God, Just Get Me To Thursday.

I don’t remember if there has ever been an All-Star Break that has been so interminably long (aided by the fact that I was away for the week leading up to it), but that I have been so O.K. with. The Sox are beat to shit, and nothing can do them better than some time off. Sure the All-Star game was fun (no it wasn’t, it was boring and poorly managed, but I’m getting more and more convinced that Bud Selig is a killer robot each day and want to keep him happy), and the NL finally won one, which means that the Sox can sweep at Fenway this year as opposed to some pissant NL town.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a midseason break without some type of list commemorating the first half or looking forward to the second. Seeing as the M*A*S*H unit Sox have limped into the break on pace to win 94 games without half of their team (and still finish third in the best division in baseball history), I’m going to just let all that be and get ready for what’s next. So with no more adieu and without further gilding the lilly, I present to you the short list of things to watch out for the rest of the 2010 Red Sox season.

Dustin Pedroia’s CT scan (Thursday): Seriously, the whole season might hinge on this. If everything goes well, The Laser Show (awesome new nickname from Peter Abraham of Extra Bases) will be off the crutches and back doing something less crutchy this week. That puts a return sometime at the beginning of next month, or knowing our MVP second baseman, the end of July. If this all goes through, our best hitter is back in the lineup with two months to go, we have a gold glover back at a premium defensive position and the sparkplug back in the clubhouse.

If it doesn’t show adequate progress I’m packing up my balls and going home, because that means surgery and see you in February. That’s how important Pedroia is to the Sox.

The Returns of Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz, and Victor Martinez (Next two weeks): Beckett is the wild card here. He could power through a rehab start or three and then come in and make the rest of the AL his own personal fire hydrant for the rest of the season. He could come back and do his best Jeff Suppan impersonation, leaving the fans to wonder what that $68 million extension did to him. Buchholz is going to come back from vacation, which is what this DL stint was, not a real injury, and be exactly the guy that he was in the first half and challenge Lester for the Cy Young. (These Two Week DL stints for every pitcher on the staff are truly a brilliant idea). Victor, well, Victor will stabilize the pitching staff because they won’t be throwing to Kevin Cash any more and provide a semblance of normalcy for a lineup that has been missing the three guys at the top. All good things.

Trading Deadline (July 31): Consider this an open letter to Theo, Lucchino, Henry and the rest: Don’t be pussies. Love, the people who pay your bills. This is when we will know if the front office has decided that this team is going all the way, or that this really has been a bridge year and our getting wrapped up in this team was pure folly. If they decide to play the “Jacoby Ellsbury, Josh Beckett and Jed Lowrie were our midseason pickups” card then they are pussying out and looking towards next year, but if David DeJesus (my buddy the Reverend’s favorite player) makes an appearance with a B on his cap, and a reliable relief pitcher (or two) strolls in from the ‘pen, then we have ourselves an ownership sponsored contender. Keep an eye on this one.

The expiration date on Daniel Nava and Darnell McDonald (sometime in late August): This may be really pessimistic, but these guys haven’t done it in the past for a reason, and this is when Nick Green melted into a pool of jelly on the infield last season. Don’t get me wrong, these guys have been lifesavers for us and hopefully this doesn’t happen and we get a sequel to The Rookie based on this year’s Sox out of it, but the reality is that there had better be some movement on Ellsbury and DeJesus (yes, I have completely given up on Mike Cameron. He is playing through a lot of pain and not being a sissy about it, but at this point I don’t see him making a significant contribution to the club) soon, or we are heading into one wild ass pennant race with one arm tied behind our backs.

The Parade (early November): Anyone else see a touch of destiny sprinkled on this club?

Go Sox.

Done.

Why I Love The 2010 Boston Red Sox.

So we’ve been gone for a while. These things happen when real life interrupts blissful Baseball fandom. The time off (which isn’t particularly over, more on that in a bit) has helped to reenergize us and has also reaffirmed our love for the Red Sox, specifically these Red Sox.

C0ming into the season I was confident despite the utterances of such terms as “bridge year” and “transitional period” throughout the off season. I knew that there was no way that the team was going to actually allow a season to go by without making a push for a title, especially with the fact that this season’s payroll ($170 mil) was higher than any in the club’s history. There was a lot of grousing about how the failure to sign Leigh Tiexiera’s  wife in the winter of 2008 had screwed up this team for years to come, and local pessimism was at it’s highest point since the winter of 2002, when everything had gone to shit and we still didn’t have a ring.

I could see where the doubters were looking, and I agreed with them in some way, but I still saw true promise in this club. There was some flash, some personality and some frailty, much more like the clubs that we used to love in the early part of the decade. So far, they have proved me right, and there’s much more to which we should look forward.

He's good again.

First and foremost there are the guys who keep showing up an doing their jobs. As long as we have Kevin Youkilis (seriously, Vote for Youk), David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre and (gulp) J.D. Drew going out there every day, the Sox have a chance to win. Without Dustin Pedroia, Victor Martinez and Jacoby Ellsbury, the Sox have been grinding along, winning the first two of pretty much every series and doing it in every way possible. It is in many ways thanks to these guys.

