Results tagged “johnsmoltz”

This is an unfamiliar time for the bandwagoners fans who became aware of the Red Sox during or after 2004. While 2006 was frustrating, of course, it wasn't as agonizing an affair as this 2009 season has turned out to be. The team is telling the fans to relax, but now there's a rally cry that has been put into print by the Herald's Michael Silverman: "Faith is good. Talk is cheap."

Six hours of baseball; 15 innings; a zero 29 straight times; 496 pitches; 96 at-bats; 11 hits We all knew this week's four-game series would have implications beyond August 6-9. The main implication is that the hapless 0-8 Yankees are gone. Now we have the Yankees who beat the Red Sox twice in two days in two totally different ways and have taken a 4.5 game lead in the division. New York outhit the Sox on Thursday and slightly outpitched them on Friday.

So much for 8-0. So much for John Smoltz going to the mound with any shred of confidence. So much for sweeping their way back into first place. This morning, frankly, the Red Sox are lucky to be alive.

It sounds like Bob Ryan wants to be able to watch baseball while keeping his head buried in the sand. Steroids may be more of a Hall of Fame/legacy issue and the reason that is the case is because the history of baseball occupies a much larger place in the present and future of the game than other sports. Bostonist keeps hearing that from people like Ryan, anyway. Sox fans can still follow steroid-scandal news and a box score, Mr. Ryan. Steroids are a fact of life in baseball now, and nothing is going to change that for quite some time.

On a day when an actual game was overshadowed by front office moves and clubhouse goodbyes, the Red Sox managed to win anyway. Justin Masterson, Adam LaRoche and two minor-league arms left the Nation in order to bring back Casey Kotchman and Victor Martinez as Theo Epstein was active again at the trading deadline. Martinez is in Boston possibly because of one word: versatility. Theo says he can hit, catch and play first base. Kotchman is supposedly a defensive upgrade over LaRoche. Theo may have created a few headaches for Terry Francona, though.

"I came to Boston to play professional baseball, and that's what I did. And I did it well." - Hall of Famer Jim Rice

While Bostonist watched the Red Sox struggle in the Texas heat on Monday night, our mind went back to March, when the weather was different but a Boston team's struggle was the same. WBCN's Toucher & Rich were chatting with Bruin Aaron Ward.

Baseball can be an exciting, intense and creative enterprise. You wouldn't notice that after Saturday's run-filled spectacle that featured 10 pitchers, 14 walks, four errors, 24 runs and one torrential downpour en route to a 15-9 Red Sox win. Boston's powerful offense was on display, too. The Sox scored runs in the first four innings, including three, each, in the first two innings to build a 9-0 lead. Boston had three runs in four different innings.

Show of hands: who teared up at the top of the second inning last night? This Bostonist feels no shame in owning up to a pair of misty eyes. The sight of Nomar Garciaparra getting choked up as the Fenway crowd welcomed him home on Monday night was one of those goosebump moments that felt by those inside the ballpark, in the broadcast booths (as noted by Dennis Eckersley) and all of us tuned to radio or television feeds. That wasn't just a standing ovation - that was a moment that had been in the making since July 31, 2004, when Red Sox fans were shocked at the sight of the freshly-traded Nomar walking down a hallway within the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

So said Jonathan Papelbon afterwards. And if you're one of the millions who figured that (hour-long rain delay) + (10-1 lead) = (bedtime), we understand. Unfortunately, among the snoozing millions were the Sox bullpen, who turned a 10-1 lead into a devastating 11-10 loss in no time. This was ugly.

OK, let's rationalize. The guy hadn't pitched in over a year. He was adjusting to a new league (wait, it's interleague play, that doesn't really count) and feeling the eyes of six million diehard fans on him, waiting for him to be the same guy he was in 1993. And he said afterwards that all in all, he felt pretty good back up on the mound. In other words, folks, we're going to give Smoltzie a mulligan.

By our unofficial calculations, 18.5 million people have gone to games at Fenway since the last time you could actually show up, cash in hand, and get a seat. That's more than the population of Chile or Greece. The Sox notched their 500th sellout in a row last night. And the fans, who came to celebrate that nice round number, got two for one, as Brad Penny got his 100th career win, beating Florida 6-1.

Something strange is happening this season. The Red Sox, despite all of the hiccups and difficulties experienced this season, are in first place in the American League East. They're riding that magical 8-0 season record against the Yankees. And now, in a turn of events the like of which this Bostonist has never before seen, the Boston Red Sox have more talented pitchers than they know what to do with.

The buzz in the Sox training camp these days is Clay Buchholz, the 1324 year-old pitcher who wowed us in 2007 with his no-hitter and in 2008 with his suckiness. That's bad news for Bostonist because his name is difficult to spell. Buchholz has a 0.46 ERA in the Grapefruit League this spring and a killer pick-off move, signs that he's maturing into the pitcher everybody hoped he would be last year. The bad news? The Sox' pitching depth means that the kid might be starting the season in Pawtucket, which is whole lot better than the Instructional League, where Young Clay found himself finishing out last season. He told the Globe, "If I'm still pitching at Triple A, it's a phone call away. I'll be ready to go whenever they do call me."

There was playoff intensity at the Garden last night. Sure, the playoffs are months and months away, but when the Canadiens come to town, it's always lively, especially when the home team is playing the way the Bruins are playing now. (Which is kind of hypothetical, since the Bruins have never played this well in our fanlifetimes.)

The Celtics thought - and so did we - that going home would make everything OK. It didn't.

The nailbiting, the pacing, the swearing, the chainsmoking - they all end tonight. Except maybe at Tommy Heinsohn's house. Tonight, we find out the next step in the Celtics' drive back to relevance. Will Danny Ainge swing one of the deals we've heard about? Will we be welcoming Kevin Garnett (no way), Shawn Marion (probably not), Dikembe Mutombo (possible) or Bill Telfair? Or will Danny stand pat and actually use his #5 pick to draft...

The happiest Red Sox fans around have to be the ones who stopped watching baseball around 7:30 last night. They would have seen Game 1 of the doubleheader, a 13-3 Sox rout/Home Run Derby. They would have seen the Yankees' nightmarish loss to the Mets. But most importantly, they would have been spared Game 2, in which Atlanta demolished the Sox 14-0. A wild day all around. Game One was a laugher thanks in part...

It seems that Mother Nature didn't think the Red Sox's doubleheader sweep of the Tigers on Thursday was impressive enough - the first games after that two-fer will be tidily bundled in another dual-game gameday. The Sox called Friday's scheduled game against their Interleague Play Atlanta visitors pretty early, deciding instead to go the route of a 1 p.m./7:35 p.m. Saturday schedule. The pitching breakdown: Dice-K vs. Braves pitcher Anthony Lerew in the afternoon game,...