Weird, sound is way out of whack with the video, about a second behind.

That's encouraging. Even in this hot stretch since the break I don't remember too many times where he hit a ball that kept carrying. It seemed more like he would hit balls well but they'd come down on the track, twice last night like that.

Lester working quicker than I'm used to seeing him work.

Weird how Ellsbury hasn't been hitting homers but he's been hitting doubles like crazy.

That's encouraging. Even in this hot stretch since the break I don't remember too many times where he hit a ball that kept carrying. It seemed more like he would hit balls well but they'd come down on the track, twice last night like that.

Even the balls that only got to the track last night had the kind of carry to them that looked like the old, power-hitting Gonzalez. They jumped off his bat in a way that not many have this year, even if they fell short of clearing the fence. Yesterday was one of the more encouraging games for Gonzalez this season, despite none of the hits clearing the fence.

Lester working quicker than I'm used to seeing him work.

One thing I don't know if people really remember is that Lester started his run of ace-quality pitching after matching up with Halladay in a start early in 2008. During that game, Halladay was moving quickly and pitching effectively as usual, and Lester started pitching the same way. After that start, he went from being Jon Lester to JON LESTER. I think getting away from that and falling into an approach more like Beckett's has been a big factor in the regression of his performance over the last 2 seasons.

I want to confess that I delayed running errands to watch them discuss Don Orsillos travel bag. I will freely admit I'm a bad human being.

Dan, that's a good point about Lester.

Why do they think anyone cares to see what Orsillo carries around in his giant manpurse?

Not very often that you see a team playing their starting C in LF in a blowout game.