Boston Red Sox, AL East 5 - Toronto Blue Jays, AL East 4 . .

I'm a big fan of several of the other baseball and political blogs out there. I love RedBirdNation - if you're not reading it, you're missing some of the best baseball writing on the web (notice I didn't say "blogosphere" but rather the whole web.) I read a few others and then pop over to my favorite political blogs. Under the Gunn is my starting point, and I usually link from there, alwasy ending up at Salon.com. All of this done usually before anything else in the morning, even before coffee.

I always end up with a few pangs of melancholy - my writing and my blog just seems like such crap by comparison to the clever writing and thorough reserach of these other blogs. I know these guys have to be amateurs just like me (in fact, I know a few of 'em personally, and they are not sportswriters for a living.) Ironic that my blogging suffers in the summer, given that I'm a teacher and have more time than I know what to do with in the summers. My writing usually picks up once school starts back up and I'm back in more of a routine.

But, alas and alack, I fret needlessley. Why, you may ask? Well, whenever I feel that my writing and insights are stiff, boring, not clever, and not funny, I just jump over to the Red Sox coverage in the Globe. Dan Shaughnessey (with whom I share the same alma mater) usually comes through with some crappy writing to make me feel better about my own writing (indeed, in this column, Dan manages to practice his favorite move, "the setup." You can bet he's already working on the follow up to this setup - Many Questions to Answer.) Bob Ryan, an excellent writer, often resorts to the old "Cleaning out the Desk Drawer of the Mind" article when he can't come up with a thesis for something else. I always felt the bullet articles were copouts, a disappointment to my legions of loyal readers; but, if Bob Ryan can do it, why can't I. So without further ado, I give you today's post . . .

