I do try to control my raging Boston homer impulses here on UmpBump, but there’s only so much a girl can do. I’ve just got all these BoSox-centered thoughts rattling around in the old bean, and I’ve got let some of them out! But if you stick it out for a few paragraphs, there will be some assorted MLB-wide random thoughts towards the end.

Curt Schilling may be an opinionated guy, but he’s not afraid to admit when he’s wrong. He played catch yesterday, after what he described as his longest period without throwing a ball since he was five years old. And he admitted that the course of rehab recommended by the Red Sox doctors—which he fought tooth and nail—is working. And the weight bonus has been dropped from his contract. Bartolo Colon is pitching for Pawtucket on Saturday. And yesterday, Boston’s other old man, knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, threw 8 innings of shut-out ball in Detroit. Good times for Boston’s venerable hurlers.

Gordon Edes (still at the Boston Globe, at least for the time being) had a quick observation about Julio Lugo:

Julio Lugo began the day ranked at the bottom of all defensive categories for big-league shortstops. He had the most errors (9), the lowest fielding percentage (.919), was last in assists per nine innings (2.36), and last in range factor (3.49). The rest of the Sox infield? Mike Lowell, Sean Casey, and Dustin Pedroia have one error apiece, Kevin Youkilis none. Most of Lugo’s errors have come on routine plays, an indictment of his fundamental skills more than his athleticism…

This jibes with what I’ve been observing. Lugo gets to the ball and then bobbles it, or lets it go under his glove, or even snags it and then throws it away. It just seems like he’s not focused, as if he’s thinking too many steps ahead instead—he looks like he’s taking his eye off the ball when it’s coming to him and then getting rid of it before he gets his feet under him. Basic stuff. Lugo has called himself an aggressive shortstop and has admitted that sometimes, his enthusiasm results in mistakes. I wish he’d get a little more Zen-master-like focus.

Anyway, compare Edes’ observation, above, with this sentence from Nick Cafardo, the man who took over the Sunday Notes column from him:

Is there a shortstop alive with more range than the Angels’ Erick Aybar (please, no “range factor” stats)?

Ugh. For the record, Erick Aybar is leading MLB shortstops in range factor this season. He’s 13th in fielding percentage. Or, if you’re Nick Cafardo, in “‘fielding percentage’ stats.” Cafardo also interviewed Johnny Damon, who sounds like a bit of an ass:

You’re 34 years old with more than 2,100 hits. Do you ever think about playing a long time and getting 3,000 hits and possibly making it to the Hall of Fame?

JD: “I’m starting to think about it. I never thought about it because it’s a team game and there are so many pitches I took to try to work the pitch count to make it easier on people like [David] Ortiz, Mike Sweeney, and Manny [Ramírez]. I mean, what if I just swung and got the hits and all the times I played when I shouldn’t have to make sure other guys stay fresh? If you think about that over seven or eight years, how many would I have had? I’m starting to think about it more.”

Apparently, Johnny Damon could have had a lot more hits by now, if he hadn’t been trying to selflessly help the team. (Whaaa?)

At a recent game in the Fens, we were sitting right behind the Boston bullpen. We watched Hideki Okajima rub the parrot for good luck before the game. We watched Julian Tavarez flirting with the girls seated next to us. Billy the bullpen cop saw an adorable little boy walk up to the metal fencing and peek down into the pen; Billy got Jonathan Papelbon to walk over to the fence and say hi. The little boy’s eyes widened to the size of catchers’ mitts. We saw the guys trying to throw pumpkin seeds into a plastic cup. (Only one seed went in, by my count, but some unseen hand was throwing those seeds with a lot of great, biting movement on ‘em. It would really dive in against a righthanded hitter, with good downward break as well. Wonder who that was?)

Boston’s now enjoying a 4-game lead for first place in the AL East. The Rays are 4 back, the struggling Yanks and the Jays a game behind them, and the Orioles are back in the cellar where they belong.

Other MLB randomness:

Have you ever noticed how Placido Polanco has a head like a midget? It’s a midget-shaped head on a regular-sized body. Strange.

Barry Zito will return to the starting rotation without making any appearances out of the bullpen. This seems less like a return to sanity on the part of San Francisco management than like they utterly and completely lack for any sort of plan, at all. But then, we knew that.

