Don't get me wrong. I love a blow out win. But...

Couldn't there have been a LITTLE bit of offense the night before?
To score zero runs one night and 14 the next...
Why not 2 one night and 12 the next?

Nice getting Jon Lester some support... spread it around for Wakes, OK?

Ah well. Either way, the Sox are creeping closer to October. I'd prefer the Division. I'll take the playoffs.

Now THAT is how you fall out of First Place!

This game was over in the second inning. And if you are going to lose, have a total meltdown.

10-0.

Being held to 2 hits.



NOTHING went right and that's how I like my losses.

TOTAL blow outs. And with Wakefield going 4 innings (throwing to Varitek no less!)



By the way, THIS should be Wakes' role for the rest of the season. Come in when the Sox are behind.



Best case scenario is the Red Sox come back and he gets his 200th win.

Worst case scenario is the bullpen gets the night off.



Give me a 10-0 loss to striking out with the bases loaded against Rivera any day!

The road trip has been OK so far

I guess the Sox have been passing the test of this tough road trip so far.

More homers... more runs piled on...
They outscored the Blue Jays 35-6 in three games.

They've scored 60 runs in the first 6 games of the road trip.
That's right... they went up against the Yankees and Blue Jays and AVERAGED 10 runs a game.

I think the bats are back.

I guess Jon Lester is doing OK... 9 wins, a decent 3.73 ERA... 8 innings 1 run, 2 hits, 8 strikeouts, 1 walk.

So 6 games into the 9 game road trip and 6 wins.
WORST CASE SCENARIO has them going 6-3, which we would have all taken.

Off to Tampa.
Win the series there and come on home!

No teeth were ground tonight

So the month of May ends with a second straight blow out loss. So what? The Sox went 19-10 in May. Not shabby.

A month and a half ago, the Red Sox were 8 games under .500!

They were 5 games back 17 days ago.

And now going into June, the Red Sox are 1 game out of first place with the offense starting to come around.

April ended with the Red Sox in the cellar. Now we are frustrated that our stay in first place lasted only a day.

Dust off the unis.
The Sox have won nearly 2 out of every 3 games since falling to 2-10.

Bring on June. The Yankees can't survive the year on Colon, Garcia, Burnett and Nova pitching 80% of their games.

Hand the ball to Wakes tomorrow and let's go!

I TOLD the Red Sox to get Dayan Viciedo!!!!

I was watching the Tigers/White Sox blow out on MLB Network while helping my son out with his homework. (Don't look at me like THAT! We did it all!)

By the end of the game Ozzie was basically looking down the bench and yelling "Who hasn't played yet?" and made the box score cluttered with September call ups like a split squad Spring Training Game.

I looked up and saw a house of a dude at the plate that I had never seen before. #24. Big huge right handed batter. He just LOOKED like a ballplayer.

They flashed who it was.

It was Cuban sensation Dayan Viciedo... who showed off his right handed power with both Birmingham and Charlotte in the White Sox farm system.

The guy who at age 21 gives the White Sox a potential right handed stud in the infield (along with Alexi Ramirez and Gordon Beckham could be putting together an awesome infield on the South Side.)

The guy who already has 3 big league homers.

The guy who, sight unseen, I BEGGED the Red Sox to sign him because potential right handed power hitting studs don't grow on trees!

I saw him walk.

And I can already tell... the Red Sox should have listened to me!

Tony LaRussa should be trying to Restore the Cardinals to the Pennant race

Call me nuts, but maybe the time Tony LaRussa spent coming up with a speech for Glenn Beck's dopey little promotional stunt could have been used in a more productive manner:

Like how about a game plan against the Nationals.

You know when you are the prohibitive favorite to win the division with the best 1-2 punch in the rotation in all the National League and a guy who seems hell bent to win his third straight MVP and you are LOSING ground to the Reds and Phillies... maybe promoting a Fox News talk show shouldn't be priority one.

Oh yeah, the Nats won 14-5... the Cardinals pitchers are letting up an average of 9 runs a game to the Nationals.