Cleaning out the Desk Drawer of the Mind

• I love to watch Johnny Damon try to score from first on a double. He's twice won games with mad dashes like the one last night. It's a pure adrenaline rush, perhaps even bigger than a game winning home run. The game winning homer is a fact usually as soon as it leaves the bat. A surprise, it is all release for the fan. The Johnny Damon mad dash, on the other hand - with his fists clenched, elbows locked, arms pivoting wildly in their shoulder sockets, hair streaming back, teeth clenched and catching bugs like a radiator grill - is all buildup. The ball sailing through the air - Damon is approaching second; the ball descends towards the wall - Damon is tearing through the bag; the ball caroms off the wall, corralled by the outfielder - Damon is screaming into the windmill of Dale Sveum's "go" sign; here comes the relay, pefectly executed - Damon is about to explode out of his own skin; SAFE! What fun. . .
• Cabrera has been struggling at the plate, and it's so great to see him win a game instead of make the last out of a one run game. Varitek was quick to defend him in the locker room, telling reporters to get off his back, he's in a new league. Two thoughts about this - how much does a new league matter, and, is there a better teammate in all of sports than Jason Varitek?
• Pedro's stuff wasn't his best last night, but he is showing the late stages of the late-career metamorphosis needed to pitch effectively for the next four or five seasons. Pitchers like Pedro who were powerballers early in their career almost always have to evolve to have a long career (kind of like rock bands can't just keep playing the same old crap forever and ever.) Pedro doesn't blow people away anymore, but does a brilliant job mixing and matching and keeping hitters off balance. I wrote earlier in the season that because his stuff isn't locomotive any more, if he misses his spot even a tiny bit, he'll get hit. Last night was no exception, but he battled hard and got out of trouble.
• Speaking of getting hit hard, I swear Vernon Wells' homerun was still rising when it went into the monster seats. That was a SMASH!
• Speaking of SMASH, Varitek's blast was a gargantuan bomb.
• David Ortiz needs to settle down a bit. I don't know what he was thinking, but if he thought that Lilly was trying to hit him last night, he just doesn't know baseball very well. He risked getting himself run and suspended again, and the Sox went 1-4 during is earlier 5-gamer. Anger management, perhaps?
• Gabe Kapler is a great teammate and a great player to have around. He never gets hurt. He never complains, he is always the first player to congratulate a teammate on a job well done (I think he might've broken Cabrera's spine last night with his post-game bear hug.) He was the first one out of the dugout to grab Ortiz - maybe the only player with the muscles to hold Ortiz back. He's a terrific fourth outfielder, and he's starting to take over the job of club spokesperson with the media - not necessarily after games only, but doing the afternoon WEEI drive time interviews and things like that. I think the Sox should look to sign him up for a two or three year, $6M deal and be glad they did.
• Starting pitchers simply have to go 7 innings per start from here on out. Without Williamson, the bridge to Foulke needs to be shortened. Embree and Timlin need to throw fewer innings then they have, and Foulke needs to be brought into games for longer stints.
• Is Mike Myers a pitcher who can throw an inning, rather than just a third? I hope he can be - that would be a huge boon to the pen.
• Speaking of the pen and Foulke, Terry used Foulke brilliantly that last two nights. A two inning save on Monday, and bringing him in to a tie game at home. The first move a bit more daring than the second, but both much smarter than the way Gagne was used in Fenway this season, for example. If you recall, the Sox beat the Dodgers two out of three, with both wins coming off the Dodgers' pen. Gagne only pitched in a blowout Dodgers' win, because Jim Tracy seems to be stuck on the LaRussa Rule which says you only pitch your closer in a save situation (to be fair to TLR, I don't know if he still manages this way, but he sure did in Oaktown with Eckersley.)
• Speaking of Eck, where is he? Guy gets inducted into the Hall, and he's now too good for NESN and us little people? I love Eck, not because of his insight (sometimes his commentary is so spacey it makes you wonder how he ever got anybody out - I guess he was just up there 'slinging it') but because he's capable of saying anything at anytime. He hasn't done so, but you always feel like he could throw out an F-bomb without even thinking about it.
• Outfielders with poor throwing arms have compensated with quick releases all throughout baseball history, and some to great effect (see Bonds, Barry.) Manny has taken this idea to a whole new level. He's positively chucking wiffle balls out of left field now, throwing off his back foot, underhanded . . . stoners playing ultimate frisbee at the Phish farewell are doing a better job setting their feet for the throw than Crusty the Clown is doing in left this year. I guess playing 81 games at Fenway really helps in this regard.
• Don't look now, but the Sox are 10-7 since Nomar left. Now, I don't think that their record is because of Nomar being gone, but they certainly aren't missing him. How could they, really? He basically didn't play for them this year, save for June. (I do think the team is looser without his bad attitude and endless Nomar questions from the media - see Glenn, Terry, and Belichick, Bill)
• Speaking of not playing, the Sox will only get about 40 games from Nomar and Trot combined this year. When you think back to the lofty offseason expectations that we all put on this team, I'll bet Nomar and Trot had something to do with crafting those expectations. Stands to reason they'd struggle without them, so let's cut the crew a little slack (see Shaughnessey, Dan.)
• I think Kevin Millar's theme music should be Slim Shady. Just do. Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? Is Millar a .300, 25, 90 guy or the slumper he had been in the first half of the season? Nobody in the AL is hitting the ball better than Millar since the All-Star break. Is he just a right-handed Brian Daubach, or is he better?
  

Only a couple of things to say this morning about last night's game . . .

• Good to see Keith Foulke used for two innings last night. This might be a way to smooth over the roughness of the bullpen in Williamson's absence. Foulke has thrown as many as 105 innings in his career (1999 Chicago) and has averaged almost 90 innings per year recently. He says he likes the work, and we need him to stretch it out into some two inning saves right now. (B.K. Kim, where are you?)
• As the trade deadline approached a couple of weeks ago, it was said that the players didn't want Lowe traded and would be happy to see Nomar go. Here's why - during the Yankee scrap awhile back, Nomar stayed on the bench. Last night, Lowe drilled Delgado as payback for busting up the new guy (Meintkeiwicz.) No elaboration needed on this one.
• I was glad to see Francona play Meintkeiwicz at second base last night. Not afraid to take a chance, better to try this, get Meintkeiwicz' bat in the lineup instead of playing automatic out Ricky Guttierrez at second. Francona seems to have some ability to think creatively about the lineup, something Grady Little and Jimy Williams could not. Youkilis and Bellhorn both were taking ground balls at first (not needed now that Meintkeiwicz has changed addresses. . . ) I remember screaming all season during Jimy's last spin with the Beaneaters that Hatteberg should be playing first base. First base was a particular problem those years, and if you could catch, you could play first. Jimy finally got Hatteberg taking some ground balls, but never put him over there, even when Daubach was doing his best Pirate's Cove Windmill Hole imitations at the plate. Now he mashes for Oakland at - first base. Oy!
• Has anybody else noticed that Lowe has seemed to right the ship? No longer an awful pitcher, he's pitched very "averagely" the last few times out. Even in the seventh with the error from Cabrera, he seemed to be holding it together well out there in the rain. He's only thrown about 5 1/2 innings per start this year, so his arm should be strong. It would be a huge relief on the bullpen to have D-Lowe pitching 7 or 8 innings each time out down the homestretch, especially with Williamson out for the year.
  

