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Projo SoxTalk with McAdam: Go ahead, exhale, for now

Click here to listen to today's edition of projo SoxTalk with Sean McAdam. The topics: Friday's celebration; Sunday's tribute to Pedroia and Lowell; the team's overall health; how Jacoby Ellsbury will be used in the playoffs; weak teams rising to the occasion; and hot teams heading into the postseason.

Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments.

The celebration: "We get into this debate, it seems, all the time about what's the proper way to celebrate a wild-card spot, a division title, a Division Series playoff victory. ... Ultimately I'm not sure that's our call. I think the players react accordingly. Terry Francona has spoken up in the past about [how] you can't script these things, they just have to take place. And I thought one of the nice things about Friday was that it so involved the fans ... the 3,500 or so people that had stayed behind to watch the Yankees and Orioles play out on the big screen, then kind of got invited to the party with the players coming on the field and onto the dugout."

The team's health: "Manny looks to be fine. Youkilis still looked like he's battling that wrist a little bit, but I think that's unavoidable for a while. ... Some of the nagging stuff that cost guys a game or two here or there seems to be taken care of, and that's certainly the way you want it before the postseason gets under way."

Ellsbury: "Drew has kind of turned it around here in the last couple of weeks, and that debate that was raging seemingly early in the month -- Do you start Jacoby Ellsbury over J.D. Drew? -- that kind of has run out of some gas, if only because Drew has shut people up because of his production the last two or three weeks. But if he takes an 0-for-4 Wednesday and Friday, and doesn't look particularly good, then they have the option of giving Ellsbury a start, maybe, in Game 3. He certainly will go in in the late innings defensively for Manny in the games in which they are ahead, and of course he'll be used as a pinch runner when they see fit."

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 10:28 AM to McAdam | Permalink