Scat Ballou: Is this the way to make a shiity column…? You bet it is!

Now, the Sox have taken it to a new level with the Brothers Drew.

Neither is very good, but there’s something about a Drew that whoever Boston’s general manager is can’t resist, be it Theo Epstein or Ben Cherington.

OK, J.D. Drew had a couple of respectable seasons with the Red Sox. And, OK, Stephen Drew is a good defensive shortstop. Still, starting with Opening Day of 2010, Boston has committed $37.5 million ...

Lee Carbo?  Pretty sure Toots Mondt used to book him all the time at the rickety Sunnyside Garden Arena.

And Bill Lee would like to keep the ball in play too, “talk about speeding up the game, use the same seven or eight balls during the game, what is the story? Tell the Fox Network not to run long commercials. And don’t have the girl with the tweater thing, the twit thing between innings, I don’t care what anyone says calling in - unless it’s the Flying Stilarsky Sisters.”

...“Get the drugs ...

Part one of a three-part examination of the Red Sox advance scouting system.The Red Sox are smart. What makes them smart isn’t a sabermetric slant. It’s a willingness to find and use any information they can find which can give their players an edge. 

Here’s part two: Information overload has transformed the nature of advance scouting.

Oathbreaker!

After the game, Maddon came out swinging against Lackey.

“So he intentionally hit him when he did, there’s no question in my mind that he did, and the sad part is that I’ve always considered Lackey a good teammate, but right there he can get one of his own players hurt,” Maddon said.

“I really did sense among the group of Red Sox that they were totally not into that moment because they knew it was inappropriate to hit Matt on purpose, and furthermore because one of them can ...

Sports! Paul brings the case against his friend Jeremy. Paul loves to wear his favorite baseball team’s gear to games, even when that team isn’t playing the game.

At issue: is it okay to wear a Phillies hat, jersey, t-shirt, and (possibly) pair of crocs to a Dodgers-Reds tilt in Dodger Stadium?

Not much I can add.

I saw on a website today
Some musings from MCoA
About Daniel Nava,
How he’s hot as lava,
And whether he’ll keep it that way:

Nava’s current 134 wRC+ stands fifteenth in the American League, and he’s not terribly far from being a deserving All-Star selection.

...I’m going to argue for optimism on Nava. I think it’s important to distinguish between Nava’s 2010 hot and cold streaks–which look very fluky in retrospect–and his 2012 hot and cold streaks, which look like something ...

Thunderclap NEWMAN! (But hear me and hear me well!)

The players in the Yankees’ and Red Sox’ dugouts may be on opposite sides of a historic rivalry but they have at least one thing in common: Thunder is scary.

With a storm having sent the players to their respective dugouts during a rain delay at Yankee Stadium on Sunday night, both teams were startled by a loud boom of thunder in the Bronx. ESPN cameras showed the reactions of players in both dugouts, ...

They are Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, and both pitched a no-hitter under Farrell’s tutelage. In their last season with him, they combined for a 36-16 record and a 2.83 earned run average. In their last season without him, they combined for a 20-22 record and a 4.70 E.R.A.

The Red Sox, who had won a championship and two other playoff berths in Farrell’s four seasons as pitching coach, fell to last place. Lester lost track of how many instructors came and went.

“The last three years ...

“I have [former Red Sox CEO] John Harrington’s old office. The day he turned over the reins, he was sitting at the desk and handed me his pen with a warm smile,” Henry wrote in an email.“I still have it. Red ink. I work more of my hours though in my home offices in Florida and in Brookline. But there is nothing like driving into Fenway Park to go to work. I am thankful every day that I get to do that. It’s one big reason why these rumors of a potential sale of the Red Sox are so ...

Pedroiadolia: The psychological phenomenon of seeing wacko images on dirty uniforms.

The narratives around the two players, however, could not be different. Pedroia is almost the prototype of the over-achieving “scrappy” player. He is a 5’8” middle infielder who does the little things well. This ignores that he was also a second round draft choice who played baseball at a top baseball school. Cano, on the other hand is bigger, more athletic and does not project scrappiness at all. Throughout ...

Interesting stuff.

John Farrell and Torey Lovullo looked down toward the Twins bullpen. They saw some stirring, as Minnesota lefty reliever Brian Duensing had grabbed a ball and tossed it a few times.

Then Duensing sat down. It was then the Red Sox manager and his bench coach knew they had put the right people in the right places.

“It’s a good feeling,” Lovullo said after the Red Sox’ 12-5 win over the Twins Saturday night, “when all the puzzle pieces fit perfectly.”

The puzzle Lovullo ...

Sweet spectroscopy! The argument is rolled out again!

It’s not surprising to hear what two scouts from each league, who both have watched a lot of the American League this year, say about Dustin Pedroia.

