September 19, 2005

G149: Athletics 12, Red Sox 3

Good news: Alejandro Machado's first major league hit.

Bad news: Everything else.

Matt Clement (6.14 ERA since the ASG) had absolutely nothing working for him, giving up hits to the first five Oakland batters and lasting only 1.1 innings. The A's held a 7-0 lead when he left.

Oakland has some good arms, but scoring only 10 runs in four games -- at Fenway -- is unacceptable. If this keeps up, it will also mean the Yankees will erase the slim East lead of 1.5 games. Thankfully, New York lost to Toronto yesterday -- Derek Jeter ended yet another game with the tying run on base when he looked at strike three.

Three of the deadest bats:
                      AVG   OBP   SLG
Varitek 6-for-49 .122 .218 .143
Renteria 11-for-65 .169 .197 .200
Nixon 9-for-49 .184 .310 .224
No NESN for me yesterday. The Fox Sports guys -- Glen Kuiper and Ray Fosse -- were innocuous, but I was surprised at their blatant homophobia in the late innings. For some reason, FSN showed clips of the Sox's Queer Eye appearance. Both announcers were laughing, saying how horrible it was that the five players were on the show -- as if they had been forced to appear. Both men said -- more than once -- that they'd rather not win a World Series if it meant going on the show. And perhaps the Sox now felt the same way.

I wasn't sure exactly what it was that they found so objectionable, until Kuiper said, "Just the thought of the name of the show."

Besides the outright bigotry -- and from announcers calling games for a Bay Area team, no less -- they also failed to mention that the players were raising money for charity. But I guess helping rebuild a hurricane-destroyed Little League field in Florida still isn't enough of a reason to stand so close to a bunch of fags.

The Red Sox go to Tampa while the Yankees host Baltimore.

Wells / Hendrickson at 7:00.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yikes! Am I ever glad I saw the game on NESN; that anti-gay banter is astounding for a national broadcast. Jerry and Don were very soothing and relaxed. For the record, I assumed the Sox would lose 1-2 games in the standings during a stretch where they were playing much the better opponants than NY (also assuming the Devel Ray hex had run its course, which it had). I look at the Yanks as Sissiphus...they have these 5-6 game streaks in which they overcome late deficits and whittle down the Sox lead, then the stone rolls back down the hill as they play .500 for 8 or 10 games and the Sox get the lead back up. If that happens again, and I think it will, the Sox lead will be back to 3.5 games by this time next week, and it will be all over but the shouting. The real downer yesterday was the injury to Youk. The Sox are going to have to get creative to patch up the bench for the play-offs. Foulke looked better too...not so good that I'd want him on the play-off roster, but he's making progress.

allan said...

yeah, all you are hearing is the yanks are getting close, the sox can feel their breath on their necks and hear their footsteps, sox fans are getting nervous and paranoid, but ...

they never reach the sox. and they certainly do not overtake them. they come close and then fall back.

no one adds that second part, though.

Anonymous said...

Now I'm glad I missed yesterday's game (was at Loudon for the NASCAR race all day)--sounds like it was UGLY. But when I saw the Yankees score, I was able to sleep perfectly well.

It's true that the Yankees have been on a roll and have picked up a few games on the Sox in a short time, but we've seen this before. How long have the Yankees been in first place this season? Oh yeah...one day. One freakin' day. Even if it comes down to those final three games in Fenway, I like Boston's odds at clinching the AL East.

However, I'd feel a lot better if the Sox bats would wake up. Starting against Tampa Bay. Sweeping the D-Rays would make me and probably the rest of RSN feel a whole lot better.

Michael Leggett said...

In this case, The Red SOX, c/o MLB, will have played 32 straight games w/o a travel day off.

Perhaps, those Baseball Geniuses, think we'd rather view "The GiamBALCO", in PostSeason, as he gets much-bigger as time goes by.

Some TV Network is playing "The Sly FOX."

Its' Star? Tim The Dim Bulb & Scooter The Talking Baseball.