no rest for the weary

photo from Surviving Grady

1. yesterday, Terry Francona claimed that there was no let-down for the team after that monster weekend series with the Crankees. a) Doug Mirabelli was quoted saying the exact opposite. 2) i know *I* was tired from the adrenaline of three games that came down to the wire against a team known to pull huge comebacks out of their pinstriped backsides, and all i had to do was spectate. and d) what does Tito know anyway? we don't (lovingly) call him Fran-coma for nothing.

2. Youk continues to make me love him. he pulled off a play at 1B in the third yesterday, tipped at a bizarre angle on the bag, held onto the ball & somehow managed to suspend animation long enough to collect the out, before falling to the ground like a cut tree. i am shocked someone didn't belt out "Timber!!" as he went down.

3. never a dull game with Remy & Don. ::shakes head:: how can you have a dull game when you get introduced to such wonders as the Don & Jerry bobbledesk, complete with a Remy comb over? come on, you know you want one. =P


4. just yesterday, via email, i was discussing the merits of WMP. and his complete lack of defensive grace. it's not his fault he's so big, any more than it's Pedroia Pocket's fault he's so teeny. and, truth be told, Papi lacks grace when we send him over to play 1B during interleague match ups. but then again, we pay Mr Ortiz to DH, which he does several times over. we pay WMP to do more than just whiff at the plate 49-out-of-50 at bats. as if to spite me, Whiffy made an impressive (if not questionable) diving catch, followed by quick reflexes to return the ball to the infield, somehow pulling off a crazy double play to end the fourth inning. i thought, for sure, he was about to make me look like just another dumb girl, with an even dumber opinion, after that performance. but then the universe righted itself, and in the ninth, he was Wily Mo again, allowing a triple by inexplicably getting his legs tangled up in themselves, and landing in an unceremonious heap in the dirt of the warning track.

5. it hurts my very soul to see Mike Lowell getting awarded errors. i will agree that some of them have been fair (there have been a couple of uncharateristic wild throws), but others, i just don't see how on God's green earth *anyone* was going to make the play. he makes a valiant effort, comes up empty & then gets whacked with another error! Julio Lugo can boot baseballs all over the infield, or half-heartedly stick his glove in the general direction of a ball that was a sure double play, and *nothing* happens to him. the only thing i can think of is that whoever is scoring these games has a strange need to keep Lowell & Captain Intangibles over in the Bronx on an even keel in the error department. it can't be mere irony that they have the same number of errors on the season, right? =P

6. i finally figured out where i've seen Jason Phillips' glasses before!


dude! you're supposed to turn those in after you're done watching the "It's Tough to be a Bug!" show!

7. best interview quote - NESN featured part of an interview with Papi, in which they talked about Dougie's home runs for Wake this season. says The Big Man: "I tell him, 'Hey! Why you save all your homer for when Wakefield is pitching?' He say, 'That's the only time I play. What you want me to do?!" followed by that big Papi laugh.

8. best in-game Remy-ism: "The problem with Frank Thomas is his arms aren't big enough."

9. in the ninth, Timlin pitched up & in to Zaun. it turned into a little chin music. next pitch, Zaun sent one blazing right back at Timlin. talk about some quick reflexes to get his glove up & catch this one. if he were Matt Clement, we would have had to cart him off the field, catatonic, after that. way to go for keeping your head, Mike -- quite literally! and by the way, thanks again for wearing your socks right.

thoroughly enjoyed Surviving Grady's comment about this near decapitation: But Timlin, whose reflexes are no doubt razor sharp from keeping his neighborhood free of wild boar, feral cats and Danzig fans, snagged the line drive before it could do any damage. In fact, I almost expected him to give the ball a fierce look, take a bite out of it like a f--king apple, then hurl it into space, cursing its brethren. Because that's the kind of sh-t I like to think Mike Timlin does all the time.

10. i have determined that when Coco is out, putting WMP in center, with Manny in left & Lugo at short, creates a cavernous hole up the middle for hitters to exploit. when you live in Florida, you call that particular shape "the cone of death" -- the area that stands the potential to be assaulted by a hurricane. neither cone can bring any sense of security.

11. Tavarez versus Halladay, Part Two. we probably can't realistically get *that* lucky twice in less than a week, huh?