Jump on the wagon now because it’s going to be a fun ride.

He is aware that Matsuzaka is pitching today, isn't he?

Is The Rock writing his catch-phrases for him?

I love Pedroia. He talks and plays the way a lot of us think we would if had a chance to play baseball for a living. Add to that the fact that he a pretty average-sized guy, and he is a lot of fun to watch.

A lot of fans of other teams seem to hate him, but I'll bet there are few players that would be more of a consistent fam favorite in his own team's base, regardless of the media market, than Pedroia.

It's on - it's so on.

Go 7 and 2 on the home stand and I will be on the wagon

I thought this was about how Pedroia hadn't been hurt but in a dry-out camp, just from the headline.

Phil, they likely need to go at least 7-2 to even start thinking playoffs. Really, to make the playoffs they need an 8-1 or 9-0 homestand--they have to get on a streak and put pressure on NY and TB who, right now, are pretty firmly in the driver's seat.

Phil, they likely need to go at least 7-2 to even start thinking playoffs. Really, to make the playoffs they need an 8-1 or 9-0 homestand--they have to get on a streak and put pressure on NY and TB who, right now, are pretty firmly in the driver's seat.

Yeah - those two wins they should have (in all likelihood) wrapped up during the week but lost - are looking like the killer blows now.

In good news - no beer bottles were shattered today and the new Arcade Fire is great so I have that going for me.

He talks and plays the way a lot of us think we would if had a chance to play baseball for a living.

I like to think that, if I'd had the chance to play major league baseball, I'd have been the quietest, classiest, most professional player in the history of the game.

But who the hell am I trying to kid; I'd have been the reddest ass that ever redded an ass.

I would not have been popular, I do not think. Knowing my own tendencies, I'd probably fall somewhere on the Curt Schilling spectrum. The political view would be different, but I have difficulty keeping my big mouth shut.

I would not have been popular, I do not think. Knowing my own tendencies, I'd probably fall somewhere on the Curt Schilling spectrum. The political view would be different, but I have difficulty keeping my big mouth shut.

You need an enormous amount of confidence to be the best in the world at anything and with this comes a HUGE ego. I know for sure I would've been an huge jerk. Hell, I'm the average joe bloggs and I still can't keep my mouth shut sometimes...

Don't know where it's going to come from, but the Sox need at minimum an 8 out 10 or 13 out of 16 winning stretch asap.

In August of 2002, I was living in the Bay Area. One of my roommates had grown up there, and been an A's fan since the days of Canseco, McGwire, and Eck. The A's were good that year -- 18 games over .500 -- but they played in maybe the toughest division in the history of baseball, only four teams, three of which won 93 games or more, two of whom were ahead of the A's and had been for weeks. My roommate was very down about this team: "God, we'd have to play like .800 to catch up to just the Mariners, let alone the Angels!" That kind of thing. We were all underemployed, drinking too much, smoking too much, in that house. We were fresh out of college and two of us had left behind serious girlfriends there, old enough to know that they wouldn't last but not old enough to really understand how mendable the human heart really is. In short, it had been a bad summer, and it looked to be a bad fall, winter . . . a bad lifetime coming up, really.

On 13 August of that year, the A's beat the Chris Carpenter and the Blue Jays, 5-4. I don't remember watching that game; you never remember the beginnings of things, because you don't know they are beginnings. I'm sure we did. We watched all the A's games that year, and most of the Giants ones, too. I do remember watching them play Cleveland about a week later, because they'd strung together 6 or 7 wins, and though they were still in third place they were only a game out by then. I remember Chavez homering a bunch of times -- the mind wants to say 3, though that might not be right -- and Tim Hudson pitching like a god. It was hard not to get caught up in it. Those were bad times for me and my friends, physically, psychically, emotionally, and the A's started to seem invincible, endlessly good, in that moment. I remember the feeling that they were due for a loss continued to grip my roommate, the A's fan, for another few games, but after a while, even he started to feel that way, like anything was possible with these guys. I remember for their 19th or 20th straight win they blew a lead of gigantic proportions and still won. One started to feel that losing wasn't what the A's did. That win streak started in the dog days of summer and didn't end until it was almost autumn: there was football in the television, and when you woke up on a sunny morning -- if it was a sunny morning -- the quality of the light was different, a little thin, just enough to suggest the fragility of the new season with its many deaths and hibernations. I don't remember the A's first loss, either, strangely enough, but I do remember that they were in first place and didn't look back.