“Nobody is playing his position better in baseball right now than Pedroia,” said the AL scout. “He’s playing out of his mind. The plays he’s making — you just don’t see that stuff every day, but you see it with him every day. Honestly, I’m surprised he doesn’t get hurt ...

Shaughnessy is too good to have to invent anything. He neither invented anything in this instance nor accused Ortiz of using steroids and their cousins. What he did was take his skepticism and his curiosity, good traits for a newspaperman to have, and ask Ortiz about steroids. Ortiz’s responses did not indicate anger of being accused of wrong doing.

I would compare the Ortiz column to the columns I have written about Mike Piazza and my suspicions about his possible use of steroids. I ...

Using the Bradford–Binet Intelligence Test…uhh, no.

The Gomes persona might offer the best evidence of an ‘07 dynamic within these Red Sox.

There might be some frustration for fans who choose to define success and failure by pure numbers with the outfielder hitting .183 with a .643 OPS. Intangibles aside, it certainly would behoove the Red Sox to get Gomes’ digits up a bit. But something as simple of managing to hit a ball in the air when his team needed it the most, as was the case in 10th ...

A great breakdown of Mark Melancon.

I can’t wait for the 15-man pitching staffs.

“I don’t think you see too many true long men on pitching staffs and in bullpens anymore because you can make a change to your roster overnight to get a fresh arm in here,” Farrell said.

The Repko is gone
but he’s not forgotten
This is the story
of a 71 OPS+ (rotten)

Jason Repko lost something in the offseason. He knew it. He felt it.

An outfielder for 14 seasons in professional baseball, including seven seasons spent in the majors, he lost the desire to be on the field every single day.

But he still wanted to feel that way. That’s the thing. He wanted to feel that fire again. So even when no organization offered him an invitation to spring training, he felt like he needed ...

Doy-El: GENTLEMEN…BASEBALL WORLD IS DOOMED!

This is David Ortiz’s finger-wagging moment, but when we wonder about him or about anyone else doing the unexplainably remarkable, understand something: This is the players’ fault.

They’re the ones who cheated their ass off in the 1990s, injecting steroids like insulin because owners were digging the long ball. They’re the ones whose union fought against drug-testing for years. Hell, one of Ortiz’s former teammates in Boston will tell you that.

...

Red Sox closer Joel Hanrahan is done for the 2013 season. CBSSports.com’s Jon Heyman reports that Hanrahan will soon undergo season-ending surgery to repair his right flexor tendon. As things stand now, Hanrahan faces a six-to-nine-month rehab process. However, Dr. James Andrews, who will perform the procedure, may determine that Hanrahan needs Tommy John surgery, which would of course necessitate a much longer recovery period.

Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal describes Hanrahan’s ...

Bullshiit Sunscreen ~ Engineered to stay put…in and out of the HOF.

Blue Jays broadcaster Jack Morris, who last week in Toronto said Clay Buchholz was throwing a spitball after watching video of the right-hander’s performance, said he sought out the Red Sox pitcher and spoke to him before Friday night’s game at Fenway Park.

“I told him I was sorry that I had taken attention away from what he was doing—that’s not what I was trying to do,” said Morris, who won 254 games in the big leagues. “I ...

Sounding more like Bats Battaglia than Joey Bats…

“I think it’s a cheap shot and uncalled for to say something like that without having some sort of evidence to back it up,” Bautista said Friday in the visitor’s clubhouse at Fenway Park. “Comments and articles like that is what sometimes makes us wonder what’s the true intention of somebody that’s in the media. It blows my mind that somebody would just go out there and do something like that, and write an article where you’re ...

Next he’ll be spray painting “Aus der Traum!” on the ESPN studio wall!

“I love David. I love him to death. And I think a lot of what Dan has done in his life has been personally driven. But he didn’t ask a question that people aren’t asking themselves,” Schilling said. “And I keep going to back to, as a player, this is our fault. We did this. We let this happen. We had a chance to stop it and we didn’t. I think the way it was done was kind of cheesy. But there are people asking ...

“Yesterday, the guy came to see me and asked some questions about steroids, and when you see the writing, it basically focuses on the fact that I’m Dominican and that many Dominicans have been caught using steroids. And what about the Americans?” Ortiz said.

“If you’re from the Middle East, because there are some people there who put bombs and terrorize civilians, I have to see you like that, as well? If you are a white American, I have to call you a racist because white Americans were in the ...

Jake just made it look easy. Odorizzi.

Jake Odorizzi and three Durham Bulls relief pitchers combined on an historic Sunday performance.

The four Durham pitchers combined to throw just the second no-hitter in the team’s International League history as the Bulls defeated the Pawtucket Red Sox 2-1 at McCoy Stadium.

Odorizzi (3-0) pitched the first seven innings, before Frank De Los Santos, Taylor Yates and Jeff Beliveau kept Pawtucket hitless over the final two innings despite allowing one ...