Projo Sox Blog

The prevailing wisdom this year was the Beckett would be the unquestioned ace of the staff . . . but, as we all know, it hasn't quite worked out that way. Beckett's been good, but he's hardly ever resembled the shut-down 20-game winner/Bob Gibson postseason clone of 2007. With the season two-thirds of the way into the books, the fretting was that, for whatever reason -- his spring back injury, an unknown ailment, something -- we wouldn't be seeing that Beckett this time around.

But he was back last night, which is why Sean McAdam thinks a humdrum 8-2 win over a last-place team in early August has more meaning than you might think. "What [the Red Sox] want to be," writes Sean, "is champions again, and it will be hard for them to earn that designation without Josh Beckett being the pitcher he was a year ago." So even though there plenty of other standouts -- we'll call the role in a moment -- we may remember August 5 as the night Josh Beckett returned. If so, we may remember it a lot longer than you remember most humdrum 8-2 wins over a last-place team in early August.

'I'M ALL RIGHT': David Ortiz was in the lineup last night despite feeling a "clicking" in his injured wrist on Monday and tells McAdam the problem is now probably more mental than physical. Also back in the lineup last night, reports McAdam, was Mike Lowell.

MOVE ON: The time has come, writes Tony Massarotti of the Boston Herald, for Ortiz to forget about his wrist, forget about Manny Ramirez, and focus on the task at hand -- which is, helping the post-Manny Red Sox forge a new identity.

IT'S A START: And it may have begun last night, as Ortiz delivered a pie to the face of Jason Bay as Bay was in the midst of a postgame interview with NESN. (Boston Globe)

SO'S THIS: The loss of Ramirez hasn't hurt very much, since Bay is now 9-for-21 as a member of the Sox after his 4-for-5 showing last night. (Boston Herald)

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE: One day after Massarotti wrote how much the Red Sox needed him to be productive, Jacoby Ellsbury went 2-for-4 with a pair of stolen bases. (Boston Herald)

LET'S TALK: McAdam reports the Sox are interested in left-handed reliever Scott Eyre, who was designated for assignment by the Cubs earlier this week.

GOOD MOVE: David Pinto of Baseball Musings likes J.D. Drew in the leadoff spot.

LOCAL BOY MADE GOOD: Royals lefty reliever Ron Mahay broke into baseball as an outfielder in the Red Sox system in the 1990s and some of the people who are still around from those days -- like third-base coach DeMarlo Hale -- are delighted to see that he's carved out such a long career for himself. (Boston Globe) Mahay, for his part, says he'd love to return to Boston if the opportunity ever arose.

FEELING GOOD, PITCHING BAD: Bartolo Colon got whacked around by Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in his first rehab appearance last night -- four hits, a walk and three runs in two-thirds of an inning -- but PawSox manager Ron Johnson says Colon has "no physical issues. I'm not too concerned with the numbers." (projo.com)

FARM REPORT: On his Hacks With Haggs blog, Joe Haggerty talks to player development director Mike Hazen about some of the players in the lower levels of the Sox' organization.

MORE ON MANNY: WEEI Radio was a topic of Manny Ramirez conversation yesterday, only this time it wasn't the fans mouthing off. Theo Epstein, appearing on the midday Dale and Holley Show, said that, unlike when when he dealt away Nomar Garciaparra in 2004, he didn't lose a moment's sleep over this trade (projo.com); the situation with Ramirez, he said, was untenable and something had to be done. As for how much the Sox surrendered in the deal, he said Ramirez would have been a free agent at the end of the year anyway -- an admission the team was not going to pick up the 2009 contract option -- and that Craig Hansen-and-Brandon Moss-for-Jason Bay is a trade the Sox would make "any day of the week."

Earlier in the day, on The Dennis and Callahan Show, Curt Schilling gave some details into the problem he had with Ramirez in Tampa in 2005. (Boston Globe) He also said that while he was disappointed in a way that the Sox traded Ramirez -- "it ends up being someone getting what they wanted after doing every possible thing ethically they could do wrong" -- he thinks "the change in atmosphere [in the clubhouse is] palpable and I don't think you can put a price tag on that."

THE MANNY WATCH: Joe Torre asked him to cut his hair last Friday. It's now Wednesday -- or at least last night was Tuesday (left) -- and Ramirez still looks pretty hirsute to me.

CRAZY PIERRE: T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times has a little -- okay, a lot -- of fun with Juan Pierre's whining that the acquisition of Ramirez is going to cost him playing time.

NO NEWS IS . . . WHAT? He had an MRI, and now they're sending him to see one of sports medicine's most prominent orthopedic surgeons. That's all the Yankees would say about Joba Chamberlain's visit to the doctor yesterday, but neither the New York Daily News or the New York Post is very optimistic about whatever announcement will be made today. Going to a surgeon usually means that, you know, surgery is at least an option, so it's understandable that the Post's Joel Sherman is saying the Yanks "hope -- pray, sell their souls to the devil -- that the news is just bad, and not devastatingly so. Because there is no avoiding bad news." And the Yanks, who are privy to the MRI taken yesterday but chose not to release the results -- another bad sign -- seem to know it. Mike Lupica wrote in the Daily News that "if Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi were bowled over by their great and good fortune Tuesday, they sure weren't acting that way."

