Starter, Reliever: Justin just rolls with it.
The Sox won again last night, their 10th in a row and 3rd straight over the pinstriped Assholes. They did it by pounding out 12 runs against the Yanks bullpen, pitching well when necessary, and making Mark Teixeira (who is so easy to hate that it almost feels bad to laugh at him when I compare his stats to Mike Lowell’s) look like a little leaguer who can’t keep up with high cheese. Hell, we even started a reliever last night and he won, just to show how much better our staff is than theirs (and if you didn’t love Masterson before, this photo will make you)
It is very clear at this point that the Yanks’ need to do something about their relief pitching, especially when Mariano Rivera’s cutter is flattening out like it did against The Buzzard on Friday night. Even the crew on ESPN (whoever thought of putting Steve Phillips in the booth with Joe Morgan and John Miller is an Effing genius. Please send the memo to the Fox exceutives in charge of that stuff before I have to tie up Joe Buck and Tim McCarver and leave them in a ditch outside of Kaufmann Stadium) was talking about how Girardi is making veiled comments to the media about how little confidence he has in any of the guys out there. Damaso Marte has an ERA north of 15, Brian Bruney (their most effective guy to this point) is on the DL and they had some schmuck make his Major League debut last night in Fenway. Not that I mind them sucking, I’m just trying to point out that spending $400 million on starting pitching and hitting doesn’t mean much unless you have a ‘pen that can puck up the slack when all of those dollars don’t result in a complete game (and that I have been right every time I said that the Sox bullpen was what was going to set them apart from the rest of the division).
All that aside, the real question of the day is whether Jacoby Ellsbury (Pinkbury until he has shown some more consistency) is a Pirate or a Ninja after his steal of home plate last night. Yeah, he stole home, straight out, not as part of a double steal, and against the Yanks. The arguments are there for each option. A Ninja is stealthy, fast, deadly and can’t be defeated by range weapons. A Pirate (think Blackbeard, or Captain Morgan, not the Somali pretenders that keep getting shitkicked) is feared, takes what he wants and can make people feel bad about themselves at any time. My inclination is to lean towards Ninja, simply for the way that he judges his enemies (pitching batteries in this case) before making his move, and that range weapons (catcher’s throws) have trouble defeating him. The way that he steals extra bases in the outfield on a regular basis is Pirate like, but the stealthy way in which he does it, and his lack of beard, parrot, and rum, make me lean the other way.
Strangely appropriate on the night that Captain Richard Phillips (just as cool as Captain Sully) threw out the first pitch. We all know that Youk and Pedroia are both pirates (the cool kind, not preceded by the word Somali, butt, or Pittsburgh), but I can’t be sure about the kid in centerfield. Your thoughts?
Go Sox.
Done.
Get Out of My Ballpark 