David Ortiz and Adrian Beltre (both All Stars) have bounced back into form after disastrous 2009s and are both making Theo Epstein look good. Who else thought Beltre was going to hit .340 this deep into the season? Nobody? Yeah, I thought so.  J.D. and Youk, on the other hand are as steady as they come, both putting up the numbers and playing the kind of defense we have come to expect from both of them. Even J.D.’s monthly period pains have been just what we expected (he misses 4-5 days a month with some type of nagging malady. Therefore, he’s either a Werewolf or a chick). And we can’t discount Scutaro’s ability to make the routine play and get on base when necessary.

Then there’s the collection of Minor Leaguers, castoffs and miracles that Theo has found and thrown in to the fire. I was at the game when Darnell McDonald made his debut with a game tying homer and a walk off double, and he has been steady if not spectacular, but definitely better than expected for a guy who had been bouncing around the minors for 11 years. Danny Nava, on the other hand, came from the other end of the spectrum but had just as few expectations, and made his presence known just as fast. Josh Reddick, Felix Doubront (tonight’s starter) and all the rest have also been operating above and beyond. These kids (who are mostly older than me) are kicking ass and taking names, and it is good for everyone.

Granted, there are still issues. The bullpen is an absolute trainwreck. Getting the ball to Daily Daniel Bard and Papelmoose has gotten to be an adventure, as anyone who was begging for Daisuke to make it just one more inning last night should know. The injuries will also eventually catch up to us, because you can’t win a world series with Eric “Corey’s less talented younger brother” Patterson hitting in the second spot in the lineup.

We’ll be gone until Monday, as the Sox limp (quite literally) into the All-Star break. Damn real life and it’s getinthewayish abilitites.

They ain’t prefect, but I love ’em. You should too.

Go Sox.

Done.

Papelbon Blows a Save: These Things Happen.

Such A D Bag.

I’ve decided, after long and arduous contemplation, and watching Italy “France” themselves out of the World Cup (if they had shown the slightest bit of effort, Slovakia wouldn’t have scored the third goal and Italy might have moved on), I have decided that last night’s stomach punch of a Red Sox game needs to be let go.

No Old Ladies Slapping His Ass For This One.

Even the best closers in the world (which, by all statistical measure, Papelbon is one of) blow a save now and then. It just happened to come last night for Paps, who had been throwing the ball very well. It blows that it had to be Jason “I’m nowhere near as cool as I was in Oakland, but still suck way less than as a Yankee” Giambi to stick it to us, but it had to be someone, and better someone who is already so incredibly hateable. This does mean, however, that I have to like interleague a bit less because it no longer provides good eating for the Sox, and also because it reminded me that Jason Giambi is in fact still a baseball player, and not bouncing at the hottest night club in Bumfuck, Kentucky.

It’s actually kind of nice that I had this one down as a loss from the moment I saw the probable starters. I’m not saying that Lackey has been super bad (he’s still better than Burnett) but I have absolutely zero faith in the guy as a top tier stopper. A quality start out of him would be great, as opposed to the five spot that Colorado put up on him last night. The scary part is that he was more productive at bat, scoring what was the potential winning run after doubling off of Jimenez in the fifth.

Daniel Nava: Turns Out He's Really Good (13-34)

He was up against Ubaldo Jimenez, who is really that good, and just couldn’t show it against Danny Nava (best Red Sox ever) and Darnell McDonald. I was expecting two runs and maybe seven hits from the Sox, and a ho-hum, nothing special loss. Turns out I got a game where baseball’s best pitcher (other than Strasburg) took one on the chin for the first time all year but his team came back to kick us in the nuts.

Tonight we’ve got Daisuke back on the hill after his pretend DL stint, and it looks like we may have finally said Adios to Treebeard, as Mike Lowell hits the DL to replace him. I am really starting to wonder what in the hell this team could do if it was healthy at some point this season.

Go Sox.

Done.

If This is the Best the NL Has To Offer, Sign Me Up For More Interleague.

Cool Logo for a Bad Idea

After this weekend’s dismantling of the two time NL champ Phillies behind the all-star duo of Scott Atchison and Daniel Nava (not to diminish what they did; Nava can hit and Atchison saved us in a tight spot), and on the cusp of three against the NL worst D-Backs, I’m actually liking the idea of interleague this year. It still let’s the Yanks feast on teams like the Astros (poor Brad Mills) while the Sox have to face the Phils and then the NL west, the best division in the NL, but if that’s all the champs have then it might not be all bad.

Of course, my rose colored glasses may be affected by the fact that tonight the party rolls on with Arizona in town. Proud owners of nine (seriously) road wins on the season, only one pitcher with more than three wins and a GM who is already in the process of dismantling the team, these guys are ripe for the picking. Then again we said that about KC, Baltimore and Cleveland and now we’re .500 against that group.

Along with Nava leading off (Bill Hall is at short with Scutaro getting the night off after dealing with a nerve issue in his arm), we’ve got Buck on the hill tonight against old asshole Ian Kennedy, who wasn’t good enough to make it in New York. Remember when he got sent down to the minors by the Yanks and never came back? Yeah, this should be fun for Youk, Beltre, Pedey and the boys.

And I hear there’s something that may be parade related happening at 9. Go Celtics.

Go Sox.

Done.