JayBay: Being All Dramatic In The Late Innings

What is it about the 9th inning that turns JayBay into the Papi of 2006? Does he start sitting closer to him in the 8th inning unconsciously? Does he have mango salsa between innings? Does he walk around the dugout, pre-9th, mumbling quietly to himself "...and that's why they call ME Big Papi"? Honestly now, can you even picture JayBay calling himself Big Papi? Even just the thought of that makes me feel uncomfortable. It doesn't seem like something he would do. Whatever it is that he's doing to lead up to the 9th, I pray to the gods of baseball that he keeps doing it.

Kerry Wood doesn't have the same reputation as Mariano Rivera, but JayBay made sure that they got the same results when they faced him. That right there is drama. Waiting until the 9th inning, waiting until your entire team looks exhausted beyond belief and can no longer put effort into baseball, to hit a game winning home run (or a game tying one, but we're talking about last night's game, not Friday night's game). The fun thing about JayBay is that we haven't had him long enough to get a complete feel for who he is as a player. There are scouting reports, and the last few months of the '08 season, but you really need to watch a guy for an entire season to know how they're going to respond to the pressure of Boston. I think that the pressure is making Jason shine. I really do hope he keeps it up. He's very talented, and I'd like to see him kept around for a while.

So, yesterday morning I started receiving angry text messages from friends bitching about Nick Green being benched for Julio Lugo, which of course did not happen yesterday, as if these people did not know that Lugo was going to be activated LONG before he was actually activated. My stance is this... we just got through with Earth Day, and there's been a big push (presumably globally) to "Go Green." Hey, if Green is good enough for the Earth, he's good enough for Red Sox Nation, right? I don't hear any countries, never mind planets, pushing for us to "Go Lugo." They might be pushing, but then again "Lugo" could very well mean something different in Scandinavian than it does in English. Maybe in Scandanavia, a Lugo is something that gets on base and fields well. Unfortunately, that's not how it works here. So work towards saving the planet and just stay Green (even if he does clash with the uniforms!)


I know, the job is actually Lugo's to lose, because Theo, for some reason, seems to be in love with him. Whatever. He'll lose it on his own merits. I truly believe that he will. Remember, when Green makes a bad play on the field, he gets a hit or two to make up for it. Can we say the same about certain POS's? No.

I would be hard pressed to write a long-winded post about last night's game without dedicating at least some space to the incredible pitching of Timothy last night. 1 hit in 7 innings? Tim was rolling... so were his knucklers... behind/in front of George Kottaras. Every time a Wakefield catcher misses a ball, I reactionarily burst out with 'Dougie would have had that.' I'm hoping one day that I can stop doing that. Perhaps before Wake retires...?

Anyhow, congratulations to Mikey, the AL Player of the Week. Even with that bad hip, he managed to leg out a triple yesterday, even if he was stranded at 3rd. It's ok. We still won. Way to go, Mikey!

(insert cheesy 'Penny' pun here)... so let's go for the full dozen tonight and hopefully take solo hold of the AL East.