The players’ association is investigating suspicions of collusion regarding unsigned veterans like Kenny Lofton and Barry Bonds. But old is old and indicted is indicted, no?

MLB looked into the blow-up doll incident in the White Sox clubhouse and decided it was a “team issue.” GM Ken Williams has been assured by Ozzie Guillen that it won’t happen again. Yet the skipper has told the press he sees nothing offensive, immature, or otherwise pathetic with having lewdly positioned blow-up dolls in the clubhouse because it’s a clubhouse, and what happens in the clubhouse should stay in the clubhouse because it’s the clubhouse, goddammit, and if grown men want to play with dolls in their clubhouse than that’s their clubhouse-given right! Clubhouse. (Note to self: rename office cubicle “the clubhouse;” purchase opium; hire harem boys; acquire a quantity of mead, one of those roasted pigs with the apple stuck in its mouth, and a cake; send Outlook invites for Friday afternoon orgy.) Now, it should be noted that there was, at one point, a naked blow-up doll in my freshman year dorm room. I have no idea how it got there, but one day I woke up and saw it, lo and behold, perched atop my roommate’s wardrobe. And a couple of months later, it vanished. I offer this anecdote just by way of saying, random and tasteless blow-up dolls could happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

In retrospect, this should’ve been a liveblog. Oh well.

From: Paul
To: UmpBump Staff
2:21 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)
So I’m following the game on MLB Gamecast here at work today. I just wanted to report that all of Jamie Moyer’s fastballs are showing up as “changeup” on the pitch type. Yes, he’s that slow.

From: Coley
2:25 pm
I just blogged that there’s talk that there could be a fight at the game today. But then I realized, there is 50 percent less of a chance than usual, because you can’t get mad when Jamie Moyer hits you with a pitch.

From: Sarah
2:38 pm
I just ducked out of work to listen to the first inning of the Sox-Tigers game in my car radio. With Kenny Rogers on the mound, I couldn’t figure out why the announcers weren’t talking about the game. “What’s happening?? Why aren’t they calling the pitches?!?!” I needn’t have fretted. Turns out, Rogers is just working thaaaaaat…..slooooow.

Read the rest of this entry »

So today at work, at approximately 1:30 EST, the call went out: cubicle drones, go home! A massive snow storm was about to hit New England, and we were instructed to flee before it. And its wintry wrath. Out into the swirling white I went, and soon I was ensconced in my cozy (read: pathetically small) apartment and happily curled up with my laptop and the Mitchell report. Soon thereafter (following a brief sojourn for provisions) I was curled up with my laptop, the Mitchell report, and a Kahlua mudslide. And thus, without further ado, I present random and slightly inebriated thoughts on the Mitchell report:

1. Initial reaction: Despite morning rumors that current members of the Red Sox would be named—including captain Jason Varitek and former right fielder Trot Nixon—and assuming that former shortstop and ex-franchise face Nomar Garciaparra would be among the list, no members of the ‘04 or ‘07 championship teams were named. I admit, as a shameless Boston homer, that I have had enough of asterisks next our championship teams (thank you, Bill Belichick*). With several players who had been on the Red Sox named, only one was caught with steroids while he was playing for Boston (and he was some minor bit-player whose name I can’t even remember right now). I feel like my boys dodged a bullet. Is it so wrong for me to be relieved?

2. The way that Mitchell arranged his evidence chronologically highlighted the viral nature of steroid use. One guy tries it in one city; he tells his friend about it; the friend gets traded two a new city; he tells a couple guys about it; one of them leaves to play somewhere else….and you get the idea. Not surprising, but kinda creepy all the same. A Hercule Poirot-caliber bit of detective work by Mitchell. And without subpoena power!

3. That said, the entire report is limited by being so dependent on Radomski and his various associates. It’s clear that he was far from the only dealer in the game. The fact that the majority of players named in the report hail from ballclubs like the Yankees, the Orioles, the Yankees, the Diamondbacks, the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Yankees, and the Mets is obviously due to the fact that Radomski and his minions were closely linked to those clubs. It doesn’t mean that other clubs are innocent. It only means those players didn’t buy their drugs from guys in Radomski’s ring.

