The wait is finally over. Manny did it. He took Chadford’s first pitch after entering the game and deposited it in the right-center field stands for his 500th career home run. It was a classic Manny swing, driving a pitch on the outside half of the plate about 410 feet. And in true MBM fashion, he hit it, watched it, and hugged everybody but the opposing team on the way around the bases. Although I still want to tell Julio Lugo to get out of the Manny/Papi jump-around party, nothing good can come of it.

You knew Manny was going to hit number 500 tonight. Earlier in the game he managed to misplay not one, but two routine fly balls into doubles. When MBM’s glove was starting to look like a brick, you knew it was only a matter of time before his bat reverted back to form. Congrats Manny, despite your pleas you will never win a gold glove, but you certainly do deserve this milestone. Remember, we all make our own destinations.

The Sox won two straight on the road for the first time in almost a month (May 5th and 6th in Detroit) and have a chance for a road winning-streak. A couple of years ago in Tampa, Lou Pinella offered to dye his hair if the Rays won three straight. Will Tito paint his head if the Sox can put together three straight wins on the road? Please, Tito, please.

I’m sure I’m one of 217 bloggers using a variation on the “13″ theme. It’s still got to be better than the Baltimore headlines which are probably “Friday the 13th.” As a Sox fan, I’ll happily take an inning where the Orioles have three errors, two of which directly resulted in three runs. But the best part of the 13th inning might be Jim Palmer praising Manny for his hustle. That comes about as often as Manny hitting his 500th homer.

Sure, the Orioles might have given the game away, but when your Pythagorean win total says you should be a .422 road team instead of a .367 team, you deserve a couple (ok, three) breaks in the 13th. It’s also payback for home plate umpire Andy Fletcher pulling a Lt. Frank Drebin and calling Coco out on a second strike. That play will certainly make the Umpires blooper reel that stadiums always play in the middle of the fourth inning.

Much to the dismay of the nation, Senior Lugo was not suspended for last night’s game. I know, it’s not fair to blame the fact that the Sox were two-hit wholly on Lugo’s scrawny shoulders, but I’ll do it anyways. For the second game in three days, Lugo failed to get a bunt down to advance the runner from 1st to 2nd. When he can’t hit, he can’t field, and he’s stopped stealing bases, why can’t he get a fucking bunt down? He’s starting to enter Tony Clark land here, and we can’t even say “but he’s such a nice guy!”

Wakfield easily had his best pitching performance of the season, pitching a complete-game 1-0 loss. He K’ed eight and amazingly walked NONE. Sadly one pitch stayed over the middle of the plate and the all-name team’s third baseman, Yuniesky Betancourt, hit it out for the only run of the game. The Sox couldn’t manage a measly run off Eric Beddard and his 4+ ERA. But to be fair, he could throw his curve for a strike whenever he felt like it.

In their past six road series, the Sox have won 3 games once (@ Det), one game twice (@Minn, @ Sea – the worst team in baseball) and have been swept three times (@ Tam, @ Bal, @ Oak). That’s a 5-14 record dating back to April 25th. Pathetic is an understatement. Can I blame it all on Lugo?

Watching last night’s game with the FSN Northwest broadcast meant that I was treated to the soon to be hall of famer Dave Niehaus for three innings. Sadly, it also meant that I was stuck with Dave Sims for the last six. Dave may be cute in Seattle, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that he isn’t ready for the big time markets: Boston, LA, NY, Chicago, etc. In the middle innings yesterday, Sims said this:

There’s a healthy, or I should say unhealthy, dose of fatalism that I’ve heard running through Mariner fans right now. The sky is falling, it’s over, I quit, I’m never gonna watch again. Relax, it’s BASEBALL, come on.

I can’t italicize BASEBALL enough to emphasis the disgust in his voice as he said it. As Boston fans, fatalism is our middle name. But if you can’t understand a love for the game and a team, maybe you shouldn’t be working in this business, DAVE.

Speaking of fatalism, has anybody started digging the grave for Timlin’s career yet? Dice-K also left the game because of a shoulder injury and the Sox wasted Manny’s 499th career homer. There was a glimmer of good news though, Julio Lugo got ejected. We can only hope he gets suspended too.

What’s better than an eighth straight loss on the road? That’s right Einstein, a win!

Both King Felix and the pitcher who eats like a King, Bartolo Colon, were dealing for 7 innings. Combined they had pitched 14 innings, 2 runs, and allowed only 7 hits. Luckily for the Sox and Julio Lugo (who can’t even get a freaking sac bunt down properly), King Felix fell apart with 2 outs in the eighth and gave up four runs before being pulled. Eventually Paps closed it down, but not before trying desperately to help keep the road losing streak alive.

Ichiro also made one of the year’s best “web gems” robbing Tek of a double in the 5th. Somehow Ichiro caught the ball with back to the plate a la Willy Mays, and then immediately ran into the outfield wall. As he fell backwards he transfered the ball from his glove to his barehand to secure the ball before hitting the ground. Oh, and the wall almost broke from the impact. I think it was payback for Tek wearing camo catcher’s gear.

But when road wins are about as scarce as disgustingly awful camo chest protector, you take any win you can get.

Is not the question you want to have to ask Tito following a 3 game sweep to start a road trip. But when the Sox get swept out of the likes of Oakland, you don’t have much of a choice.

Sean Casey is officially the nicest player in the majors. Most players walk right past press in the clubhouse like they’re Chief Tecumseh from Cheers. Casey however, actually talks to the many Tecumsehs and ask how they’re doing. I was a little shocked.

