't hurt either

Rays up 4-2 and counting.

Orioles bullpen strikes again.

It's just a matter of time. Wakefield is on the brink of sucking. Or of being dominant. Or both.