Boston.com / Sports / Baseball / Red Sox / Debunking the mystery of one-run losses

Gordon Edes of the Globe sheds some much needed light on one-run games and the Sox this season. Many fans think that losing or winning one run games is somehow exclusively the province of the manager, but here Edes explains how it is in many ways a matter of luck . . .

My final word on Nomar (until I think of something else) . . .

The Nomar trade, on balance, is a good one. I know that I'm late weighing in on this, but I've been late posting all year. Anyway, pros and cons . . .

Cons

• We should've gotten more for him. No doubt that a good number three pitcher like Matt Clement would've been a better deal, but the Cubs weren't going to let go of him. Clearly the Cubs knew that the Sox were going to have to deal Nomar, so they knew they could hold out for a better price. Moreover, were there any other frontline pitchers out there available for a club needing a moody rent-a-player? Nomar for Unit was always a pipe dream. Nomar for Ponson wasn't going to happen, obviously. There just wasn't many places to move Nomar, with the Cubs being pretty much the only buyer. Any beginner economics student knows that when a supplier is trying to move product and there aren't many buyers, the price is going to drop, and drop it did.
• Best case scenario with Nomar in the lineup would've been a healthy hitter for the next sixty games. This would've been better than the defensive upgrades we did get.
• The potential public relations hit the club would take.
  

Pros

• The club seemed to take no public relations hit.
• Nomar was a clubhouse cancer, and it's good to be rid of him. The team just looks looser.
• The defense at short is WAY better. Ricky Guttierrez at short was a one way ticket to missing the playoffs.
• With Nomar off the books and D-Lowe suddenly pitching himself out of a big price tag, the free agent problems are largely solved. Unless their respective agents lose their mind, Pedro and Tek should be resigned. Additionally, Cabrera should be able to be resigned at a much better winshares/dollar price than resigning Nomar would've been. Meintkeiwicz is a long term solution at first base - Kevin Millar is not (though he's been hitting well lately, obviously.)
• No more Nomar death watch. That is hell on any organization.

So, I'm late and brief with this Nomar trade assessment. Nevertheless, I needed to weigh in, especially with this last analogy. Nomar was becoming a pre-cancerous tumor. The "distractability factor" of him moping around, hurt, was huge. Francona, by all accounts, is a terrific handler of players, and he might've been able to handle Nomie. I think that by trading Nomar, Theo felt he was taking an aggressive treatment of this pre-cancerous tumor before it metastasized. Might not of, but if it did, the season would've spiraled downward like a brick in a pond. Now the boy wonder GM can focus on Varitek and Pedro, two players who really do want to stay with the Beaneaters.

We're better off with Nomar gone.

So a troika of one run games . . .

. . . doesn't end the Sox' way. Twice in three games they were able to rally for a pair of runs of the frisbee throwing closer for the palehose; unfortunately, they were trailing by three runs entering the ninth each time (by the way, if you're Ozzie Guillen, do you have any confidence with Takatsu if you do manage to squeek into the playoffs? Yikes!)

I didn't get to see any of yesterday's game, and I only saw bits an pieces of Sunday's game (I was winning a golf tournament - not very humble of me, that bit, thanks - and I was flipping back and forth with the PGA Championship. I offer only some random ruminations . . . .

