Bambino's Curse

"If our pitcher does better than theirs, we win the game."

Grady Little waxes poetic:

''We have a long way to go,'' he said. ''We realize we are not going to win every time we play a game, but in fact if we have a great season we are probably going to lose about 60 to 65 games. We have 18 of those out of the way right now.''

Simple but true.

Today I'm more disappointed that I can't watch this afternoon's Fox game of the week matchup between Pedro and Schilling. I've got to pull another Saturday at work, continuing on what I call "the perfect storm," when two of the biggest projects our company has had come due at exactly the same time. Well, that's what they pay me to do. And if Trot Nixon were in my shoes, no doubt he'd be working as well. (Yes, that's how I try to rationalize the fact that I really don't want to go in to the office today.)

Mambo Cubano!

Light up a Cohiba, Rolando Arrojo es como San Lazaro; left for dead in his bullpen tomb, he is risen:

Arrojo spun seven scoreless innings, allowed just four singles and not only didn't walk a batter but didn't have a single three-ball count.

… Arrojo, who tends to be emotionally disengaged when he comes out of the bullpen, was at his riveting best yesterday … (Edes, The Boston Globe).

Boston............IP...H..R.ER.BB.SO..NP..ERA
Arrojo.W,.4-1......7...4..0..0..0..5..88..3.30

Babalú-Ayé!

Kaboom

Not much to say after last night's fest in Detroit. Derek Lowe's mom is real proud of him. Even Tony the former Tiger got into the act with a RBI double. Maybe Tony's luck is changing?

Clark, Tony 1b 5 2 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 .211

Only Mirabelli and pinch hitter Bryant missed out on hits. And this is the offense without Manny.

Oh, and the Yankees lost. Not a bad way to start a Thursday.

Broken Bat

Has anyone seen that Mike Piazza commercial for Viagra?

I've got to admit it unnerves me a bit. I mean "erectile dysfunction" is no laughing matter (well, it is sort of, but it's more of a nervous laugh as in "holy crap I don't even want to think about that").

Now I know it's wrong to assume that just because Piazza is shilling for Viagra, it means he uses it. I don't seriously believe Tiger Woods drives an Oldsmobile minivan, after all. (Though I do imagine Shaq eats at Burger King, because the guy loves fast food. When I was in grad school at Miss. State, one of my neighbors, a fellow student, worked at Hardees and whenever LSU and Shaq would come into town, the team would stop there and Shaq, as my neighbor reported it, would get 6 of their biggest burgers and down 'em all. But I digress … )

But somehow pushing Viagra seems different to me than being the athlete spokesperson for a car or fast food franchise. Even Piazza's commercial for Claritin doesn't make me stop every time I see it and think, "Oh, my God, Piazza has allergies" the way I'm forced to pause whenever I see the Viagra spot.

I guess the politically correct response would be one in which I'm gladdened by the fact that a superstar athlete, a major league ballplayer, can admit erectile dysfunction to a national TV audience. Get it out in the open and all that … No need to be ashamed. This was the point, I guess, of having Bob Dole make the initial pitch a few years back.

But Bob Dole, despite his political power, is not to be mistaken with the persona of a MLB catcher in the prime of his career.

So I see the commercial and all I do is go, "Whoa, Mike Piazza has some … ah … problems" and Piazza'sbad ass tough guy ready to go to fisticuffs with Clemens persona goes limp before my eyes. And I feel all too mortal.

U-S-A-!

Pardon this deviation from the Red Sox, but I have to give a shout out to our national soccer team who stunned the world this morning by beating heavily favored Portugal 3-2.

I may have missed seeing Derek Lowe's no hitter on TV (caught it on the WEEI webcast) but this morning's bit of sport's history I saw live in all it's glory. (Yep, I'm an early riser. 5am is my typical out of bed time, so it wasn't any hardship to catch the match in full on ESPN.)

I'm truly firggin' elated. I haven't felt this good regarding futbol since that upset against Colombia in '94. But this is better, for with the '94 game you knew deep down it was a fluke, not truly deserved, with Colombia scoring a goal on itself to help the US out. Ironically, the USA's Agoos booted a ball into his own goal in today's game, otherwise Portugal would have only had the one. The USA looked impressive this time out, and more than a little shocked, just like the rest of us.

