Julio Lugo bashing is going full force, so I have to add my $0.02. Just in case you aren’t aware, with the off day today,  dear little Julio has gone two full weeks without a hit. A few days ago, Surviving Grady predicted that Julio’s average will bottom out at .164. Considering he’s at .190 now, a stellar .089 for the month of June, (.089! I almost slipped the decimal point over one typing that because no everyday player has an average starting with a 0, right?), I think he’ll bottom out at .147, which’ll drop him below Mirabelli (Stud Who Hits Into Double Plays?) and Beckett. Luckily for Lugo, his average cannot possibly be last on the team, since Wakefield and Daisuke are both at .000.

Please fill in the blank:

My two most hated teams are the MFY and the ________.

I filled in the first one for everybody. As for the second blank, for me it’s the Giants. I grew up in LA, and my Dad is a huge Dodgers fan, so I figured the best Father’s Day present I could get him is a sweep of the Giants. Damn I’m a good son.

This was a great series though. During the first game we got to wipe Johnny Damon off another record when little Dustin Pedroia became the latest Sox player to get five base hits in a game. Dustin has been hitting well recently, but this game made me think, “yup, he’s the real deal.” Which is good, cause Julio Lugo certainly isn’t. JD Drew made Tito look like a genius by going 3-4 with a HBP in the leadoff spot and, most importantly for a leadoff man, scoring three runs. Combine that with our version of Roger Clemens sans the two trillion dollar contract, and we’re back up to an 8.5 game lead.

The Saturday game pitted two young pitchers against each other who also should be classified as “the real deal.” As much as I hate the Giants, I’ve got to go watch Matt Cain pitch in person sometime soon, cause he’s got some nasty stuff. But you make one mistake pitch to Manny, and suddenly the Sox win 1-0.

As for the Sunday game, Manny, Papi, and everybody besides Julio Lugo helped out (you may want to sit down for this) Tim Wakefield and got him some freaking run support, nine runs to be exact. Too bad that’s all he’ll see until the All Star break.

I’d also like to thank the fans at Fenway this weekend. You made the rest of us proud. You booed Bonds mercilessly, had signs with asterisks, and got some very vocal “Stare-Oids” chants going. I love the Fens. On the flip-side the standing ovation for Dave Roberts was magical. If I had a say, he should get a standing ovation every time he walks into any Boston establishment for the rest of his life. Or at least should never have to pay for his bar tab.

In all seriousness, happy belated Father’s Day to all the Dad’s out there. Without my Dad’s love and obsession for baseball, I’d never be able to criticize the Sox with quite the same enthusiasm. And then what fun would the game be?

After nine loses in 14 days and a team batting average that even a relief pitcher wouldn’t be excited about, this is bordering on pathetic. What was a 14.5 game lead is now cut in half within 2 weeks. Scoring runners from 3rd and fewer than two outs should be near automatic. Instead the Sox seem to just let the baserunners get a tan out on the basepaths. So, please, in the immortal words of Don Orsillo, “make it stop!”

What a difference a day makes. Tuesday night it looked like Tito finally saw the light of day and puts out this lineup:

Pedroi-er
Yooooks
Papi
Manny
Drew
Doubles
Coco
Belli
Lugo

Brilliant I think. You’ve got two OBP guys batting in front of Papi and Manny, and the guys whose legs are so fast they apparently can’t get them to first base batting 7th and 9th. Sure, they only scored two runs, but it was one more than the Rockies, and that’s what counts. Well, then the lineup comes out for Wednesday and it looks like this:

Coco
Yooooks
Papi
Manny
Drew
Lowell
Tek
Cora
Lugo

WTF? Oh, this is great. So you take a guy batting .221 and put him first. Then, remove Pedroia from the lineup cause he’s only red hot. The only smart thing here was leaving Lugo in the 9 hole. Shit, I’m thinking we may need to try something drastic with him soon like have Papi DH for Lugo instead of the pitcher. Our pitchers have got to be able to hit better than two-fucking-eleven.

As for the pitching? Wake looks like he’s 30 again while Curt looks like he’s 40 going on 80. You almost no-hit a team one week and the next week you give up 6 runs in 5 innings? It’s like he’s trying hard to make Theo look like a genius for not resigning him in Spring Training.

Did they throw a banquet when Dice-K became the newest member of the Tim Wakefield society? In his past two starts he’s given up two runs a piece, but only received a total, total of one measly run. Granted he was facing the 58 year old Randy Johnson and before that it was Lenny “I can’t even hack it in the Sox bullpen” DiNardo. That’s really a tough order.

Also, whose bright idea was it to have Lugo and Crisp lead off? I’m sure their averaged .286 OBP really strikes fear into the heart of the opposition. If somebody is struggling, maybe the leadoff spot is not the right place to bat him. Just a thought…

Good win by the Sox today, the first one in extra innings for the season. Although they didn’t make anything easy on themselves: falling behind by 3, almost blowing a bases-loaded no outs situation in the 10th and then Paps walking on a very tight rope letting to runners on in the bottom of the 10th before he ended it.

But the big news today has been the return of some guy whose almost eligible for an AARP card in the Bronx. Following that story, how’s this for a comparison:

6.0 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K (97 pitches, 61 strikes)
6.0 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 7 K (108 pitches, 69 strikes)

The latter of these starts was against the 26-35 Pirates by the geriatric Roger Clemens while the former was against the 36-26 Arizona Diamondbacks from Julian Tavarez. And to think that Lester is right around the corner, we’ll be sending our version of Clemens to the bullpen soon. Of course, that’s minus the $28M price tag.