Even though Tek looks like the most serious person in the Sox clubhouse, he’s got a humorous side too. Pedroia bought a small duffel bag that for some reason has wheels on one side. Tek starts hunching over to try to emulate Pedroia trying to drag the tiny bag around with the wheels. Realizing this wasn’t enough, he then gets down to his knees and shuffles around on the floor with the bag. I was afraid Casey was going to die from laughing, his face turned the color of Timlin’s socks.

Pedroia gets major brownie points in my book. He was nice enough to do a quick 2 minute interview with me. Sadly, he wasn’t the cocky guy I expected him to be, but I’ll take what I can get. Here’s the Dirty Watah exclusive interview:

Sadly I couldn’t talk to Youks, who I had real questions prepared for about being a Jewish ballplayer. I decided not to just replace “Jewish” with “Mormon” and interview Ellsbury instead.

Lester insisted that 130 pitches and the fact that he just revealed that his Dad has cancer didn’t affect his performance today. Uhhh, right. When you can’t throw strike one until the count is 2-0, we call that affecting your performance. When strike one is also a cutter down the middle, we call that affecting your performance. Not that we can really blame him, but it’d be nice for him to just say “yeah, it screwed me up.”

Of course, without Manny’s 3-base error, he’s in line for a ND instead of a L. But, Manny doesn’t think it’ll affect his gold-glove chances: “I got like four more months to go, I’m in good shape.” He then said something like “But I do think it’s hurting my chances of finishing a ballgame.” It’s really hard to stay mad at Manny.

Getting back to the nicest man in baseball, he was also happy to recount an at bat where he was made a fool of by Dodger’s rookie Clayton Kershaw. Some players answer questions but certainly aren’t happy about it. Casey would be happy to talk for hours, and all with a smile on his face.

Oh, and don’t ask Tito tough questions after a three game sweep. He’s not as nice as Sean Casey.

Got to the park extra early today to try and hang out in the clubhouse for a bit. If you play World of Warcraft and happen to see characters named “Can’t find the strike zone” or “Did you see that catch???”, it’s probably either Aardsma or Coco, who can be found prior to the game hunched over staring at their laptop screens. JD Drew sat behind them playing backseat driver.

The cribbage phenomenon is alive and well. Pedroia and Lowell were feverishly playing before the game. It looks like they’re also trying to recruit a new victim, err, player by teaching Cora the game as well.

Before BP the players (specifically Timlin) kicked us out of the clubhouse for a team-only meeting. Fat lot of good that did.

The Sox started the game by going 15 up, 15 down. Tek led off the 6th with a HBP to end the perfect-game threat, and Papi made sure the Sox didn’t get Buchholzed or Lestered with a clean single to right center in the 7th. As much as I’d like to scream at the offense, 17 of the 25 batters Duchscherer faced that weren’t HBP hit fly balls/line drives. Rarely does that translate into 16 outs.

Beckett pitched well enough to win, but it’s hard to win when your team scores zero runs. Seven innings, nine Ks, two runs, and the sixth straight road loss. You can imagine they were a chipper bunch after the game, although Ellsbury did jump over a folding chair rather than ask me to take one step to the left. That was kind of exciting.

Here are some audio clips from post-game:

Lowell on Duchscherer:

Lowell on the Sox road issues:

Really, it’s a whole lot harder to criticize the team when (1) they had no chance due to Wakefield’s ineffectiveness and (2) they have to face Rich Harden…for the THIRD time this season. I think Kevin Cash described Wakefield the best when he (through Tito) said “I’m not flinching out there.” Sadly, when he isn’t, Frank Thomas isn’t either. Considering that Harden has made a total of six starts this season and three are against the Sox, I, like Tito, “hope he’s not going to come back and pitch Sunday.” Is there any chance that they cryogenically freeze Harden and only bring him out to face the Sox? Oh, and the Sox are now 10-15 away from the confines of Friendly Fenway.

Also, I have no clue who this guy is, but I’d like to thank him for making sure I wasn’t the craziest Sox fan in attendance yesterday.

The Sox heading westward tonight to face the A’s for a three-game set. Thanks to my good friend Ryan Leong, here are a few audio clips from the Sox about yesterday’s game and the A’s about having to face the Sox. First pitch is at 7:05…left coast time.

Tito on Dice-K’s performance:

Cash on Dice-K:

JD on his second $14M grand slam:

And finally, Jack Cust, of the A’s, about the Sox:

Is there any question that Dice-K is the spoiled youngest child of the Sox pitching staff (even though he’s not the youngest)? The offense gets him runs every time he starts (over 6 per game). And how does he thank them for their hard work? He walks people. LOTS of people. He walks people who don’t want to walk. Batters try to convince the umpire that they did swing on check swing. I expect to see Dustin and Youks bring a cribbage board to the infield with them the next time Dice-K pitches. Maybe even a little Soduku for Manny? They need to stay busy somehow.

Honestly, for all the great things Jon Farrell has done with Lester and Beckett, this is unacceptable. Yes, Dice-K won. Sure, he’s 8-0. But these walks will come back to bite him. It could be because he keeps having to throw 110+ pitches to get through 5 innings, maybe it’s because one day he just can’t stop the bleeding. I don’t know.

Enough bitching, JD Drew and Mikey Lowell both went deep with the bases loaded and the Sox swept their seven game homestand giving them the best record in the majors. So, we got that goin’ for us, which is nice.