4. When early reports suggested that over a hundred MLB players could be named, I began to doubt my conviction that steroid-users should be kept out of the Hall of Fame. Maybe the problem was too widespread to make such a harsh judgment. But then I read the actual list. The only HOF lock is Roger Clemens. Will I cry for Roger if he gets shut out of Cooperstown? No. Do I think that will actually happen? Hell no. Today’s report actually makes it more likely that Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds will be elected to the Hall, because it shows how widespread the problem was. Same goes for Clemens. That said, I wouldn’t be sorry to see Clemens get the Pete Rose treatment. At least Dan Duquette can finally sleep easy again.

5. One question people have been asking me is, “Why does Congress even give a hoot what baseball does?” The answer, broadly, is that major league baseball is a monopoly that gets an exemption from anti-trust law from Congress. That is to say, Congress allows MLB to continue on as a monopoly as long as they’re good girls and boys and keep their noses clean. Essentially, this gives them oversight of baseball. Maybe not to the degree that the police have oversight of your driving habits, but definitely to the extent that your parents did when you were sixteen. Sure, it was legal for you to drive…as long as Dad would let you borrow the car.

6. The one reaction to this report I just don’t understand is apathy. Despite the fact that there are, right now, over 14,000 news articles on this topic coming up on Google, there are still some folks out there who just don’t care! Worse, there are baseball fans out there who claim not to care. You guys should donate your brains to science.

1. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves…this is exactly where the Red Sox were in ALCS Game 1 after Sabathia imploded at Fenway, and that series ended up going to seven games. Let’s not get cocky.

2. Sweet Lord, those Rockies looked ridiculously overmatched last night. They looked like a Triple-A team! They can only hit fastballs! And not even that many of them! It was embarassing. Embarassing!

3. Let there be no doubt: the Red Sox Way (TM) is being pushed at all levels of the organization. We already knew that if Manny Ramirez doesn’t swing at it, it’s not a strike (no matter what the home plate umpire thinks). But when I watched #9 hitter and September call-up Jacoby Ellsbury, who at that point was 0 for 3 and must have been desperate for a hit (after all, everyone else in the lineup had one) stand in against Ryan Speier and take the bases-loaded walk, I realized just how hard the Red Sox organization has been pushing patience at the plate. Let it be known, Colorado: these Red Sox simply refuse to swing if it’s not a strike. Speier was called in to get one out—-just one out!—-and instead ended up walking all three batters he faced, and pushing three runs across the plate. Ouch. Nonetheless, there came a point in the fifth inning—maybe when I realized it was creeping up on 11pm and we were barely through half the game—when I just wanted the Red Sox to start hacking away. Beauty rest, people.

4. An interesting point made on WEEI this morning: Manny never seems to foul the ball off himself. Youkilis does it all the time. David Ortiz has been known to do it. I’ve seen it happen to Mike Lowell. In fact, most hitters foul a ball off of their ankle at least a few times. But I have never seen Manny Ramirez do it. Why? The consensus on the radio was that he just doesn’t swing at the low, out-of-the-strike-zone pitches that are prone to such activity.

5. Post-2004, Red Sox Nation is capable of magnanimity, even pity. We felt bad when we watched Victor Martinez weep into his sleeve after Game 7 of the ALCS. (Not as bad as if the Red Sox had lost, but, you know, a little bit bad.) And we feel sorry for the Rockies this morning. (You know, in a gloating kind of way.)

6. Given that tonight’s game could be very different, I am going to do two things today. Yes, I will read as much about last night’s blowout as possible, reveling in every word. But first, I need to make some more coffee.

1. Finally a World Series that I actually want to watch

So it’s Rockies vs. Red Sox. It’s nice to have the first truly compelling World Series matchup in, well, in a long, long time. I mean, does it get any better? It’s the best squad money and human ingenuity can devise, versus God’s own team.

For so many years now, the World Series has seen an seemingly unstoppable AL juggernaut take on some random, mediocre NL team which happened to rise to the top of an inferior league. Oh sure, once in a while the NL team gets a few breaks and manages to win the World Series, but we all understand this to have been just luck, and there is never really much doubt which team was actually the better squad.

