yeah I am; ill openly admit it, but my point remains the same...

If the Sox can take two of three from Tampa (Which sounds sad until you see that they have Kazmir and Shields going, both of whom beat the Tigers) I'll be happy. I of course want to see a sweep, but with the way they've been playing lately.........

As for the Orioles, I think they have a shot of taking two of three from the Yanks. They've seemed to play them well all year long, and I think all three of the pitching matchups are toss-ups (Guthrie/Wang, Karstens/Cabrera, Hughes/Bedard). If they play the Yankees with anywhere near the same intensity they played the Red Sox, they might steal an extra game and win two of the three. That's being extremely optimistic though with the way the Yankees have been hitting the ball.

Incredibly how biased you are. First of all Pettitte is definitely not the most consistent Yankees pitcher. That would still be Wang, just because he had 1 1/2 bad games doesn't mean he sucks and just because Pettitte had two good games he isn't the best Yankees pitcher.
Then we get to Hughes, he is an incredible talent. His first game back from DL was bad, his second fantastic. THis is an argument for you that he is not reliable. Well, you're beloved Schilling had a terrible first outing after his DL stint and a good second game. So the same as Hughes, yet he is a god for you. There's something wrong there. And if he is the 3rd best arm of the Sox and Hughes needs to be the 4th/5th arm of the Yankees, you've got a serious problem.
Dice K is also absolutely inconsistent this year, so the only steady arm the Red Sox have is Beckett. I don't see the Red Sox starters much better than the Yankees starters at this point.
Then we have the bullpen where everybody thought the Red Sox gained a great advantage by getting Gagne. So far he's aiding the Yankees more than the Sox with his pitching. At the same time the Yanks call their young arm up who so far has baffled batters. I'm not saying the Yankees will overtake the Red Sox anytime soon, but if you underestimate them it will come back and haunt you.

You're comparing Hughes to Schilling? And you called Excel biased? Where's the comparison there? Don't get me wrong, I think Phillip Hughes is going to be a great pitcher and has definetly shown flashes of that this year, but who has he faced this year that has been a challenge? Texas? Cleveland?

Besides, Schilling is the fourth best arm. Beckett (15-5), Wakefield (14-10) and Matsuzaka (13-8) are better than him at the moment. And no, Hughes doesn't need to be the 4th or 5th best arm. He needs to be 3rd. Wang is fine, Pettitte is good, and Mussina and Clemens are shaky at best.



He's had the lowest run support on the team and has still managed to win 13 games. See above for the rest of my point. Just incase though.

Red Sox

Beckett: 15-5 - 3.24 ERA
Wakefield - 14-10 - 4.55 ERA
Matsuzaka - 13-8 - 3.59 ERA
Schilling: 6-5 - 4.06 ERA
Lester: 1-0 - 5.14 ERA

W-L: 49-28 - 4.11 ERA

Yankees

Wang: 13-6 - 4.09 ERA
Pettitte: 9-7 - 3.93 ERA
Mussina: 8-7 - 4.50 ERA
Clemens: 4-5 - 4.00 ERA
Hughes: 2-1 - 4.64 ERA

W-L: 36-26 - 4.23 ERA



Hughes was dazzling against the Royals (6 Runs) and the Indians (1 Run) - who are doing anything but winning at the moment. As I said above, I think he'll be a great pitcher and has shown flashes of that. But once he beats the Tigers, Angels, Mariners and Red Sox, I'll be a little more convinced.

The rest of what you say though is true. Then again they've been putting Gagne in the wrong spots. Last night's game was a perfect example of how he should be pitching. 1-0 game, pressure packed, holding the other team at bay, it's the perfect spot for him and he got the job done last night. Being up by 4 runs in the 8th inning, just to be a bridge to the 9th is the absolute wrong spot for him.

And I don't think anyone is underestimating the Yankees. Even though their lineup was shutout last night, they have the ability to hit their way into the playoffs.

As for the Red Sox, they needed that win badly last night. I have to admit, when I said a couple of posts ago that I'd be glad with the Sox winning 2 of 3, this is the game I'd thought they'd lose because Kazmir has been great against them, as he was last night. They came back impressively in the 9th though, and Lowell finally got the Sox off their home run skid, hitting their first in 5 games, since Pedroia hit one in Anaheim. And this kind of win was rare. It's only the second win in 42 games where the Red Sox trailed after the 8th inning. So to say they were due for a game like this would be an understatement. And with the Yankees loss, the lead is back up to 5.

