Towel. Thrown.

buy the Red Sox towel set on mlb.comAs blog is my witness, the towel has now officially been thrown.

You may remember that Ed and I were to go to the game last night (Sunday) and so we did. We arrived to the Fenway area about 2 1/2 hours before gametime so that we might get a bite to eat and enjoy a few brews at Boston BeerWorks. Well, the line for the place was insane, so we headed over to Game On. This worked out pretty well as we walked right in and the wait for a table was only an hour. Probably the same wait at BBW, but it would have taken us a good 20-30 minutes to get in the door. Thus, I suffered thru drinking Corona instead of Haymarket Hef.

Fast forward to game time and in we go. The seats I thought we had weren’t the seats we had. You know how the right field corner goes and the seats point towards center field scoreboard? Yup, those were the ones… right on the aisle that goes diagonal, so the next section over looks more towards the field, but we were pretty high up. Probably the third last row in the boxes, but remember, these used to be grandstand seats. Thankfully there was enough legroom for my long sticks.

From a certain point of view, the seats were good in that they were the very first row under the overhang, so when it started raining it wasn’t that bad, but we still took shelter under the stands for the delay. Surprisingly, even with the rain delay, the Sox went over the usual 2 hours since gametime limit on the beer stands and kept it flowing until the usual seventh. Kind of an odd decision based on the fact that many folks were in the area much earlier than that due to the Sunday 8pm start, but also because it was a Yankee game and there’s always extracurriculars.

No benefit to Ed or I as we switched to H2O once we got in the park; you know, school night and all that. Keeping that in mind, the rain delay of almost an hour was obviously going to extend the night, so by the top of the eighth with the Sox up 5-3, we took our leave. Had there been no rain delay, we wouldn’t have left.

Anyway, I’m actually glad we left because obviously we missed them blowing the game to up the count to 4 straight. I joked with Ed as we crossed over the Pike from the Park that either Timlin or Pap could still blow the game. After all, there were still two innings to work with. It is unfortunate that I was proven right.

So, that leads me to tonight, which is after they dropped Game 5 of the series to make it an official sweep. The media is referring to it as another Boston Massacre. It’s an apt description. I’m sorry to say it, but no matter what kind of spin you put on it, it still hurts. It doesn’t even matter that you almost expected to drop the series, but getting crushed for a sweep is painful.

I won’t take anything away from the Yankees because they played well and of course have, what, like six or seven players that each make more than the entire Florida Marlins’ payroll? Porge is getting what he paid for I guess. Even with all the injuries they have had, they are still mashing the ball. With all our injuries, what are we doing? Sinking fast. In fact, I’m saying they are sunk.

I am throwing in the towel. They could challenge for the wild-card, but it’s looking likely it will be one of the three teams from the Central at this point unless they can beat each other up pretty good and we sneak in there. In order to do so, we’d have to feast on the East and have a good West Coast swing, but I don’t see it happening. Yeah, we still have games left against the Yankees, but they’ll be feasting on the same division opponents we could and they are now up 6 1/2. Once again, the division is gone.

The hitting hasn’t been great lately because we are still leaving too many on base. It’s the pitching that is killing us. I am going to contribute this to two things. The first is obviously Varitek going down. I don’t think anyone would question that all the guys on the field are missing his leadership, but especially the pitchers. Nothing against Javy or Dougie, but neither of them is worth half the catcher Tek is. The other thing I think is screwing them all up is Dave Wallace coming back and Al Nipper going back down to the minors. I’m guessing this move had the most effect on the young guy’s like Pap, Lester, Hansen and Delcarmen. All these guys were comfortable with Nip because he worked with them as they came up, especially Pap.

I doubt that our guys coming back — Trot, Tek, Wake — could contribute much with only a month left, but we’ll see. I think Theo’s waiver deals for Hinske and Javy were good, but they aren’t good enough to match the deals the Yankees made. If they get Sheff or Matsui, who scares me more, back soon, or both, then I’m thinking they might be able to mash their way thru the playoffs, their poor pitching and defense be damned!

Feel free to call me out on this, but I suspect I’m not alone in hoping football season starts sooner that I did last Thursday. If they trade Boomer, that means Theo is with me and Wilbur…