I love winning.

Speaking of, yes, the Red Sox continue to kick ass with Baerga and Damon leading the charge:

No two players have been more responsible for healing the formerly fractured Red Sox clubhouse this season than Johnny Damon and Carlos Baerga …

The pair made sure that the malaise of Monday's extra-inning loss didn't carry over last night by combining for six hits, five runs and seven RBI to lead the Sox to a 10-5 victory over the Detroit Tigers (Horrigan, The Boston Herald).

There don't even seem to be any arguments over music this year. Currently, it's the Red Sox team policy to let the starting pitcher select the day/night's music. And after my tribute yesterday to Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, you've got to love this remark from Burkett, who improved to 7-0 with last night's win, in reference to his eclectic musical taste including Tuesday's selection, Tupac:

''The only thing I don't like is country. The upbeat stuff is OK, but all that whining and talking about depressing things, that's not for me.''

All I know is that as a Red Sox fan, more often than not I find that I've fallen into a burning ring of fire. I go down, down, down, and the flames get higher. And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire.

Mama's don't let your babies …

I knew there'd be days like this, but I'm never ever fully prepared to deal with them when they arrive.

First Garces finally bellies up to the truth and admits he has a hamstring injury.

Then the mother of all our fears, like the weeping Llorona, comes a callin':

''Of all the times I've seen him pitch, that's the least stuff he's had,'' said Alou, the Tigers' bench coach who used to manage Martinez in Montreal, after Boston's 7-6 10-inning loss to Detroit last night, an observation that belied Martinez's insistence he was fine.

I don't feel so good.

Mama's don't let your babies grow up to be Sox fans
cause it's always one pitch away at the end of the day
and a heart can only take so much …

Oh, Frankie!

Castillo had three 1-2-3 innings, including two of his last three frames, before making way for Casey Fossum in the ninth. He improved to 3-0 with a 1.38 ERA in four starts for the Sox vs. the Yankees. Castillo and Fossum held the Yankees hitless in seven at-bats with runners in scoring position (Horrigan, The Boston Herald).

As a reader pointed out in the comments yesterday, no more Five Inning Frankie, it's now Eight-Inning, Four-Hit Frankie, well, at least it was yesterday. But before I too quickly cast aside yesterday's performance as an anomaly, another reader pointed out that Castillo had/has the 3rd best ERA among starters, he just wasn't getting the run support the others have been getting:

It helped that the Sox staked him to a 2-0 lead before he threw a pitch …

''That was huge,'' Castillo said. ''And before you knew it, it was 6-1. Then you pretty much just have to go out there and throw strikes and let them hit it, and that's pretty much what happened'' (Hohler, The Boston Globe).

All this and Manny Ramirez will be back soon; he's scheduled to start traveling with the team again on Friday.

Just need to stay away from going to the bullpen until very late in the game.

"I think we'd be lying if we said we weren't concerned"

Grady Little feels like the rest of us:

``We're always talking about making our club better and right now we may have some positions that we could better ourselves,'' Little said. ``We're going to do some serious investigating in the near future. Real near.''

While yesterday's loss may on rank Level 12 on The Sports Guy's The 13 Levels of Losing, yesterday's crushing loss to the Yankees was the first loss of the season that had me feeling really disoriented and depressed afterward.

The Yankees exposed the Red Sox Achilles' Heel — Only 3 reliable relievers in the pen: Wakefield, Fossum, and Urbina.

''We can't do it with just Fossum, Wakefield, and Urbina. If we run them out there time after time after time, then sooner or later you're going to have to pay the price for that.''

The trouble is, they have few options. Unless Garces or Oliver develops medical problems that would allow them to be placed on the disabled list, the pitchers have enough years of big-league service to block a demotion to the minors (Hohler, The Boston Globe).

Not that there really is anyone in the minors to ready to bring up.

And while I'm in my gloomy mood, let me admit that I don't think we'll ever see Hermanson pitch. The guy must have the most sensitive groin in the world. It amazes me we can friggin' clone a sheep and map the human genome, but we don't have enough medical know how to deal with a strained groin?

Well, we get to have some deja vu all over again this afternoon as Five Inning Frankie takes the mound. There's very little joy in Mudville this morning.