Just before last night's first pitch, Manny Ramirez stood in front of the Green Monster, holding up a homemade sign: "The New Episode ... 'Manny Being Manny.'"Later in the game, Ramirez homered, giving him an AL-leading 29 home runs and 97 RBI (in 98 games). Manny has hit seven homers in his last 14 games. David Ortiz: "That's him, man. That's the Manny everybody knows. That's Manny being Manny." ... In the top of the ninth, Ramirez gave the sign to someone in the stands.
Tim Wakefield pitched seven innings and retired 18 of his final 20 batters. The victory was his 124th as a Sock, giving him sole possession of third place in team history. Only Cy Young and Roger Clemens have more (192 each).
Jon Papelbon was sent back to Pawtucket and will begin pitching out of the bullpen. ... Theo Epstein: "He's going to pitch a little bit earlier in the game. He's going to go one inning. He's going to go two innings. He's going to back-to-back [days]."
Francona: "In Fort Myers this spring, Theo and I were sitting around, and he said the best-case scenario is this guy burns through Double A, goes to Triple A, and comes up and helps us in the bullpen. He's just about reached the number of innings we'd like to see for him this season as a starter. Rather than go out and trying to trade for people, why not try this? This is not long-term. He's a starter. But development-wise and competing-wise, it makes sense for everybody. This isn't something that happened overnight. This has been talked about for a while."
Mark Bellhorn went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts in his second rehab game with Pawtucket. In two games, he's 0-for-8 with four strikeouts. ... Sigh, looks like he hasn't missed a beat.
Bellhorn is going to have to seriously fight for his job.
ReplyDeleteLast year, you always knew what to expect with him at the plate: walk, strikeout, XBH. But this year, even his walk totals are down and he's had a large drop in power. Combine that with his high K rates and it's very disheartening to watch him at the plate. He looks almost lost.
Now Graffanino has come in and has been playing good defense while actually getting the ball in play with regularity. Bellhorn had better start getting on base and rediscover his power stroke. Don't get me wrong; I'm not one of those Bellhorn-haters that are prevalent in RSN. I like the guy and think he's a great player (and I would never discount what he did in last year's postseason). But as of now, Graffanino has looked much better at the dish.
Also of note is that the Sox have gone 9-3 since Tony came. Coincidence? For Bellhorn's sake I hope so.