Certainly, there have been a few compelling finishes, especially the 2001 matchup between the Yankees and the Diamondbacks when Luis Gonzalez managed to beat superpowered playoff ninja Mariano Rivera with a walkoff, jam-shot, bloop single in the bottom of the ninth inning of game seven. But as Derek Jeter said later, if the Yankees and the D-Backs replayed that inning 100 times, the Yankees would have won 99 of them.

The problem is that the National League has just been so weak for so many years. Even when an NL champ like the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals has won a major-league best 105 games, you knew in the back of your mind that they did it playing against the weakest division in baseball, and that the Red Sox had proven that they were actually the best team in baseball by winning 98 games in the AL East and beating the Yankees.

But now, for the first time in recent, or even not-so-recent, memory, we have a World Series matchup where we are not really sure who has the better chance to win. Sure, on paper the Red Sox seem to have better players, but the Rockies have some serious mojo going with their current streak. I don’t care what anyone says, if you win 21 out of 22 games, and those games were all baseball games, you are one of the best teams ever.

And this most recent streak actually has the effect of blinding us to just how good this team really is. After a lousy 10-16 April, the Rockies had the best record in the National League the rest of the way. They led the national league in virtually all hitting categories. The tallied the highest team fielding percentage in the history of baseball. And maybe most impressive of all, despite pitching half their games at Coors field, they posted the best ERA in the National League since the All-Star break.

Not to mention that the Rockies crushed the Red Sox in a head-to-head showdown at Fenway back in June, outscoring them 20-5 in a three-game series.

But the Red Sox have some mojo of their own, having just come back from a 3-1 deficit in dominating fashion (7-1, 12-2, and 11-2), and en route battering two of the best pitchers in the American League - C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona - to the tune of 23 runs in 16 1/3 innings pitched. Not to mention that the Sox have two of the greatest hitters in the history of playoffs in David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, whether you chose to go by stats or just by watching with your own two eyes.

It’s sure going to be fun watching those two hit in Coors Field. And it’s going to be a blast finding out what miracles God is going to pull out of his sleeve next on behalf of His Chosen Men In Purple.

2. All is well with the Universe: JD Drew and Julio Lugo have remembered that they suck

It was nice to see J.D. Drew and Julio Lugo returning to their normal selves after a cosmos-rattling game in which Drew hit a clutch, two-out grand slam and Lugo had a timely two run double.

This time, Drew came up in an almost identical situation, once again finding himself at bat with the bases loaded in the first inning, and happily, grounded into an inning-ending double play. Likewise, Lugo made an inexcusable error on an easy pop-up, giving the Indians a golden chance to tie up the game in the 7th.

But in any case, these are good omens for Red Sox fans. After a momentary collision with a parallel universe in which Drew and Lugo actually do helpful things in crucial situations, the universe is all back to normal now and the Sox can go back to being the team which compiled the best record in baseball, despite Drew posting a VORP of 15.1 (less than 2 points higher than Jacoby Ellsbury’s 13.6 in more than 400 additional at-bats), and Lugo actually posting a negative VORP of -1.3.

3. By my count, he still had another 162 pitches left

Fans of Daisuke Matsuzaka have to be really encouraged by his performance after a lackluster outing in game 3. Although his final line of 5 innings pitched doesn’t look that great, with the entire Boston pitching staff available to go with the exception of an injured Tim Wakefield, there was no reason to keep him in longer than 5.

If you are Terry Francona and you have the option of effectively shortening the game to those 5 innings by pitching Okajima and Papelbon for the last 4, you’d be crazy not to go to the bullpen early (although I have to say, I was aghast when Francona sent Okajima out to start a third inning after he barely escaped the 7th - there is no universe in which that was a good idea).

Most encouraging about Matsuzaka’s performance was that a guy whose only two real weaknesses this past year were walks and home runs, did not allow a single walk or home run to one of the best offenses in the game with its back to the wall. Not to mention that Matsuzaka did not allow a baserunner for the first 3 innings, and he only made 88 pitches in the five frames he threw.

The word is that Matsuzaka spent pretty much every waking minute since his previous start studying videotape, working on mechanics, and pondering how he could do better if there was a game seven. But then again, in this stereotyped world we live in, could we possibly expect any less than absolute hardcore-ness from an inscrutible Japanese like Matsuzaka? After all, Japanese people never panic, get tired, or die.