• Jose Valentin, the Windy's shortstop, could easily be cast as the yes man gopher detective in any cop caper movie made from here on out. . .
• Manny Ramirez is fast becoming the most disheveled athlete in Boston, if not in America. Running off the field with his shirt partially untucked (how does that happen?) today in the 7th, he could've made Rod Beck look positively foppish. . .
• Mike Timlin's arm will fall off soon. Poor guy has been pitching his heart out, but you can tell that his fastball is just lacking juice, and if he leaves it even a bit over the plate, he's getting rocked.
• Arroyo continues to be impressive. I really like the way he's getting ahead and staying ahead of hitters. . .
• Francona sticks with starters - I like that. Nothing drives me crazier than managers who lift starters who are cruising because they give up a run or two of bleeders and bloops. Having said that, once Tito makes that first change, all hell breaks loose and he wears a path out of the grass between the dugout and the mound (ever notice he likes to use two hands to surround the ball when he takes it from the pitcher? I wonder if players have flipped it in his gut in disgust in the past and he's just trying to box it in like a catcher.) He loves the lefty-lefty, righty-righty matchup, sometimes so much that he'll do something like lift Embree with two down in the seventh for Timlin - not unusual - but sometimes with a 6 or 7 run lead - very unusual.
• Nice to see Meintkeiwicz drive in some runs today. Cabrera had a good game at the plate as well, but now two games out of three he's mad the last out in a one run game - today with the tying run on third.
• Speaking of tying run on third, why didn't Francona run Roberts for Crusty the Clown in the ninth? Standing on first, if V-Tek hit a gapper, Manny has an outside chance of scoring, but Roberts has a great chance of scoring the tying run. Now, I know that it is only the tying run and not the winning run, and you'd like to have Manny in the game if it goes into extra frames so that he might drive in the winning run, but without the tying run, there's no extra innings, no winning run . . .
• The Sox have had many runners cut down at the plate in the past week or so, but not really their fault. Sveum had one poor choice, but centerfielders have been throwing like Willie Mays against them the past couple of series. Baldelli threw a pair of bullets to nail runners at the dish, and Rowand threw a perfect bee-bee to cut down Youkilis at the plate.
• Losing Youkilis for any period of time will hurt. The fewer innings Ricky Guttierrez plays, the better.
• The word on the street is that Williamson is done for the year, maybe for next season as well. Not only does that hurt the Sox, but that really hurts his career generally. He signed a two year deal in the off-season, and if he sits out next season healing, he'll get a contract, but not nearly as good a contract as he would've if he kept mowing batters down (.125 OBA this season) for the next year . . . closer money in fact. Too bad. Makes Kim's return all the more needed
  
• The other word on the street is that Shoppach ain't ready for prime time. Tek needs to be resigned.
• Yet another word on the street is that Garciapparra has quickly become the most popular Cub. Speaking of Nomar and the Cubs, don't you think ESPN had to be apoplectic about the fact that Nomie sat last Sunday against the Giants. Instead of every set in New England tuned in, there was a massive clicking of remotes at about 8:06
• Derek Lowe's blisters seem to be more of a problem in the warm weather. Don't know for sure, just seem to be. Let's see, Pedro can't pitch in the cold, D-Lowe can't pitch in the humidity . . . or during the day for that matter. The Globe had a bit showing that Lowe's ERA is over 8 during day games, just over 4 during night games.
• 1 game lead going into today's game. The fact that the Sox are essentially out of the East race could play into their hands. Without Yankee envy, the team really can take it the proverbial one game at a time. The Wild Card playoff team is still a playoff team, after all.
• Don't look now, but you're stumbling, bumbling Red Sox have the third best record in the AL, only a half game behind Oakland. Sixth best record in baseball.
• Will anybody beat the Cardinals this year? Is Jim Edmonds' uppercut homerun stroke the most exhilirating swing in stickball today?
  

Here's a name you haven't thought much of lately, I'll bet . . .