It would have been wonderfully poetic if that team had waltzed through the playoffs to the World Series, if there had been another Bay Bridge tussle and the plucky A's with their greasy hair and beards and youth had stuck it to the stuffy old Giants. We all know it didn't happen. What did wasn't so bad for us, though, in that little house in Palo Alto: when the Giants played the Angels, it was the first time I had been in a World Series town, and the whole of northern California was baseball-mad. And all three of us in that house had lived in Los Angeles for the preceding four years, so we knew the Angels intimately as well; there was a sense in which that World Series was a fight between the ghost of our past and the dismal reality of our second-rate present. But there was another sense in which it was glorious: it reminded us that there is wonder in the now, even if it isn't perfect in its details.

Anyway, this started as a post about how anything was possible, and turned into something else. But remember: on 13 August 2002, the A's were farther out of the playoffs than the Red Sox were this morning. Anything really could happen.

It's on - it's so on.

It is not possible to overstate how much I hate that commercial.

in that little house in Palo Alto

OMG! Voxter is one of the google guys! It all ties in now. The Stanford location, the early 2000's, the overly stat saturated posts(other than this one), the cigarettes, the alchohol. The belief that anything is possible! Who would've guessed that Sergey Brin was an A's fan...

Don't know where it's going to come from, but the Sox need at minimum an 8 out 10 or 13 out of 16 winning stretch asap.

When the season started I felt this was an '04/'07 type of team. Not necessarily quite as good but with the deep rotation I felt they would be able to put together a fair share of 13 out of 16 type stretches simply by virtue of 7 inning start after 7 inning start.

Beckett and Lackey are #$%@#^@ing this all up. If those two guys can get on a little run for just a couple of weeks the Sox will have what they need but it is hard to see that happening. Lackey has been shown some flashes since the break but I thought Beckett looked as bad as he ever has in a Red Sox uniform Friday night. It wasn't just poor results, he just had nothing on the ball.

One word: Manny

That is all

Beckett and Lackey, I agree, are the key. If they were pitching well, this team would - almost literally - be in every game. Matsuzaka, Buchholz and Lester are pitching very well...certainly well enough to be competitive in almost any game in which they start:

In his last 21 starts (all but his first three, in other words), Lester has an ERA of 2.17, 145 IP, 106 H, 151/46 K/BB ratio.
Since May 14th, Buchholz has truly been automatic. He got hurt after one inning against SF, and he struggled in his first start back after that injury.

In the 12 starts since May 14th not related to the hamstring injury:

12 GS, 86 IP, 57 Hits, 57/27 K/BB ratio, 10-1, 1.57 ERA, OBA about .195.

Daisuke: Since May 22nd, he's made 14 starts, with an ERA of 3.26, 6-3 record, hasn't given up more than 4 runs in any start...as the #5 starter.

Beckett and Lackey need to get their game on, and fast!

Voxter is one of the google guys!

If only. I spent a good portion of that year discovering I didn't want to be a journalist.

Nice post Voxter, thanks.

This quote is Pedroia's "Cowboy Up" statement.

... speaking of which, I watched 2 questions of some Red Sox trivia show on NESN last night. The 2nd question was something like what slogan originated during the 2004 run to the world series? and the "correct" answer was "Cowboy Up." I clicked it right off. They are the Sox station, how can their trivia show get it wrong?

The 2nd question was something like what slogan originated during the 2004 run to the world series? and the "correct" answer was "Cowboy Up." I clicked it right off. They are the Sox station, how can their trivia show get it wrong?

Was it "Pocket Money"? A guy walking around on the street handing out cash for answering trivia questions correctly?

No, it was an in-studio game show - which makes it less forgiveable.