Things don’t look good for the Red Sox right now. The last couple of weeks has taken their AL East lead to a measly 1 1/2 games. They have Youk, Coco, Okijima and Man Ram on the bench with injuries. Tim Wakefield and Dice K have looked tired their last three starts. To make matters worse, their bats have gone cold.

So why am I not worried yet? Here’s why: the Sox have a lot of character on this team. Guys like Varitek, Youk, Pedroia, Pap, Lowell, Papi, and Beckett have shown me a lot this year. These guys have carried the load day in and day out. These guys will pick up the slack and turn this thing around. This is a bump in the road. Every team goes through at least one during the season. What magnifies this current stretch, is that unfortunately it’s happening in September. If this were June no one would care. Also New York is playing good ball at the most opportunistic time. They can’t keep this going.

They may have taken 2 out of 3 last weekend in Boston, but they were not the better team. The first game they had one good inning. The second game the Yankees had their asses kicked. The third game, Schilling pitched one inning to many and gave up the Jeter home run. The Red Sox outplayed them that weekend. It’s unfortunate it didn’t translate into wins.

This team is going to be great for years to come. They’ll have a rotation of Beckett, Dice K, Lester, and Buchholz going into next year. All young guys, all character guys that will be part of this team for years. Youk, Pedroia, Ellsbury, and Papi aren’t going anywhere any time soon. This team is only going to get better. This team is set up to start collecting AL East crowns.

The final thing that the Red Sox have going for them is the best fans in the world. Fans that aren’t fair-weathered like Yankee fans. Fans that know baseball. Fans that stick with their team, through good times and bad.

Let’s remember this during the final games of the season and into the playoffs.

And the people that keep bringing up 1978…. can kiss our asses.

Here is another great post by Dylan. I’m sure everyone will enjoy it.
Thanks for reading.

-Dave

The Manny thing is being somewhat beaten to death on this page. I agree with all that is said about it being time for Manny to pack his bags, but we’ve taken the issue as far as we can, and we must press on. I was ready to focus on other matters with the Sox, until I saw this quote: “It’s definitely tough,” said Youkilis. “Fortunately for me, it was at this time of year that it happened. I never like watching games. Baseball is not really that much fun to watch in my life. I never really loved to watch baseball. It’s more of a sport that I love to play. I don’t have that right now, but I’m ready to get back and play again. It’s definitely a lot harder doing it from the bench.” This a quote from Youk regarding, obviously, being injured and having to ride the bench.

Schilling’s sock, Crisp laying out night after night in center, Varitek doing his best Carl Lewis imitation around the bags after a home run, Pedroia going balls to the wall night after night. These are examples of guys that want to play the game, and play hard. I saw a profile about how Tom Brady took a pay cut to make financial room for the Patriots. That’s someone who wants to win. Would Manny do that? Does Manny even play hard?

There is no doubt that Manny is one the greatest right handed hitters to ever play the game. But he’s bringing down this team. I’m done with Manny and I’m done with pushing the get rid of Manny issue. I think Francona needs to take Dave’s advice and bench Manny, instead of Manny benching himself. I’ll take 9 Youk’s over 9 Manny’s anytime. It’s time we forget about Manny and focus on the future of this organization that, even being young, has managed to be the best team in baseball thus far. Goodbye Manny, hello future of the team………

I feel so unsatisfied. The Red Sox just played one of their worst games of the year, and they have no one to blame but themselves. This was the supposed to be the game to set the tone of this series, and the Sox went on cruise control.

What is it going to take to give Dice K more than 3 runs of support? This guy had another solid performance. For nothing. Dice K should be leading the AL in wins, but unfortunately he has a 13-11 record. If the Red Sox were giving Josh Beckett this type of run support, no water cooler in Boston would be safe. But Dice K keeps handling it like a professional.

J.D. Drew played like his usual self. How’s this for a game? 0 for 4, 2 strikeouts, 4 left on base, grounded into 1 double play. Enough said about him. I need to go vomit.

Another thing that pissed me off last night was David Ortiz swinging on the first pitch from Joba Chamberlain in the 8th inning. This is a guy who Ortiz has never faced before, who had just walked Kevin Youkilis. Ortiz strikes fear in every pitcher he faces, especially 21-year-old rookies. He had the advantage here and gave up the at bat. It was just bad baseball all around.

With two games to go in the series, it appears for at least one night The Empire has struck back.