Around the blogosphere, there are still folks looking on the bright side; River Ave. Blues asserts that "anyone with half a brain understands that something like this gets second, third, and fourth opinions, plus the last pitch he threw yesterday registered 96, something you can't do with a major shoulder issue." Maybe. But I'm with ShysterBall's Craig Calcaterra, who quotes one of his commenters when he asks, "Has anyone ever gone to see Dr. James Andrews and had him say, 'No, you don't need surgery'? I'm pretty sure the answer to that is no." Pinto put it more succinctly: A visit to Andrews, he said, is "seldom good news."

Not that it's a bad thing long-term, necessarily. Roger Clemens, remember, had his shoulder operated on by Andrews -- then based in Georgia -- in 1985 and went on to win 338 more games over the next 22 years. (I can still recall Bruce Hurst giddily proclaiming, "We're all getting on a plane to Georgia!" the night in April 1986 when Clemens first struck out 20 batters in a game.) And a healthy Chamberlain, points out Howard Megdal of the New York Observer, could eventually put himself in Clemens' class among the all-time greats. But for this year . . .

'THE CLOCK IS TICKING': That's Peter Abraham's opinion (LoHud Yankees Blog); he says that for "the first time this season, you got the sense in the clubhouse that the Yankees realize they're in trouble." Trouble last night came in the form of an 8-6 loss in Texas (New York Daily News), their second straight defeat in Arlington; the Yanks, says the Post's George King, are "very close to going on life support."

TROUBLE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET: The Yankees weren't the only team in Arlington with problems last night. Closer C.J. Wilson was whacked around by the Yanks in the ninth inning, showed up manager Ron Washington when he was lifted by flipping him the ball -- which prompted Washington to physically yank him back up on the mound, and also had teammates and team executives alike blasting Wilson for his "unprofessional" behavior -- and had a contentious 30-minute meeting with Washington after the game. When it was all over, Wilson was placed on the disabled list because of bone spurs that may require surgery (Dallas Morning News) . . . which is probably why he was in such a bad mood to begin with.

LOOKING FOR HELP: The open market isn't an option since the trade deadline has come and gone -- not that starting pitching would have been available at a non-exorbitant price, anyway -- so the Yankees are turning inward for Chamberlain's rotation replacement. The Daily News reports Ian Kennedy will likely make Chamberlain's scheduled start Saturday in Anaheim, and, of course, there's always Carl Pavano.

AT LAST: The Rays, in the words of Cliff Floyd, "got the monkey off our back with the Indians, as weird as that sounds," as they won their first game against Cleveland this year, 8-4. (St. Petersburg Times) That enabled them to maintain their three-game lead over the Sox in the A.L. East, which doesn't surprise Tom Verducci of SI.com; he says Tampa Bay will be in the race until the end. And the St. Petersburg Times' Marc Topkin finds an ESPN.com post that compares these Rays to the 1969 Mets.

JONNY BE GONE: The dastardly Jonny Gomes -- last seen in these parts pummeling Coco Crisp during the June 5 Rays-Sox brawl -- has been sent to the minors. (Tampa Tribune) June 5, incidentally, was also the night of the first taping of this year's edition of Sox Appeal . . . which was brilliantly blogged, as always, by Pink Hat Hell. And follow it all the way to the end, to get Tiki's take on "The Dunkin' Donuts Morning After Recap, hosted by Larry Izzo." Yes, yes, that Larry Izzo (left).

YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY, SAY IT TO ME: Mike Scioscia took umbrage -- and challenged whoever thinks this way to ask him directly -- at the notion the Angels are padding Francisco Rodriguez' save totals. (Daily Breeze)

THE BILL COMES DUE: Steven Goldman, writing in the New York Sun, says the Mets are paying the price for their poor farm system.

MY BAD: Prince Fielder was all apologies yesterday for Monday's dugout scuffle with teammate Manny Parra. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

FIRST TEST . . . SORT OF: MLB installed instant-replay equipment at Citizens Bank Park last night and, sure enough, there was a controversial home-run call in the Phillies-Marlins game. But because it was just an experiment, the umpires weren't allowed to look at the tape. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

HERE AND THERE: The Mariners finally cut Jose Vidro loose. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) What will Jim Riggelman ever do without a DH who provides "contact . . . and maybe be able to move some runners and hit and run and that kind of stuff," and do all that while hitting .234 with a .612 OPS? . . . The Diamondbacks' Justin Upton, sidelined since July 9 because of a strained left oblique, is on the road to recovery (Arizona Republic) . . . Arizona has signed Dan Haren to a two-year extension (ktar.com) . . . The Tigers are in the Freddy Garcia hunt (Detroit Free Press) . . . J.J. Putz blew his first save opportunity after being returned to the closer's role by the Mariners, but wound up with the win as Seattle rallied to beat the Twins (rotoworld.com) . . . Also blowing a save last night was Jason Isringhausen, and even though the Cardinals -- like the Mariners -- would up winning the game, GM John Mozeliak says the St. Louis bullpen "can't just keep giving games away like that" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) . . . Todd Helton still doesn't know when he'll return to the Rockies (Denver Post) . . . Speaking of the Rockies, they claimed Livan Hernandez off waivers from the Twins (Denver Post) . . . Brad Penny is set to return to the Dodgers (Los Angeles Times) . . . Since Fernando Rodney blew two of the four save chances he had since being named Tigers closer, Detroit has decided to go to Closer By Committee. (Detroit Free Press)

AND FINALLY . . . Thanks to Craig Calcaterra for tipping us off a lively Baseball Think Factory discussion on the claim that Babe Ruth died of a rare form of cancer.

-- ART MARTONE