But the real point is, Matsuzaka showed that he can and will make adjustments, and that bodes well for continued improvement as he continues a major league career which is only just beginning. Read the rest of this entry »

1. I wasn’t one of the folks itching for Beckett to start that game, and I felt vindicated by Wakefield’s no-hit performance through 4.2 innings. Even after Peralta doubled with 2 down in the fourth, Wakefield got Lofton to ground out and end the inning. I even thought Francona pulled Wakefield out at the right time; with Peralta coming up again, two men on, and three runs already in. You don’t want to yank Wakefield earlier, because how many times have we seen Tim Wakefield throw a couple of wild knuckleballs (hey, it’s a wild and crazy pitch!) and then get out of the jam? And he’d already amassed seven strikeouts! If the Sox are up in the series, maybe you let Wakefield work through that inning. But with the Sox trailing and an off day today, you pull him.

2. There must be the evil demons plaguing that infield. The night before, it was Ortiz running into a batted ball. Last night, it was when Tim Wakefield got his glove on an Asdrubal Cabrera comebacker in the fifth, only to deflect it uselessly into the ground. The ball appeared headed straight for Pedroia, and if Wake hadn’t touched it at all, Dustin could easily have turned it into a 4-6-3 double play to be out of the inning with only one run scored. If Wakefield had either held onto it or only nicked it a bit, we at least would have gotten the second out of the inning (and Travis Hafner struck out in the next at-bat). But instead, it was the worst of all possible worlds. Still don’t believe in the demons? Cabrera only hit that ball because the normally-sure-handed Youkilis couldn’t hang on to his earlier foul pop.

3. Manny Delcarmen? Really? After the Indians smacked him around in Game 2? So last night he comes in with two out and two on, and the first thing he does is give up a three-run blast to Peralta. Then it’s single, stolen base, single, walk before he can finally strike out Kelly Shoppach. I mean, you’ve got Mike Timlin in the bullpen. He’s as old as the hills, he has icewater in his veins, and he’s used to pitching in the playoffs. You need ONE OUT. I know he worked the night before, but on the other hand, he was perfect the night before–two K’s in an inning and a third, no hits no runs no walks no nothing. Is it really just too obvious to go with what works?

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Daisuke Matsuzaka wasn’t actually that bad. Today in the Boston Herald, the main sports headline is “Sox, Dice-K hit the skids.” In my own Boston Metro, the front-page headline is “Dice-K gets rolled.” Only one paper, the Boston Globe, got the headline right: “Cuffed in Cleveland; Sox trail in series, 2-1, as bats stay quiet.” Matsuzaka’s stuff last night was actually pretty filthy. No, he couldn’t get out of the 5th, which is a black mark against him. But he had 6 strikeouts in 4.2 innings, including one beautiful whiff in which he got Victor Martinez to wave foolishly, stranding two runners. And except for just a few mistakes—two walks and one home run—his breaking balls broke and his fastball fooled ‘em. When the wheels came off in the fifth, it was a dangerous combination of wildness (a single, a wild pitch, and a walk) and bad luck (the ground ball that Dice-K induced found a hole and became a single instead of a double play).

2. What is up with the silent bats last night, guys? This Red Sox lineup has no business being so mystified by the likes of Jake Westbrook. Yet this morning on Boston’s sports radio station, everyone was talking about pitching. (Do you start Beckett on short rest tonight, or do you go with Wakefield? Will we ever see Gagne get the ball again?) But Boston’s only runs of the night came when Jason Varitek awoke from his long slumber to crack that two-run homer. Otherwise, Boston couldn’t get any timely hits. Kevin Youkilis got on base twice, but those hitting after him (the big three of Ortiz, Ramirez, and Lowell) could not drive him in. The Sox loaded the bases with no outs in the second, but couldn’t push a run across. And in a bizarre play in the 4th, Papi’s leadoff double was wasted when, during the next at-bat, Ortiz ran into Manny’s batted ball. (When was the last time you saw that, sports fans? Never mind in the playoffs!) That was a particularly disastrous play for several reasons: it made an out; it stopped the ball from reaching the outfield, snatching away potential extra bases from Ramirez; it almost certainly cost the Red Sox a run, even with Ortiz running; and it completely extinguished whatever momentum the Sox offense had managed to build. Also last night, I noticed that Dustin Pedroia struck out twice. He’d also struck out twice in Game 2. Curious, I looked back to see when he’d last had more than one K in back-to-back games. The answer? He’s never done that before. Not once in the major leagues. Not even in April when he was hitting .182! I have just one thing to say. Dag, yo.

