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September 20, 2007
Click here to listen to today's edition of projo SoxTalk with Sean McAdam. The topics: letting the division slip away; keeping Clay Buchholz on a pitch count; the eighth inning is the worst inning; that clutch-hitting machine, Russ Adams; good news on the injury front; and what's really going on with Manny.
Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments.
On Jonathan Papelbon: "This is two bad outings in a row for him: last Friday against the Yankees, of course, coming in the eighth inning; and then last night giving up the grand slam. He'd gone all year without allowing any inherited runners to score; his last two outings, five inherited runners have scored. So that shows you how quickly it has turned around, and not in a good way, for Jonathan Papelbon."
The good news: "It could be that things could turn around pretty quickly, I think, for both Kevin Youkilis and Coco Crisp. I wouldn't be surprised to see certainly Youkilis back in the lineup as soon as tomorrow night, when they resume play against Tampa. Crisp may need another day or so, but then again a day off with some additional treatment could really help."
How worried should we be about Manny? "To the point where most of us thought he would be back by now and he isn't, and he probably won't be back any sooner than Tuesday, at which point there's only six regular-season games left, I think you have to start questioning what's going on here. But being that there is a week and a half -- really given the playoff schedule they can't play a playoff game until two weeks from yesterday, so there's still enough time -- but from a Red Sox standpoint they would certainly like to have him back in the lineup to get his timing down at the plate, find his rhythm against live pitching and have some real at-bats before he has to ramp it up for real on October 3."
Posted by Mike McDermott 
at 9:08 AM to McAdam
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Rich Myers | September 20, 2007 11:20 AM link
Sean -several weeks ago on a WEEI weekend show you said that if the Sox blew the division lead that "they would be in serious trouble". Are they in danger of bowing out of the play-offs in round one with the snowballing problems they're facing with both the offense and pitching, or will getting healthy cure all?