Big Weekend

            So let's start at the top.  I am going to be going to Elia's on Third Avenue this Thursday night with the missus, Tony Sherry, and Mrs. Tony Sherry.  We're probably going to do what we always do.  We'll start with the Saganaki, with maybe the grilled octopus and a Greek Salad.  Then Tony and I will probably go with the grilled lamb chops with sautéed spinach and Greek fries with feta.  Maybe I'll get nuts and go with the moussaka.  Then I'll cap the whole thing off with the Greek pressed yogurt, and the missus will go with the Ek Mek.  Nothing we haven't done a hundred times.  This time, though, I'll be settling a score.  Tony Sherry, who has been on a righteous prediction streak, was sick of me saying the Yankees were going to go up to Boston and get spanked, so he declared that Joba was going to start things off by beating Beckett, that he was going to pitch a shutout, and he might throw a no hitter.  And he told me that if Joba got the win and Beckett got the loss, I owed him dinner at Elia's.  So this Thursday as we sit down, I will gladly pay my due to Mr. Chamberlain's fastball and Mr. Sherry's prescience.

            So what to make of the Red Sox.  After an interesting weekend, here's what I think.  They can hit.  Like mad.  Tough outs up and down the lineup.  And they're going to win a bunch of games just for that.  But as I've said all year, they're not as good as advertised.  And they're not as good as they think they are.  Plain and simple.  The pitching is the culprit.  Beckett is solid, of course.  Dice K is wildly overrated and can't be trusted in a big spot, Wakefield just doesn't scare you, Buchholz is currently in over his head, and Jon Lester has pitched extremely well but is a kid.  Then throw that together with a shaky bullpen and a closer with an ERA of two-and-a-half and you see where the problems begin. 

            So some observations in no particular order.  Peter Gammons wrote a great piece about Manny today on his blog.  I understand that as a Yankee fan, I have zero credibility in this discussion because you know where I'm going to come out, but man did he draw it in living color.  You can make a case, he said, that the Red Sox sold their souls to solve their 86 year old problem, and Joe Hardy showed up in the form of Manny Ramirez.  Indeed, to Gammons's point, no Manny, no championships.  Period.  The problem is when you start to look in the mirror and don't like what you see.  Gammons is pretty tough on Francona ("Chief Enabler") and the Red Sox fans ("sycophants").  Tough but fair.  Francona is all over the place saying that you need to have two different sets of rules - one for the stars and one for everybody else.  That everybody does that.  Hmmm.  Maybe he and Jerry Manuel can take a page from Charlie Manuel's book.  His star Jimmy Rollins fails to run out a pop or shows up late for the biggest rubber game of the year against a chief rival in the pennant race due to traffic; he sits.  Sits.  Talk about the polar opposite of the Red Sox approach with Manny.  Manny assaults a 64-year old man in his clubhouse, Manny's out there the very next day.  Manny comes up with ailments against pitchers he doesn't want to face, he's out there the very next day.  In fact, the Red Sox threaten to take action if he doesn't play.  What exactly would it take for them to sit him down?    To suspend him?  I opined that perhaps they did just that against the Yankees in that famous Sunday Night game, prompting him to look at three straight pitches from Mo in a loss.  I gave them too much credit.  Apparently the deal was more like a six-figure fine and anger management classes.  And a spot in the lineup the very next night.  So that's how it goes, I guess.  You win, so I guess that makes it all okay, right?  As long as you can look at yourself in the mirror as Manny taunts you, saying you don't have the nuts to trade him.  Anyone want to tell him he's wrong?

            Tonight had letdown game written all over it.  For the Sox and the Yanks.  You could see it coming from a mile away.  I can only hope that this was a blip game for Moose.  As Sean correctly pointed out a few days ago, I was certainly not the guy predicting this run of success for the Moose.  I'm loving every second of it, but admittedly I'm also waiting for the other shoe to drop.  And I'm hoping this wasn't it.

            My concern with Xavier Nady before they got him was simple.  He's a National Leaguer, and the National League is a bush league.  Hitting .330 in the NL doesn't mean a whole lot to me.  I don't think 3 games is a great sampling, but my thought is that he's swinging at way too many balls.  Way too many.  Tonight I watched him swing at five balls in a row before he hit that solo bomb.  Glad he got the hit, but he hasn't exactly been clutch of yet.  Like I said, the sampling hasn't been that big, but if I wanted to see somebody swing at bad balls, I would watch Melky.

            The Yankees still need to be more patient.  Cano is red hot, but he's swinging early in the count.  If he's not hitting a double he's a quick out.  Melky is always a quick out, as is Molina.  And Jeter has been seeing far fewer pitches as well.  You've continually got these average starters going seven or eight innings.  They shouldn't be going anywhere near that deep. 

            As I feared, the minute the Yankees get Sexon, they start sitting Giambi against lefties in huge games.  Guys, you can't sit Giambi.  He's one of the toughest outs on the team.  Get him his rest against chump lefties.  Don't sit him against the Red Sox.  Or Angels.  Stop being ridiculous.

            Watching the Angels/Sox game a bit tonight on ESPN reminded me why I love the way Mike Scoscia's Angels play the game.  They run, run, run.  They always take the extra base.  If you get them once or twice, fine.  They'll get you the other two times, and they'll sacrifice and squeeze bunt a run or two in.  Beautiful stuff.  The Yankees are way too station-to-station.  And somebody explain to me how Damon wasn't tagging yesterday with a medium fly ball to center with one out.  Run!  You have to run!  Now you've got two outs and you need a base hit.  Meanwhile, you have a better than average shot to push a run across with a fast runner and a guy in center who isn't known for throwing anybody out.  You can't stand there.  Do Damon and Bobby Meacham realize that?  And another thing along those lines.  Why don't the Yankees run on Varitek?  He doesn't throw anybody out.  Ever.  Why aren't they running?  The Angels are....

            I commented the last time the Yankees played Boston that Jon Lester was stomping around the mound pouting about calls from the umpire with a seven run lead.  Last night ESPN deified Lester for pulling the ump aside and apologizing for a similar episode that the ump hadn't noticed while Lester was facing Abreu (I hadn't noticed it either).  But what they didn't mention was that Lester was at it again the very next inning, this time throwing his head around and pouting when he didn't get a strike-three call from the ump with Melky at the plate.  What is it with you, dude?  You can't help yourself?  Shut up and pitch.  You seem to be really good at it.  Again it speaks to the Varitek/Youkilis Red Sox.  Whine, whine, whine.

            I have a bunch more, but I'll save them for now. 

            Great work by Vino coming back from Fenway with a win.

            Daniel Cabrera again.  Ugh.  And then Burress, who always seems to save his best for the Yanks.  Double ugh.  And then the Angels.  Hopefully the Yankees get tough here....