Hopefully last night's 9th was the beginning of the bats becoming awake, because they have the perfect pitcher to go up against today. They go up against Andy Sonnanstine who is 1-8 with a 6.35 ERA, who in his last 5 games has given up a total of 25 runs (1-4 record). They can't afford to make this guy look like a Cy Young candidate, especially because they have Dice-K on the mound who desperately needs run support. If the Red Sox had put together some hits for him, he would've won his last couple of starts. Hopefully they can start up again today and get him a win.

The Orioles/Yankees matchup is very intriguing though. The Orioles throw out their best pitcher in Bedard who's 12-4 with a 3.11 ERA, while the Yankees are pitching Hughes who's 2-1 with a 4.64 ERA. If Bedard throws anything like he did against the Red Sox in his last start, the Yankees might be stymied at the plate once again. This should be an entertaining one to watch as I flip back and forth between both games.

I wasn't talking about Hughes but their possible setup man Joba Chamberlain

We got dominated last night, but it was to be expected. Karstens is just horrendous and Cabrera absolutely kills us. Tonight is another tough matchup. If we can escape with the win I'd be happy.

Dice-K has another marvellous pitching performance today... Hughes neither - though he didn't cost a fortune.

Today's game was his first bad performance in quite sometime. He lost his previous game because Gagne blew it (Dice-K only gave up one run in that one), won the game before that, and lost the one before that because of a lack of offense (He only gave up two runs).

August 10 - 1 Run - L
August 4 - 2 Runs - W
July 29 - 2 Runs - L
July 24 - 0 Runs - W (Sox won 1-0)

The last time he gave up six runs or more was against Detroit on July 8th. As a matter of fact, the highest amount of runs he gave up before today's game was 4 against Toronto on July 16th.

So, he's actually been very good. If he had any kind of consistent run support, he'd be in the Cy Young race along with Beckett.

Mariano has really sucked lately.

Wasn't he like 17 for 18 in save opportunities up until a couple of days ago?

Yeah but lately he has sucked.

In his last two games yes, but he's human. And the Yankees won one of those games so it doesn't really matter.

His past three performances have been shaky actually. Let tying runs get to second and third against Cleveland, blew the save against O's, and lost the game today. It's his drop in velocity that has me worried though. If he's missing spots I know he'll battle threw it, but his velocity dropping to 90-91 is something different.

Wonder if Torre will give Chamberlain a shot at a save in the upcoming days since Rivera needs a rest...

Let's just say we agree to disagree. Dice-K has had one really great month, I think it was June. Every other month he had at least two bad games (if we set the mark at 4 ER). When Dice-K has a bad game he usuallygives up 6 runs anyway. Now in comparison let's see Mussina. He has an ERA which is one run higher than Dice-K. But most of it came in the early part of the season. Since June 3rd he had just one game in which he gave up more than three runs. He's not outstanding, but he is very consistent in what you get out of him. At this point I would feel more confident when he is pitching for the Yankees than when Dice-K pitches for the BoSox.
The talk about Dice-K being a Cy Young contender when he had more run support is just laughable.

Which would be a decent mark to begin with.......



It's happened four times. Three times the Red Sox ended up coming one run short of tying the game. So despite giving up six in those games, the Sox managed to be in each game.



He's had two games over three earned runs, and three with exactly three earned runs.



Solid number four pitcher.



No shit. Look at your lineup.



I didn't say when, I said if. If he had consistent run support, he'd have three more wins or so. But he doesn't, so it doesn't matter.

No, Mussina had one game with 6 ERs and four with 3 ERs.




Three wins don't make a difference if you have an ERA closer to 4 than 3 and twice a month off games.

Yep, you're right. I counted the three's wrong (I was including the 6 ER). Funny you started on June 3rd though. The day before he gave up five to the Red Sox. During that stretch he's 6-4 with a 3.71 ERA. Then again, during that time, he only faced four teams with above .500 records. So, if he didn't have an above .500 record during that time, I'd be a little worried.



A 16-6 record with an ERA of 3.79 would have him in the running since it's only August. Like I said before though, it doesn't matter. Josh Beckett and John Lackey are the two frontrunners at the moment and not Dice.

To me Dan Haren is the front runner so far...

hmm, yes, he has great stats.

He deserves it, but the voters always place more imprtance on someone getting to 20 wins then someone who actually shuts down his opponents.

I hate the Yanks I am a Met and Redsox fan but right now the Yanks are killing the Sox 14.5 is now down to 5.0 come on yet again the Red Sox are on the vurge of a chocke. And the most funny thing is that The Bronx is Burning is when the whole comeback began to be reconized.

So will the winner of the NL Central finish under .500?

Yeah, he sucked...