May 28, 2007
HAPPINESS IS EVERYONE IN YOUR REARVIEW MIRROR:
Sweep in heart of Texas: Red Sox get away with one (Amalie Benjamin, May 28, 2007, Boston Globe)
Waiting beside Coco Crisp's locker in the visiting clubhouse was a crush of reporters, anxious to hear Crisp's thoughts on his running, diving, game-saving catch to end the seventh inning. Crisp greeted them, smiled at the notion that their presence signaled a good day at the ballpark, and noted his preference for a good day and no questions to answer over a good day and a pack of media.So, after slowly dressing, slowly donning his jewelry, and slowly packing his No. 10 duffel bag, Crisp politely declined to speak with those assembled, saying, "Thank you, though."
Quite a departure from the speed he used to recover from a bad initial move on a gap shot to right center by Frank Catalanotto with two on in the seventh, but the catch spurred on the Sox' efforts to retake the lead and claim a 6-5 series-sweeping win yesterday in front of 40,323. [...]
"The key was Coco's play there," said Joel Pineiro, the beneficiary of the eighth-inning comeback, as he took the win in relief of starter Julian Tavarez, who gave one of his best performances of the season. "He picked me up. He picked everybody up. That kind of gave us the momentum when we came back then, and scored those runs."
While it was nice to see Manny and JD Drew hit a little this weekend, and Coco continue to play Gold Glove centerfield, the Sox swept for the same reason they've been winning all season--the starters (even the 4th and 5th) keep them in every game, the relief corps is exceptional (Pineiro and Kyle Snyder would be starting for 25+ other teams), and Kevin Youkilis is playing like an MVP, while Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek enjoy nice Indian Summers. They get their best pitcher, Josh Beckett, back this week and Jon Lester is nearly ready. It's hard to remember a team getting off to this good a start that had so many guys under-performing and almost no one having a career year, a sobering thought for the rest of the AL.
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MUST SEE TV (SeaDogs.com)
The Sea Dogs look for the four-game sweep on Memorial Day with Clay Buchholz (1-1) facing Heath Totten (2-4) at 1:05 p.m. The game can also be seen live throughout New England on NESN with Eric Frede and the Voice of the Sea Dogs Mike Antonellis with the call.Posted by Orrin Judd at May 28, 2007 7:56 AM
At only 2 games worse than the Red Sox, you could say the same thing for the Mets, who
have missed a month of El Duque
have missed almost a month of Moises Alou
will have Pedro back in July,
see Guillermo Mota return from his roids suspension shortly to add to a good bullpen
will get Duaner Sanchez, the best 8th inning bullpen man last year, back in the second half
have watched Carlos Delgado stink the joint up in the cleanup spot for two months until this week.
No, you can't. The Mets are getting career years from most of their pitchers and are missing no guys who will help much.
The one thing, other than being in the NL, that the Mets have going for them is that their best younger players -- Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Gomez -- have underperformed somewhat.
Posted by: oj at May 28, 2007 12:19 PMThat sounds like more than one thing that all those guys are underperforming.
Pedro won't help much now?
I can smell the cap already.
Posted by: Matt Cohen at May 29, 2007 10:32 AMNo, Pedro will come back throwing in the mid-80s and will really need to be used out of the bullpen. Recall that despite being in the NL East he was already falling apart before the latest injury. He's not a better option than Smith or Heilman at this point.
Posted by: oj at May 29, 2007 12:27 PM