Maybe they should have Glenn Beck write THAT on his chalk board.

Hey Giants... can you at least let fans get to their SEATS before you lose?

Seriously... the Giants were down 3-0 before they even came to bat on Friday.
Saturday? It was a 6-0 hole they dug themselves.

So people grabbing garlic fries or a Cha Cha Bowl hadn't even finished getting their napkins before the game was decided.

Can you at least put up a FIGHT?

It will be better for concessions if you aren't so quick to CONCEDE!

Well THAT couldn't have helped Jon Lester's Cy Young bid!

Wow... 5 runs on the board before the Red Sox even took a swing?
9 runs in two innings?

His ERA jumping from 2.80 to 3.26?

Now THAT is how you end a good run of games.
I must say, my theory is correct about losses. It's better to lose by a lot and by a lot early. This game was over in the first inning, so I didn't spend the night fretting over the Sox.

There were no teeth ground tonight.

It's better to lose like this where you can shrug and say "Well, we didn't have it today" as opposed to blowing a lead late or dropping a 1-0 game.

Our ace got his ass handed to him. Go get them tomorrow.

Then again, there will be no sweep of Toronto and this team needs to sweep a few series to make this season remotely competitive (which is looking more and more like it won't be.)

Ah just win tomorrow, Dice-K. You know you won't have the worst start of any Sox pitcher this week. Just go three innings and give up 8 or fewer runs.

Hey Kansas City... good job tonight.

All around great effort tonight by KC.

The pitching staff let up 8 fewer runs than the night before and the offense scored twice as many runs as their previous game.

Granted, they lost the other night 19-1 and tonight it was merely 11-2.

So they've been outscored 30-3 over the first 2 games.

They are at least getting better each game, and I am a glass half full kind of guy.

Let's look at the positive things about today's game, Blue Jays

For 7 of the 8 innings you pitched today against the Yankees, you kept them scoreless.

You held the mighty Yankees to 2 hits and no runs in 7 out of 8 innings. Seriously, I tip my cap to you for 7/8 of your pitching today.

That's a darn good ratio of good innings to bad innings.

Now that one inning that they DID score was problematic.
9 hits, 3 walks, a hit by pitch, a wild pitch and ELEVEN EARNED RUNS is not a good inning.
That could have had some improvements and is something to try to avoid in the future.

But the majority of the game today... GOOD JOB!

(Yikes.)

The Red Sox held up THEIR end of the bargain!

The Red Sox had an uneventful win... just as I asked them to.
They didn't let up a base runner for the last three innings and it was never in doubt.

And frankly I was listening to the Red Sox game more than I was the Celtics game on my drive home.

Yeeeeesh.

A friend of mine (A Knicks fan) wrote to me and said "Isn't this what you want? Game 7, Lakers vs. Celtics?"

I said "NO! I wanted Game 4, Celtics sweeping the Suns!"

Ah well.

Buchholz is showing he is throwing like an ace and it is Lester's turn to regain his stuff.

And maybe the Celtics can regain some of THEIR magic.
Today was neither a teeth grinder nor a dodged bullet. I guess if you are going to lose... LOSE!

What was so hard about that?

Tonight was just what this Red Sox fan ordered.

A nice blowout win. Good pitching. Good hitting. Even a turn back the clock home run from Mike Lowell.

I feel bad for Jamie Moyer, whose Hall of Fame candidacy is looking less and less insane, but a nice old fashioned ass whuppin from the Sox made for a very calm drive home tonight.

And a nice performance by John Lackey against a contender didn't hurt either.

Win one of the next two... win the series... and make it easy like tonight.

I AM DONE WATCHING TONIGHT

Seriously... this is a blow out.
This stinks.

And there is no need to watch anymore.

If the Red Sox come back and win, then this will be the win of the year.

I'll risk it.

See you tomorrow Sox fans.

What is this "Red Sox blow out" you speak of?

I don't believe it.
The Red Sox actually won a blow out game.

