Or not.
I mean, what the hell kind of crap is that? Shut out, at home, by the As, the worst team in the league? Where Joe Maddon had to play eeney-meeney-miney-mo to come up with one All-Star? These guys are terrible, and yet you would have thought they had Carlton on the mound and Gehrig and Ruth in the lineup last night. Every guy wearing a Red Sox uniform had better be properly contrite this morning, wearing a big scarlet S for suck on his forehead. There's no excuse for a performance like that. I'm glad I didn't pay StubHub prices for that debacle.
While there's no excuse, there certainly are reasons, and one of them is that Terry Francona decided that the As were so awful they really don't count as a major league team at all, and since we have been playing so well the last few games, and have such a comfortable lead in the division, let's just throw a minor league lineup out there! I mean, who the hell is Aaron Bates? There are other reasons, too, such as...
Kevin Youkilis-.216 over the last 30 days, .091 (!) in July. Sheesh. No wonder Teixiera edged him out. He's been sucking the air right out of the ballpark lately.
Jason Bay-.221 over the last 30 days, .167 in July. Not quite what we were seeing earlier in the year, and becoming quite a big rally-killer lately. Average down to 260.
Mike Lowell-DL
When your big run producers aren't producing runs, the rest of the lineup is only meh, and your pitching staff has been inconsistent-color me not impressed with the Smoltz experiment thus far, but hey, he was cheap, right?-there's just no way you are going to win a lot of games. If, at home, playing the weak sisters on their schedule until the All Star break, this team loses more ground to the Yanks, there is going to be some serious splainin' to do.
In other news, it was good to see the fans give Nomar an appreciative welcome on his return. He 
played a lot of good years for them and deserved their thanks for that. There have been essentially two Nomar camps that have evolved over the years-members of the first are of the opinion that he was a wussy crybaby injury faker who couldn't stand the heat and was removed from the kitchen by St. Theo of the Monster, thus paving the way for the 2004 championship. Members of the second believe the aforementioned sulky, balky Nomar was completely a media creation by the evil Larry Lucchino and his equally evil sidekick Dan Shaughnessy, that he was a Duquette guy, not a NOG favorite at all and thus made a scapegoat for everything that was going wrong in mid-2004. My guess is that the truth lies somewhere in between. It's become clear years later that Nomar was just the first of a group of high-profile fan favorites to exit in a hail of bad press, so I have to believe he was at least somewhat smeared by the POTB while the ground was being paved for his exit. But it's also clear it ended up being a great trade for the Red Sox in the end. In any event, I was glad to see him welcomed warmly, and he clearly was very touched by it. You have to wonder if he wasn't thinking, though, opportunity squandered? Thanks, Nomar, and have a great life. It sure was fun while it lasted.
Josh Beckett tries to turn things around at the Fens at 7:10pm. Which team shows up tonight? The one we were sold with the great starting pitching and awesome lineup, or the one of late which makes us cast our eyes forlornly in the general direction of first base in the new Yankee Stadium...?
(screen grabs from redsox.com)
