I believe I said to keep the stranglehold on the Rays and not let them breathe. Last night, was a perfect example of not listening to a word I said. Josh Beckett was, well, not Josh Beckett. Everyone's been hounding the Red Sox training staff to know if there is an injury that he's concealing or some other ailment. That I'm not sure but I'll offer what I saw after last night's lackluster performance. His arm speed, not his velocity, is down. By this I mean it looks like he has the same velocity, and in many senses he does, but he's not getting it from the whip action in his arm. Prior to this skid, the ball would come out of his hand and explode, "Easy Cheese" if you will. Now, it's more like "Laborious Cheese." He looks as if he's aiming, and trying to muckle onto the ball in order to throw it hard. His 2-seam that normally freezes just about every lefty in baseball doesn't have that Nasty, darting back motion. After the second inning he settled down to at least not completely decimate the bullpen, but the damage was done. Moral of the Story: Josh Beckett Needs to Figure This Out.
Judging by the above paragraph you'd of thought we lost 16-0, well, that wasn't the case. We were down 5-1, and started clawing our way back. Eventually tying it 5-5 in the top of the 8th, only to have that lead vanquished in about 2 minutes. Evan Longoria did his best Denzel Washington impersonation from Training Day saying "KING KONG AIN'T GOT SHIT ON ME," as he rounded the bases after that mammoth homerun to all but cement the W for the struggling Rays.
Enough about the Red Sox. What is it about players that we give the heave-ho, playing like Ozzie Guillen, Warren Spahn, and Nolan Ryan? Julio Lugo has made one error in 30 + games and is hitting well over .300. John Smoltz is now pitching like well, John Smoltz. Brad Penny just threw 8 shut out innings against the Phillies. THE FRIGGIN PHILLIES! Is this a classic case of the NL is clearly so much worse, or is Boston just not the market for these players? I'm not sure but my next idea could be the revelation of the century…LET'S SCOUT PLAYERS WITH GOOD TRACK RECORDS NOT COMING OFF INJURIES! Seems ingenious but I assure you not much thought went into that.
Texas won a game, the Yankees won (surprise, surprise) and the Rays dismantled our "Ace". We lost ground in every race imaginable, except for the my ace is worse than your ace race. Forgive me for the Dr. Seussian sounding phrase right there. Clay Buchholz goes tonight against the Rookie Lefty David Price. I'll say this if he gives us a start like he has the last 3-4 times out and shuts down this Tampa offense to give us the series win, I'm going to proclaim that he has earned his #3 spot in the rotation for the playoff push. This is the start that he needs to culminate everything together and shine. Because if Jon Lester is the only pitcher out of 5 that can give you a quality start and then some, every time out, you're going to be hard pressed to make it to October, let alone succeed. The Rays need not another inch of Daylight, they need a Shaquille O'Neal size boot in their ass to the backburner in the Wildcard Chase. Bring it on Tampa.
Stay Tuned
Ryan
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