Projo Sox Blog

Sean McAdam reports the latest three defeats were a smorgasbord of woe: A blowout on Friday night and lost leads in the seventh inning on Saturday afternoon and the eighth inning on Sunday evening. Those last two games had an awfully familiar look to them, and thus it's understandable that the Nation's focus this summer morning is on the bullpen. We'll get to that in a moment.

But the element that one-dimensionalizes itself away from Fenway is the offense, and that truth seems to be buried in the gaudy overall numbers inflated by all that home cooking. It produced all of eight runs in three games over the weekend and, in any case, hasn't done much of anything except hit home runs (and strike out) on the road all year. (baseball-reference.com) Granted, the Sox' attack is about a week away from adding a very big bat -- more on that in a moment, as well -- but the Globe's Gordon Edes suggests a lineup shift may be in order no matter what, simply to get the unproductive Jacoby Ellsbury out of the No. 1 spot. (Click the link; Ellsbury's numbers over the last 26 games have been Mirabelli-like. Edes also points out that simply swapping Coco Crisp for Ellsbury would be pointless, since Crisp is hitless in his last 20 at-bats.) McAdam notes Francona ruled out any batting-order changes after yesterday's game, but the textbook definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Could be that a night's sleep will change his mind.

But even if all that were to be straightened out, that still leaves the problem of . . .

THE POISON 'PEN: Yesterday it was Manny Delcarmen's turn in the barrel -- McAdam has the gruesome details -- and it's gotten to the point where Francona is loathe to take the ball away from a trusted starter before we reach Papelbon Country, no matter the situation, because the alternative is just so unappealing; it led to Josh Beckett being touched for the winning runs in the seventh inning Saturday and Tim Wakefield in the eighth inning yesterday. Lacking trust is a horrible way to live, in any walk of life, and the Boston Herald's Tony Massarotti says the Sox "really do need to find someone who can pitch the eighth . . . [or] the credits on this 2008 season are going to roll sooner than [they] would like."

Those are the pros talking; the fans are a little more strident. Chad Finn (who actually is a pro, but who does his Touching All The Bases writing from a fan's point of view) declares the Sox aren't winning "anything of consequence" with this stable of relievers, who are engaged, he thinks, in a " 'pen-wide tribute to Heathcliff Slocumb." Dan Lamothe over at Red Sox Monster says it's time to roll the dice on a trade for bullpen help.

And how much do you want to bet the bleacher creatures won't be sharing their pictures with these guys any longer? (theyawkeyway.com)

THE LAST STRAW? The landscape has changed. Whereas in the past much of what Manny Ramirez said or did was written off to MBM*, the latest bit of byplay between Ramirez and the front office may have finally tipped the scales away from the Our Lovable Goofball Right Or Wrong extreme and more towards the Enough Is Enough With This Guy center. Dennis Eckersley fired the opening salvo on Friday's pregame show (Boston Dirt Dogs), and the next sign came when no one -- except Manny -- was laughing over his latest blooper-reel misadventure (above) Friday night. (Boston Herald) It all prompted both Joe Haggerty on his Hacks With Haggs blog and Bill Ballou of the Worcester Telegram to ponder whether the Red Sox would be better off without him, especially since his current levels of production are no longer so otherwordly that you'd pay $20 million -- and put up with the Manny Package -- for the privilege.

It's a good question. While Ramirez has always been the target of unfair or untrue speculation -- and I'm with Chad Finn in believing that the claim he deliberately nailed the bat to his shoulder against Mariano Rivera recently is nonsense -- it's a truism that the level of challenging behavior you tolerate is directly proportional to the payoff you receive in return. There aren't many .320/45/140 hitters out there, so MBM* wasn't that tough to swallow for the longest time. But there are .320/30/100 guys available if you look hard enough . . . and if that's where Manny is these days, well, both Haggerty and Ballou make sense.

We shall see.

* -- Manny Being Manny, and thanks to Joe Posnanski for developing this wonderful Internet footnote style!

THE GOOD NEWS . . . is that David Ortiz (right, Journal photo by Ruben W. Perez) looks like he's just about ready to step back into the lineup. Steven Krasner reports from Pawtucket that Big Papi hit his second home run in two nights on Friday and then made it three in three on Saturday. He did decide to follow the Red Sox' advice and take Sunday off -- no word on whether or not he was prompted to do so by pain in the wrist, though the PawSox didn't think so -- and now he heads off to Portland for the final three games of his rehab. You can check out photo galleries of Ortiz at McCoy from Friday and Saturday.

HONORING THE PAST: There may have been no Ortiz at McCoy yesterday, but there were no lack of dignitaries. The blog Sox1Fan has the report, and photos, of Jim Rice, Ben Mondor and (our) Joe Morgan being inducted into the International League Hall of Fame.