As in "the game was not in doubt late."
As in "the Red Sox took a 13 run lead into the 9th inning."
As in "they were able to rest Bard, Okajima and Papelbon in the game."
As in "no need to update the Teeth Grinder/Dodged Bullet tally."

Now the Red Sox did everything in their power to MAKE it interesting. Buchholz struggled in the 6th.

Schoeneweis let up 4 in the 9th to make his ERA ugly.

But after the ugly weekend in Baltimore, it is nice to see the Red Sox unload, pad some stats (four players had 3 or more RBI) and Adrian Beltre got his first Red Sox homer. Even Bill Hall hit one out!

A stress free victory... against a team a team that has won 5 of 6 division titles no less.

I can get used to victories like this.
(I am not counting on them, but I can get used to them.)

The Pirates nose dive is MY fault

I am SO sorry, Pirate fans.



I was seriously just trying to be encouraging to the Pirates and their fans.



I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for them and I saw, early in the season, that they swept the Reds.



And I noticed that they were 2 games above .500 and were playing exciting ball.



So I wrote about it... and man since then, the results have been pretty amazing.



And when a young team has some success early, they can go in three different directions:

1) They can have an exciting and unexpected season, like the Rays did in 2008.

2) They can quickly come back to Earth, like the Blue Jays did in 2009.

3) Or they can collapse so grotesquely that you can basically call the season over before May… like the 2010 Pirates just did.



They’ve lost 7 in a row.

And guess what?… THAT’S THE GOOD NEWS



They didn’t just lose these games. They crashed and burned in ways that the slaughter rule should have been in place.



In short they do not look like a major league team. Put them up against the New Orleans Zephyrs and I wouldn’t pick the Pirates.



Since I gave them a pat on the back the Pirates have an 0-7 record and have been outscored by a combined score of 72-11.



Look at that again… in their last 7 games, they’ve lost by an AVERAGE of roughly 10-1.



Better hope the Penguins have a good playoff push.

I have a feeling consecutive losing season #18 is a foregone conclusion.

Start handing out more free tickets, Pirates

Remember that scene in Apocalypse Now when Martin Sheen was meeting the general, the CIA guy and the colonel played by Harrison Ford?

When the general passes Martin Sheen the Vietnamese shrimp he says "If you'll eat it you won't have to prove your courage in any other way."

Well that was today with the Pirates and their fans.

If any fans stayed through a day game on Thursday all the way to the end... to watch the Pirates lose 20-0... they will never have to prove their loyalty in any other way.

Earlier this month, I said that the Pirates should give free passes for the season for anyone who stayed through ANOTHER brutal Thursday massacre.

Well guess what? They should hand more passes out today.

Who knows? Maybe they'll get a packed house of free passes by the end of the year.

Once again, it is easier than putting a good product on the field.

(Man, just a few days after I said how well they were playing, the Brewers come in and out score them 36-1 over three games!)

Now THAT'S how you lose a game!

A nice ass whipping!

No suspense.

How was the starting pitching?

Wakefield gave us 5 1/3 innings with 5 earned runs... that's not good.

How was the bullpen?

Scott Schoeneweis let up a back breaking homer to have the Twins pull out of reach. That's not good.

How was the line up?

Held scoreless and they only managed 6 hits.

How was the defense?

Three errors, including one from Bill Hall who has more errors in his only 2 games with the Red Sox (2) than he has hits. (0)

In other words, today was a day where nothing went right.
Losses like this are easier to handle than a 1 run loss where everyone played well.

Put it behind you, Sox.
Tampa is coming to town starting tomorrow.

Well, if you are going to lose... LOSE

Seriously... I have said I don't want my teams losing 9-8.

And I can live with a 1-0 loss.

But blow outs are my favorite kind of losses. 

And this game was an ideal loss.

Seriously, if my team is going to lose, I want them down 9-0 early so I can give my kids a bath and read them a book without scurrying down stairs to check the score on MLB.com.

If my team is going to lose, I want the best pitcher to be a utility infielder chucking 2 hitless and scoreless frames.

Just lose, give the pen a night off and feel fine with taking 3 of 4 from the White Sox.

Bring on the Jays