Numbers

3: The number of outs recorded on Mike Redmond's ground ball to third base in the seventh inning at Jacobs Field last night.

2: The number of times the Yankees have given up 16 runs or more in the past week. Ouch.

2: The number of games Mike Timlin needs to play in to reach 1,000 career appearances. The career stats are fun to look at:

He has had 497 teammates in all, according to baseball-reference.com, from Dave Parker, who was 40 when Timlin was a rookie, to Clay Buchholz, the 23-year-old Sox prospect who was 2 1/2 years old in 1987, when Timlin made his professional debut in Medicine Hat, Alberta,

but more interesting are his current stats, which have got lost in the Sox' recent surge:

He's no longer the team's primary setup man, a role passed to Okajima and now Eric Gagné, but no one can accuse him of just hanging on, either. In his last 21 appearances, spanning 27 1/3 innings, he has been scored upon just once, allowing two earned runs, for an ERA of 0.66 in that span.

If the Sox have a successful end to the season, then you can add Timlin to the growing list of unsung MVPs.

Stingy

After a 46-run weekend, I was going to step back and take a look at the pitching performances against the White Sox, which, in case you hadn't noticed, were most excellent, but papel-blog beat me to it.

I'd just like to reiterate that the Red Sox staff (bullpen included) gave up just 7 runs in four games. Seven. The offense could have scored 35 runs less than it did and they'd still have won the series. Admittedly, they weren't facing the '27 Yankees out there, but the White Sox are hardly a Little League team either, so the performances are worth noting.

My own personal favourite was Tavarez, who pitched a peach of a game on 6 days' rest, keeping the White Sox in check long enough for the bats to get warm and chase Vazquez from the game. He's still one of my heroes of this season - a guy from whom little was expected but who has delivered big-time.

-------
Before leaving the weekend sweep behind, I just wanted to point out a couple of gems from around Red Sox Nation:

• After seeing the "Why me?" look on Ozzie Guillen's face all weekend, I can but agree with papel-blog:

  I seriously thought he was going to rush the mound while his own team was pitching during the eighth inning on Saturday. If Ozzie becomes the first manager to start an on-the-field brawl with his own team before the season is over, I will not be least bit surprised.

• Meanwhile, over at Basegirl, Kristen and Annette have delved deep into that scary place they call their imaginations and have scripted the future. Miss it at your peril.

This post is brought to you by:

Mike Lowell, King of the Land of Awesome.

In his last ten games, Lowell is 16-for-35, which works out at a tidy .457 batting average. He's also had 6 walks, scored 9 runs, driven in 13 and only struck out 3 times.

In addition to going 4-for-6 yesterday, Lowell was also involved in what, for me, was the play of the game in the sixth inning. You could sense momentum start to shift as the Sox started putting some hits together, but Lowell's heads-up play - where he basically snuck home from third base whilst the White Sox were lollygagging the ball into the infield - was the kind of play that takes any remaining wind out of the opposing team's sails. Which it promptly did, to the tune of 11 more runs and a league-leading 16th win for Wake.

A sweep would be a nice way to go into New York on Tuesday. You hear me, Julian?

Double the fun

The Sox won, twice. And better than that, they won whilst hitting the crap out of the ball.

I watched the first game in its entirety (alongside my Dad, who lept me busy for nine nnings with questions like "Why is that a strike? Why is he not running? Why so many commercial breaks?") His questions meant I wasn't paying as much attenton to the finer points of the game as I should have been, but I vaguely remember a couple of key hits that weren't quite off the meat of the bat.

I had hoped to watch Game 2 live, but the first game went on for so damn long that I just couldn't physically do it, so all I saw of it was the MLB.TV condensed game first thing this morning. I usually avoid the condensed game format, because it gives you no real idea of how the game was actually played out - it's just a loosely-connected series of hits, outs and runs. But watching hit after hit after hit this morning allowed me to realise that almost every single hit in Game 2 was a rocket. You could see - and hear - the ball being belted all over the field, and it was a fine. I'll take a win any day of the week, but a win built on solid pitching and solid hitting is soothing for the Red Sox soul.