3. The home plate umpire, Brian Gorman, had a very inconsistent strike zone. Buck and McCarver harped on this a bit, but not as much as was warranted. The top-to-bottom was consistent, but the side-to-side never was. It hurt the lineups of both ballclubs at different moments, but the cumulative impact has to affect the strikeout pitcher (Matsuzaka) more than the sinkerballer (Westbrook).

4. I never thought the Sox were going to sweep Cleveland, but after Schilling’s dismal performance in Game 2, they really needed to win Game 3. I mean, Game 2 was a hard loss, but until the 11th (when, as I’ve previously noted, the wheels not only came off, but the entire vehicle vanished and the road disappeared) it could have gone either way. But if your team scores 6 runs, chases Fausto Carmona, and has Curt Schilling on the mound, that’s a game your team ought to win. Nonetheless, having lost that game, you must win the next game, especially when, in that next game, your pitchers limit the opposition to four runs and the pitcher you’re facing got eaten up by New York in his previous outing.

5. It necessarily follows that the Sox absolutely have to win tonight. They just have to. Tim Wakefield has to come up big. And if he doesn’t, Terry Francona has to be quick with the hook, and bring Jon Lester in early (but not, please, in the middle of an inning). And the Sox bats have got to get hot again. I wouldn’t be upset if Ellsbury came in for Drew, either. I want to see the Red Sox stealing and bunting and swinging the bats. And it probably wouldn’t hurt for Manny to take Pedroia aside and ply him with Mannyisms on hitting patiently in the postseason.

1. The national media (and, let’s be fair, UmpBump) obsessed over the will-they-or-won’t-they American League East title, as the Yankees posted a late surge and the Red Sox briefly flagged. But really, as both teams seemed extremely likely to make the postseason one way or another, this debate was only interesting to the rabid fans of each team. The real excitement was taking place in the National League. The AL is stronger than the NL, but has big divisions between rich and poor. The NL is more egalitarian, money-wise, and consequently the teams are more evenly matched. So it was that the season closed with a number of hard-fought, down-to-the-wire contests between NL teams, none more surprising than the Mets’ collapse and none more exciting than the one-game playoff between the Rockies and the Padres. Nevertheless, despite the close competition and unexpected upsets, count me shocked that it’s the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks playing in the NLCS. That will be appointment TV in the Green household. But if you’d told me in April that either one of those teams would be in the World Series come October, I would have laughed in your face. I love baseball.

2. The full beard is making a comeback, if the AL playoffs are any measure. On the Sox, both Dustin Pedroia and Jason Varitek are growing full beards, and David Ortiz’s chin strap has been widening to approach actual-beard status. On the Indians, Casey Blake, Jake Westbrook, and Travis Hafner all sport healthy beards. Alas, poor Mike Napoli of the Angels has too much neck for his beard; a key rule of beardedness being never to set the bottom edge of the beard above your jawbone. Amateur. Nevertheless, with Casey looking cute and the Captain finally (yes! thank you Jesus!) moving on from that mid-90s Tower Records-clerk goatee, it may be time for a slight modification to our long-neglected UFH category. Except, of course, for Napoli. And I’m not sure that Pedroia’s full-beard-but-no-moustache look is quite kosher.

3. TBS is awful. I mean, Fox was awful too but at least they had appropriate baseball postseason theme music. These Dane Cook ads are killing me. (The phrase “There’s only one October!” is quickly inculcating within me a Pavlov’s dog response of uncontrollable rage-induced spasms.) The boring announcers who can’t keep track of which team is batting are killing me. The fact that TBS couldn’t get an HD deal done with Comcast in time for the playoffs is killing me. In fact, I am slowly dying a TBS-induced death punctuated by rage-spasms.

4. Kenny Lofton looks younger than Joba Chamberlain. Yet I’ve been watching him steal bases since I was ten years old. I’d like to know what moisturizer he uses.