B.K. Kim. Where's he gone? He seems to have vanished off the face of the earth, in the midst of the longest rehab in history. But, if Ramiro Mendoza can actually come back and pitch effectively (at the beginning of the year, I had to double and triple check the spring training rosters to be sure the Sox hadn't released him) after an alien abduction, can B.K. be that far behind? Who knows if we'll see him pitch this year again, or pitch effectively. Still, the thought is a tantalizing one . . . what would he be best suited to do?

Option 1 - move into the rotation. Who gets bumped? Wakefield? I think right now it would have to be Wakey. It would suck for him, but he's the most inconsistent starter in the rotation right now. Plus, he's proven how versatile he really is, and a move to the bullpen for Wake might shore up the problems the Williamson-less bullpen is having running on fumes the past month or so. The other option is to move Lowe to the pen, but he's been pitching much better lately, and he'd lose much more confidence than the cagey, wiley veteran Wakefield would moving to the pen.

Option 2 - Put Kim in the pen in the Scott Williamson role. Kim could be a devastating setup man for the Sox out of the pen. If he's throwing hard, he's very tough to hit the first time through the order. Then, the pen would have Mendoza in the long role, Kim, Timlin, and Embree in the setup role, Foulke closing, Myers the lefty specialist, and Leskanic doing the odd jobs. That's a pretty imposing pen, especially given Boston's starters' penchant for going deep into games lately.

Clearly, a strengthened pen is top priority for the Sox right now. I think the Sox' playoff chances hinge on Williamson's elbow. If he can feel good at all, he's a DOMINANT setup man. Also, Timlin and Embree will be that much better not having to pitch every single night. Williamson AND Kim in the pen is just too exciting to think about. Add to that a 1996-2000 version of Ramiro Mendoza, and the pen is lights out.

Thoughts?

It seems like the boys were having fun last night during the heavy rains. . .

When it looked for all the world that the umps were looking to finish the 7th inning just to make sure the game didn't end up suspended (which, in my judgement, was kindof silly because it was the first game of a three games set, i.e. there was plenty of time for the game to be continued tomorrow), the hometown nine looked like they were having a ball. Though Terry Francona was stewing about the possibility that his team was only going to have potentially three more outs instead of nine to come back on the ChiSox, everybody else looked like they were playing a little league game. Damon was grinning on the bases (when isn't he acting just a little bit buzzed?), and Manny was positively giddy after drilling his single off the wall. The rain seemed to energize the crew; they almost seemed excited about the challenge of needing to tie the game right then lest they end up losing a rainshortened contest.

I really liked seeing that. The kind of "bring it on" attitude, that hasn't been as obvious this season as it was last season. The team has played hard and passionately all year, but they now seem to be playing loose and having fun.

I've always thought the whole "having fun" thing was overrated; I just don't think it contributes that much to improved performance, or at least not as much as others do. Having said that, I don't think it's irrelevant. Having fun usually means you're staying in the moment and playing a bit more loosely, a bit more relaxed. When you're more relaxed, your timing improves, your vision improves . . . your brain just stops getting in the way.

In my real life, I'm a teacher. Studying cognitive development has led me to conclude that the biggest obstacle to performance of any kind (physical, mental, emotional) is the obstacles our own mind and psyche creates for ourselves. When we're not "in the moment" or "loose" to use players parlance, our minds drift either forward with anxiety or backwards with regret. When our minds are drifting forwards or backwards in time, it becomes very difficult to perform - the models of perfect performance that reside deep in our memory can't be recalled because our mind is off hanging out in bad neighborhoods. Playing "loose" makes synchronicity between the mind and the body more likely.

The irony of this situation is that it seems mindless. We've all had experience athletically where we got lost in the moment, or "in the zone" (I'm making the not unreasonable assumption that if you're reading this right now, you're probably a sports fan and therefore have played a bit of sports yourself.) A pure drive on the golf course, shooting lights out from the perimeter, or hitting the catcher's glove over and over, we've probably all had a taste of this "mindless perfection." It seems mindless, but in fact, it's entirely mindful; we're only really consciously aware of our mind when it's off racing without our permission.

Anyway, the point is, the team seems to be playing with a bit more bounce in their step. Having fun. Enjoying the moment, the childlike joy of playing the game in a downpour. That's good. Maybe they'll start playing a bit more "mindlessley . . ." ;-)