---------

Also soothing for the Red Sox soul: a Yankee loss in Detroit. On a walk-off home run. In the 11th inning. At 3:30am. Our hats should be tipped in the direction of Carlos Guillen, who is, to quote Sam,

a unicorn being ridden by an entire litter of small kittens down a road made of cupcakes.

It's almost enough to make you feel a little sympathy for the Yankees.

Almost.

Bad day

You know you're in trouble when this:

5IP, 9H, 6R, 6ER

is your best pitching line from the box score.

The only positive thing the O's can take from this game is that it only counts for one in the 'L' column.

Special mention should go to the unfortunate Brian Burres, who managed to give up 8 earned runs in 2/3 of an inning, and to Wes Littleton, who was the recipient of the game's most bizarre stat: a save, with a 27-run lead. (For the explanation, see point 3 of rule 10.19 here).

Strange days, indeed...

My kinda headline

I wish I could claim that my secret has finally been revealed:

but unfortunately any hope of keeping up the pretense is dashed in the first sentence of the article - it's Kevin Cash, not Iain Cash.

However, if anyone from the front office is reading this, I'd like to state for the record that, should they be in the market for a no-hit, good-glove center fielder with limited speed on the basepaths, I am ready...

Erm...

Dear Jered,

If you don't like to see David Ortiz showboating after a grand slam, then may I suggest you don't throw him fastballs down the middle of the plate?

All the best,
Iain

Phenom Phriday

"And what will it be today, sir? A tall, cocky Texan, maybe, to start today against the Angels?

"Oh, you have two games today, do you? Well, it just so happens we have another one, tucked away in the back room for special occasions. He comes highly recommended:"

In the plan drawn up for Buchholz before this season, the idea was to improve his command of the [changeup] and increase its use in games. Check.

"I can throw it any time I want to throw it," Buchholz said. Or, as Cather said, "Now that pitch, he's throwing it 2-1, he's throwing it 2-0. He's throwing it 3-1. He'll throw it 3-2. He loves the pitch. The thing about it is, he's looking at probably 14- to 15-miles-an-hour separation off his fastball with the same arm speed and intensity."

"Enjoy the game, sir."

I feel good, na-na-na-na-na-na-na...

The St. Louis Cardinals usually find a multitude of ways to annoy the crap out of me, but even I couldn't fail to smile at this story.

Ankiel may not be the Second Coming of Babe Ruth, but to come back in any way, shape or form after a public meltdown of epic proportions deserves a respectful tip of the cap.

Batteries fully charged

If you want to truly gauge the level of any addiction, then going cold turkey is a good way to do so. Nineteen days without any Red Sox baseball (not even a day-old USA Today boxscore) was more than enough to remind me that, despite feeling burned out only a few weeks ago, summer without the Sox is just not summer.

I have to admit that total isolation was probably a good thing. If you do get the odd box score, all that does is make you want to know more, which in turn means you spend your days trying to find elaborate ways to get detailed game reports, and then suddenly you realise that your two weeks of vacation have gone and all you've done is worry about the lead the Sox have over the Yankees, and you've failed to look around and enjoy the view:

Unfortnately the view has - in the best Cinderella tradition - reverted back to something far more prosaic, but the silver lining is that I can once more sit out on the balcony with the laptop and watch the Sox:

(Well, I could if it weren't pouring with rain and if the Sox weren't playing the Angels in the middle of the bloody night, but you know what I mean).

Rumour has it that I missed a lot during my vacation (Eric Gagne in a Sox uniform! A Jon Lester win!! A Julio Lugo grand-slam!!! A David Ortiz stolen base!!!!), but there's still a helluva lot of ball to played this season, and this is when the fun really starts.

Bring it on...