5. Grady Sizemore not only has a great last name (Size! More! ME LIKE SIZE! ME LIKE MORE!) he really is very dreamy. Though either he has the best razor known to mankind, or he hasn’t gone through puberty yet. I don’t think we’ll be seeing a beard on that tender chin anytime soon.

6. I’ve never seen so many bugs as there were in the Yanks-Indians game on Friday night. That was gross.

7. The euphoria (and noise) levels in Fenway Park on Friday (oh yes, I was there) after Manny Ramirez’s walkoff homer easily matched any I’ve ever seen. The scene from the Fens to the Pru at 1 am was all honking and hugging and high-fiving (there are no strangers in Red Sox Nation). And as Manny’s power returns at just the right time, Manny’s pimp jobs have regained their ridiculously offensive nature. I’m so glad he’s playing for my team, because I would have to hate him if he played somewhere else. Plus next year, I think his dreadlocks will be long enough to obscure the name on his travel jersey.

8. With the Sox up 9-0 in the bottom of the 8th right now, I think it’s safe to say that three of four division series have now ended in 3-0 sweeps. And with that, it’s time to tune in to the only ongoing series, over in the Bronx. Spotlight’s on Joe Torre, but if 22-million (prorated) man Roger Clemens can’t come up big tonight, you have to think Brian Cashman is going to be looking at the classifieds, too.

1. The Devil Rays don’t suck quite has much anymore. They were under .400 two weeks ago. But after going on a tear—and whomping the Yankees—they were just one game behind Baltimore heading into tonight’s game. They have a killer schedule at the end of this month that includes the Angels and the Yankees and Boston again, but if the Orioles continue to slide, Baltimore could be the cellar-dwellers this year. If Tampa makes some savvy offseason moves, they could actually be a legitimate team next year. Who knew?

2. Dustin Pedroia: your AL Rookie of the Year. Write it down.

3. So it’s 9/11. And it’s the 7th inning stretch. And a bunch of firefighters are singing “God Bless America,” just days after Boston’s fire department buried two of their own, killed in the line of duty. Everyone is listening in rapt attention. Except for Curt Schilling, that preachy Republican blowhard, who is talking. The guy he was talking to, J.D. Drew, at least had the decency to look like he was trying not to listen. Now, I’m no anti-Schilling type. I have a wee soft spot for the guy (bloody sock, you know). But Jesus, Curt. I know you like to hear your own voice, but can’t it wait until the commercial break? Talk about all hat and no cattle. Shut up and throw.

4. Speaking of commercial breaks, something I love to do during them is browse through catalogs. This game, I discovered a wondrous new item: L.L. Bean shearling flip flops. Shearling flip flops! These are my new must-have for fall.

5. Forget all the speculation about who will be in Boston’s outfield when Manny comes back from this oblique strain (it’ll still be J.D. Drew, no matter what Jacoby Ellsbury does in the interim). Having too many outfielders right now is the least of Boston’s problems. We only have two starting pitchers. Once the finest rotation in the league–perhaps in all of baseball?—Boston’s three and four starters have blown up this month. Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield, in September, have given up an average of 7 earned runs per start. The other pitchers that have started for the Sox in that span (Schilling, Beckett, Lester, and Buchholz) have given up an average of 2.13 earned runs per start. For the playoffs, then, Boston has a rotation of Schilling, Beckett, and a faint buzzing noise. There’s always the Julian Tavarez option, but I’m sure Terry Francona is as hesitant to go that route as I am—Tavarez is a wild card. Clay Buchholz still has just two starts in the majors, and though he did have a dandy relief appearance (three innings, three K’s, two walks, one hit, no runs) during one of Wakefield’s meltdowns, I don’t think you willingly hand the ball to him in Game 3. He may have thrown 50% of his major league games for no-hitters, but there’s such a thing as too much too soon. As for Jon Lester? He’s young, too, but may be their best option. Unfortunately, he’s only recently (like within the past couple of starts) gotten his walk ratio down. You don’t want to walk lineups like the Yankees’ or the Tigers’ in the playoffs. Lester faces off against the D-Rays tonight, and if he can’t slam the door on them, I will officially go into full-fledged Sox-panic mode, with horror’s icy hand gripping my heart. And even a plush pair of L.L. Bean shearling flip flops can’t take the edge off that chill.