ANTICIPATING THE FUTURE: The latest in the Sox' string of golden arms has arrived in Pawtucket. Krasner had a conversation yesterday with Michael Bowden, who's been recalled from Portland.

THE TRUTH EMERGES: In his latest 38pitches.com post, Curt Schilling talks extensively about -- and even posts pictures from -- his recent surgery. But then, toward the end, he admits he doesn't know "how [the Red Sox' medical staff] kept me alive and breathing" in the second half of the 2007 season. He thinks he tore his labrum "sometime between the last pitch of the Oakland game" on June 7 and "the last pitch of the Atlanta game" on June 18. There was rampant speculation after that June 18 start -- including here -- that Schilling was injured; Chipper Jones, of all people, was quoted as saying: "Schill always had that innate ability to catch another gear when he needs it, and for me to only see 89 miles an hour tells me, you know, he might be hurt.'' Schilling and the Red Sox denied and denied and denied some more for the rest of the year, but now Schilling is saying, "I had immense discomfort between starts and really could not manage to throw much, if at all, in between games." Even so, he had a better ERA (3.34) in the second half of the season than he did in the first (4.20), and it makes what he did last postseason -- 3-0 with a 3.08 ERA in four starts -- all the more remarkable.

RESTED AND READY: Jon Lester will make his first start in 12 days tonight in Seattle and it's part of the Sox' strategy to keep him sharp in the second half. (Boston Herald)

GOOD FOR DIGESTION: The Angels' Torii Hunter says that after sweeping the Red Sox, "You go out and have dinner tonight and that steak goes down pretty well." (Los Angeles Daily News)

SPRING AHEAD: The Sarasota Herald-Tribune looks at the chances of the Red Sox' moving their spring-training base there.

'PARADISE BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHT' IS NEXT: The Rays lost the series finale to the Blue Jays yesterday but Joe Maddon said "we Meat-Loafed them" (St. Petersburg Times) -- you know, two out of three ain't bad -- so he's happy. He's also happy that Tampa Bay is back is first place, as the Rays' Meat Loaf weekend combined with the Red Sox' meatball weekend in Anaheim created a two-game swing in the standings that has them back in from by 1 1/2. Meanwhile, the can-they-do-it? fingernail biting continues unabated in central Florida. (Tampa Tribune)

THREE DOWN, ONE TO GO: They've actually had fights with the Red Sox and Yankees. Now the Rays are miffed with the Blue Jays. (St. Petersburg Times) Can the Orioles be far behind?

BIG DEAL: The Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the A's with a 2-1 victory yesterday, but Bill Madden of the Daily News says they "would be advised not to use this particular series as a true measure of [the] team's abilities." How come? Quality of the competition, as Madden refers to Oakland as the "Triple-A-laden A's." Even so, Kevin Kernan of the New York Post was impressed, since pitching and defense -- staples of the weekend -- is how the Yanks used to win championships. Baseball Musings' David Pinto points out the 2007 Yanks very rarely won when they scored as few as two runs, and this year the pitching "is making up the difference."

HIP, HIP, JOSE! The New York Times says Jose Molina is making a strong case to wrest the Yanks' No. 1 catching job from Jorge Posada.

EVEN BETTER: Harold Baines says having a statue of himself in front of U.S. Cellular Field beats induction at Cooperstown. (Chicago Sun-Times)

NEWEST BREWER: Ray Durham is headed from San Francisco to Milwaukee, where he figures to provide an upgrade at second base. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

WE'VE SEEN THIS BEFORE: Charlie Manuel brought back memories of Larry Bowa and Dallas Green -- though not quite on their volcanic scale -- as he seethed after the Phillies' loss to the Marlins yesterday. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

TRADE TALK: The A's may soon add Huston Street to their list of departed starts (SI.com) . . . Adam Dunn says trade speculation doesn't bother him. (Dayton Daily News)

HERE AND THERE: The Cubs are about to place Kerry Wood back on the disabled list (Chicago Tribune) . . . Ditto the White Sox and Jose Contreras (Chicago Sun-Times) . . . Pat Burrell wasn't happy about being removed from yesterday's Phillies game (Philadelphia Inquirer) . . . Yunel Escobar has been cleared medically to return to the Braves' lineup (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) . . . Billy Wagner felt some discomfort in his shoulder but was still able to nail down the Mets' win over the Reds. (New York Post) Even so, he'll have the shoulder examined today (mlb.com) . . . Dmitri Young has been placed on the DL by the Nationals so he can control his diabetes (Washington Post) . . . The Dodgers are back in first place in the N.L. West. (Los Angeles Daily News)

OLD FRIENDS: Johnny Damon says he's ready to get back into the Yankee lineup. (New York Post)

-- ART MARTONE