So truth be told, I got back to the states a few days ago. In fact, I got back just in time for me to see the Sox lose the first game against the A’s in 11 innings. Way to welcome me home boys.

However, the abysmal offense the Sox put up in the first two games of the series were washed from my memory when I got to step on the field prior to the third game.

I arrived about two and a half hours before the first pitch, and when I went in the dugout Schilling was doing some sort of interview with (I think) NESN. I could have thanked him for answering one of my questions on his blog, but that would be a lie, since he really didn’t answer anything. You’d think for somebody who talks that much he’d eventually arrive at a conclusion.

Beckett came out of the clubhouse first and immediately started shooting the shit with a beat writer. The guy can talk and it’s pretty entertaining. I heard about an amusing story about him at a bar in SF along with him making fun of the fact that the woman singing the Star Spangled Banner got a test-run (”Can I have a practice run for my start on Friday?”). I didn’t bother to tell him that nobody wants him to start his game 100 pitches in.

A little after Beckett, most of the rest of the team came out of the tunnel and hung out in the dugout. I don’t know if this is normal, but you could definitely see a few different clicks within the team. There was Papi, Cora, and Romero joking around in Spanish, there was Youks with Lowell and Belli, and a few other groups of people. Tek stood by himself with the catcher’s equipment on the steps, which gave me the perfect opportunity to ask him for a picture. Tek, stoic as he is, was extremely nice about it. I asked Beckett’s beat writer friend to take the picture, and he was concerned he was going to get in trouble. So he asked Tek if he was cool with it, which almost seemed to offend Tek a little (”yeah, of course it’s fine.”). A picture with a cornerstone of the 2004 world series team…awesome.

Shortly after that the team went out for BP, and I chilled out on the warning track. While Hinske hit bomb after bomb into the bleachers, I met up with Ryan Leong, whose an awesome guy and a fellow contributor for Your Sports Nightcap.

A few other quick observations:

• Julian Tavarez is hilarious and seems like as nice a guy as he is made out in the media. A couple of kids were following him around trying to get an autograph after he left the batting cage (which was also entertaining to watch). He takes off his batting gloves, hits the kid over the hat with them and starts giving the kids shit. With all the people in the stands asking for autographs as well Tavarez turns to them and says “I’m only signing these balls because the kids are so ugly.” Funny and self-deprecating, I love it.
• There are sheets of paper taped up in the dugout that have every Sox batter’s stats against the starting pitcher and every A’s relief pitcher. On the flipside, they’ve also got the Sox starter and every reliever’s stats against the A’s lineup. Glad to see they work with the same info we’ve got on the net.
• I also managed to use those kids that asked for Tavarez’s autograph for a picture with Big Papi. When they stopped him walking off the field, I stood in between him and the clubhouse tunnel. As soon as he was done, I asked him for a picture and Ryan was kind enough to quickly snap it. Greatest photo ever.

Unlike last time I didn’t get into any deep philosophical with Tito or Theo. But all in all, I’d say this was a much more fun time on the field. Next time I’ll try to actually ask a few questions. But you’ve got to go one step at a time.

As for the game, they sucked, Tito went apeshit and Coco made a nice catch. If only somebody would get a base hit.

Here are all the pictures I took.

Does this Q&A from Curt’s blog look familiar?

Q-Quick question. I know it was brought up on SoSH a lot, but A-Rod currently looks like he’s so comfortable in the batter’s box that he may as well bring a laz-y-boy chair and a pitcher of margaritas. Is there any reason why not to try and brush him back once or twice and make him think a little more?

A-This was written after our first series obviously. Bottom line is that you go into a game with a plan for everyone, and guys that are as hot as he was that’s no different. You have smaller margin for error obviously but you have to execute. Coming in on guys to make them uncomfortable is one way of doing it for sure, but the only pitches that have an effect on a hitter on the inside part of the plate are pitches that something happens with. Breaking a guys bat, jamming him badly, knocking him down on occasion. If you aren’t getting one of those results then most times you are wasting pitches.

Curt answered one of my questions! Well, answering would be a bit of an overstatement. Curt re-stated one of my questions! I’ve hit it big time!

Well, it was quite a trip. Sorry I’ve been away from the Sox and the blog for about two weeks. However, I’ll give you a few humorous tidbits that are Sox-related from the trip.

Our first day in Rome some guy walked passed us with a Sox hat on. I of course couldn’t resist and screamed out “Go Sox!”. The guy was kind of confused at first, but managed to get out a “yeah, go Sox” back. He then walks about five more feet with his girlfriend, stops, turns around at us and asks “hey, do you know how the Sox did against the Yankees yesterday?” I love Red Sox Nation.

For the first five days we were in Europe, the Sox won all five games and the MFY lost all five. You can imagine that there are way more MFY hats than Sox hats in Europe which is surprising considering that they hate our country right now. You’d think you’d want to avoid wearing a hat for a team named the “Yankees”. Anyways, every time we saw a MFY hat or shirt we’d cough the number of games up the Sox were towards the person. Cough, cough, tweleve and a half, cough.

I’ll get some more posts up soon. Since we’ve been back the Sox have lost quite a few, but I’ve still got some interesting stuff for you. I promise the two week break will be the longest of the year here.