Chicago Sucks Like a Hoover.

After taking two out of three in Trampa and exercising some demons in the Trop, the Red Sox have somehow managed to take what looked like a weekend chance to take all of the drama out of the Wild Card race (Magic Number: 24) and flush it down the toilet in grand style. You can’t really blame the pitching; (great use of the semicolon) Byrd was over his head already, Wake and Beckett pitched well enough to win and Lester continued to prove that he should be starting for the Sox come game one of the ALDs. Instead this crapopotomous of a weekend lies squarely on the shoulders of the guys swinging the bats. Other than the six runs that they put up for Lester (three of which came off of Vic’s homer in the ninth), the bats gave their pitchers four runs with which to work and couldn’t muster anything against the likes of Freddy Garcia (who retired two years ago, but doesn’t know it yet), Gavin Floyd and Mr. Perfect Mark Buerhle, all of whom they beat not a week ago.

The guy who I’m mentally staring down, and not in the loving way I usually do, is our 2008 AL MVP. Dusty Pete was 2-1 Billion on this road trip, and even though his tremendous catch and throw for the DP yesterday saved Lester’s outing, his lack of production with a bat in his hands is killing us.

We’re coming home for three against the O’s this week, also known as another chance to drop the magic number. Let’s get our shit in gear, play like we are capable of and continue to put the Rangers farther in our rear view mirror.

Go Sox.

Done.

Even When Everything Goes All Kablooey, The Sox Keep Finding Ways To Win.

That was wacky.

In twenty some years of watching the Sox, I have become accustomed to things going wrong. So when a nasty Jon Lester slider made Alexi Ramirez swing an miss with two out in the seventh last night, it didn’t surprise me when the pitch hit the corner of the plate (literally hit it, not hit it as in passed over it for a strike), and got away from Jason Varitek (who is still very good at blocking pitches in the dirt) allowing the tying run to score. It hurt, sent me back into the bottle, and cause me to hate life for a short time, but it didn’t surprise me. Neither did the line drive that Mike Lowell would have caught pre hip surgery, or the failed attempt at a Willy Mays style catch by Hideki Okajima (hilarious) in the eighth.

What did surprise me, mostly due to the way the breaks have gone for the Sox over the past three months, was that they bore down, got out of it and came back to win the game. Bay had another homer, which was huge, and Victor Martinez, as a pinch hitter, had two more key hits to prove that he was an amazing pick up by Theo. On the other side, Oki got a yough out to end the seventh and Delcarmen was nasty in getting his one out for the win. What was really nice to see was that Papelbon, in complete FU mode for the arrival of Billy Wagner (not related to Honus or his baseball card) throwing nothing but straight heat to get the save.

It’s wins like these that make a six game deficit with thirty seven to go seem much smaller than it looked a few weeks ago when games like this became losses and everything sucked in this world. Anyone ready for a 2004esque  September? (From August 16 on they were 31-11. I could deal with that)

Cool.

Oh, and then there’s the kid. Jacoby Ellsbury, who has been getting better as the season continues, completed his epic journey last night by becoming the most prolific base thief in the long history of the Boston Red Sox. The best part? He’s young, fast and has a month left in the season. Sweet.

Tonight, as the Senate says goodbye to it’s elder statesman (We’ll miss you Ted, you were a great American and made your brothers proud), the Sox get to say hello to their own. Wakefield takes the mound, throwing to Victor Martinez (this should be interesting), for the first time in almost two months. It will be a sight for sore eyes, ones which are mostly sore due to me trying to poke them out while watching Brad Penny make every attempt to flush our season down the toilet. Also on hand will be Billy Wagner, who will either be a missing piece that makes the bullpen complete, or the 2009 version of Eric Gagne, without the French Canadienness or the douchey glasses.

Should be fun.

Go Sox.