The Yankees seem to be suffering from a curse - "The Curse of We Have Absolutely No F***ing Pitching Between Sabathia and Rivera."

Watching the game last night, a few notes:

1) Sabathia was awfully good, but Girardi waited a few batters too long to take him out - because he was hoping he could give Rivera a chance at 4 or 5-out save. Instead, Green gets on, then Pedroia, then you figure leave him in to get the lefty Drew out, but Drew hits a single on the first pitch...and then it's too late. Rivera never got in the game...

2) Brad Penny pitched his best game of the season, 6 IP, 0 ER. He threw a lot of pitches to get through 6, but that now makes 8 times in 12 starts that Penny gets through at least 6 innings, including 6 of his last 8 starts. His ERA in those eight starts (that is, May and June) is about 4, and his K/BB is 38/9. He regularly hit 95-97 MPH with his fastball last night, and he is increasingly mixing in his breaking ball for strikes. He's a free agent after the season, and as of today, he's probably owed another $3-$3.5 million, which the Red Sox would be willing to eat if they got a decent return for him. Plus, Penny shows no signs of fatigue or injury, and will likely make another 18-20 starts this year, then fetch draft pick compensation for whatever team acquires him from the Red Sox.

So: 1) What do the Red Sox do with him when Smoltz is ready to join the roster (after all, Penny is arguably their third most-consistent starter right now); 2) At what point do posters from other threads who laugh at the concept of Penny fetching anything meaningful from a contending team needing a starter for the stretch run start to figure out that he is one of the more attractive options on the market this summer?

Stella is a great restaurant. I used to eat there all the time when i lived in the South End.

"...will likely make another 18-20 starts this year, then fetch draft pick compensation for whatever team acquires him from the Red Sox."

Unlikely. Half of his Elias ranking is from 2008, when he had a 6.27 ERA and a 1.63 WHIP in ~90 innings. When you couple that with his early-season struggles in 2009... I don't think he makes the Type B cutoff.

What do the Red Sox do with him when Smoltz is ready to join the roster

1) Work like hell to get something in trade for Penny
2) Fabricate an injury for Dice-K so he can "rehab" & get himself straightened out
3) Talk to Wakefield about moving to the bullpen

I know I'm out of the mainstream on this, but I have yet to have a meal at Stella that lived up to expectations. I had a lamb shank that was underdone (should be falling off the bone), a whole fish that was not seasoned properly, and a pasta that was merely good. Twice we've been rushed out by waitstaff bringing a check before we were finished. I should probably give them another shot, but given that I just have to walk for five more minutes to get to Franklin or Union or Sage or B&G;or Myers and Chang, and Toro and Estragon are just as close to my house, and Teranga just opened, I don't know when I'm going to bother.

Good point, #3, about Penny's combined body of work falling short of Type B status. I'm as big a fan of his progress in 2009 as anybody, but he's got too much poor performance from the past year to balance out in the next 100 games...

What is wrong with me that I think Twitter is the most asinine e-fad in the history of the internet age?

I mean, I'm a sucker for online fads... I've blogged... I've googled... I've IM'ed... I'm versed in leetspeak... I've pirated and P2Ped... I've bit torrented and slung back... I've pwned the n00bs and all their bases are belong to me... I've MMORG'ed and gone viral... I've slashdotted, been deadspun, and flash mobbed... I'm podcastic... I know my ABCs from RSS to CRC to XML to XHTML to TCP/IP...

And in the end, I still cannot help but feel the death penalty is appropriate for the inventors, users, readers, and care-abouters of twitter.

Mandatory for all Twitter threads.

What is wrong with me that I think Twitter is the most asinine e-fad in the history of the internet age?

What's wrong is that you're apparently unfamiliar with Bonzi Buddy, WeatherBug, "I Kiss You", l33tsp3@k, and Facebook poking, all of which are demonstrably more useless and/or insipid than Twitter. It does suck, though.

As somebody who uses Facebook to find old friends, communicate quickly with groups of friends and coworkers, and post pictures of my family for the grandparents far more than I ever thought I would, I have to ask: What is it about Twitter that makes it worth anything? Isn't it basically just a version of one part of what Facebook does, that is, provide status updates?

"What is wrong with me that I think Twitter is the most asinine e-fad in the history of the internet age?"

Absolutely nothing.

"Bonzi Buddy ... [is] demonstrably more useless and/or insipid than Twitter."

In fairness, watching Jimbo Wales whitewash Bonzi Buddy's Wikipedia page was comedy gold.

BonziBuddy wasn't a "fad", it was a thing people accidentally downloaded and couldn't get rid of.

Also, one of the most pointless fads of the World War I era was that flu pandemic. What were they thinking back then?

Isn't it basically just a version of one part of what Facebook does, that is, provide status updates?

Yes. Although I think it's been around longer than Facebook has been public.

It existed for like 3-4 years before, for some reason, the media decided to jump on it.

Isn't it basically just a version of one part of what Facebook does, that is, provide status updates?

I don't use Twitter, but here are some things that make it different from Facebook status updates:

* You can send out tweets via SMS. (You may be able to do this via Facebook now, but Twitter had this feature before smartphones exploded within the last couple years).

* You can follow somebody and see their tweets without becoming Facebook friends (which requires sharing a lot more info). Following somebody on twitter is a much more "lightweight" relationship. You can follow twitter feeds for beat writers, for products you care about, etc.

* All tweets are publicly viewable and searchable, making Twitter an unbelievable real-time search engine. Companies can see what customers are saying about them (and about competitors) in real time. Last week, I wanted to know whether a concert was over (in which case I'd adjust my travel plans to avoid the traffic). I searched twitter and found multiple people tweeting within the last five minutes that the concert had just ended, and adjusted my route. I don't know where else I could easily find such real-time information.

Penny Arcade ownz.

At what point do posters from other threads who laugh at the concept of Penny fetching anything meaningful from a contending team needing a starter for the stretch run start to figure out that he is one of the more attractive options on the market this summer?

The group of people saying that is likely one that will never realize it, sadly.

BonziBuddy wasn't a "fad", it was a thing people accidentally downloaded and couldn't get rid of.

No, some, many, downloaded it on purpose. Trust me. Hell, the Dell commercial from a few years back where all the software mascots jump into the computer as it's being assembled? Bonzi ape (or whatever) is one of them. A friend that was in IT at the time and I, just out of doing it, both yelled at the sight.