Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

A New Hope

 Believe it or not, this was the face of victory...

I never wrote about it, but I did watch the Super Bowl this year. You know, the one that was a mirror image in many ways of the Super Bowl that remains my No.2 most painful sports memory of all time? Yeah, that one. 

So, first, the Patriots begin the 2012-13 season under the expectation that they will avenge that most recent, stinging loss.

Then there's also the expectation, at least in some circles, that they will 'heal our wounds and be a blessing to us' after a Red Sox baseball season that has been nothing short of miserable, never more so than in being dissected by a Sports Illustrated cover story this week.

That piece summed things up this way:

On Aug. 31, 2011, a comfortable evening at Fenway with a sweet breeze blowing in from rightfield, the Red Sox beat the Yankees 9-5. They had the best record in the American League, stability in the dugout and in the front office, an MVP candidate in Gonzalez, an AL ERA leader in Beckett and a nine-game cushion on a playoff spot. 

That moment in time seems ancient now, like a lost civilization.

No pressure, Pats.

Fortunately, the New England Patriots who showed up to play today in Tennessee were easily able to bear up under the weight of those expectations and frustrations, and trounce the Titans for a thoroughly satisfying 34-13 win. 

Before the game, I was worried about the New England offensive line, which had looked a little shabby in the preseason, but it turns out I had no reason to fret. The Patriots controlled the running game on both sides of the ball today, netting 162 yards rushing, the kind of effort that can only be led by strength up front.

Tom Brady was sacked only once, though the Titans made that one count -- DE Kamerion Wimbley first tackled the QB and then kneed him in the face, resulting in a less-than-stylish Band-Aid on the bridge of Brady's nose and a right nostril packed with gauze to begin the Patriots' fourth offensive series of the game. 

More impressive was the way New England controlled the run on defense. The Titans netted just 20 yards and only one of their first downs rushing as a defensive front led by Vince Wilfork crushed their efforts to carry the ball upfield. 

That set the tone for a solid defensive effort that's sure to put a spring in any Pats fan's step this week, early though it may be. The remodeled defense, particularly the front 7, looked more than solid today.

Especially encouraging was the way the Patriots reaped the fruit of their 2012 draft class on a play in the second quarter -- after a sack by rookie Chandler Jones forced Titans QB Jake Locker to fumble, the ball was scooped up by fellow rookie Dont'a Hightower, who scrambled into the end zone for what I dubbed the Police Academy Touchdown. 

The passing game was a little bit more of a mixed bag overall -- the defense looked disconcerting, for example, on an 80-yard drive for the Titans in the third quarter that took all of a minute and a half to eat up the field with a series of long passing plays. It took a while, too, for Brady and Co. to find a rhythm at the beginning of both halves.

Still, it was the passing combination of Brady and newcomer Brandon Lloyd -- who looks to redeem the number 85 for the Patriots this year -- that had me salivating most in anticipation of the rest of this football season. Lloyd lead the team in receiving yards with 5 catches for 69 yards, but it was more the quality than the quantity of his catches that made me pay attention. 

Lloyd stopped running and thus missed the first attempt Brady made to hit him deep, but on the second attempt, made his first catch as a Patriot in grand fashion with a somersaulting grab up the sideline. After that, Lloyd didn't look back, and watching Brady's passes find his back shoulder in stride as the game went on was a thing of beauty. I look forward to more of their work together. 

Thoughts on an Atrocious Loss

Here is Fenway, standing for Aceves, moments before That Thing Happened.

It had been a nice, neat little game up until the eighth inning; two quick runs had crossed the plate for the Red Sox in each of the first two innings, and while a fumble by Kelly Shoppach had allowed a Twins run across, Clay Buchholz left the mound with a quite respectable line. Andrew Miller came on to replace him. 

"So we're six outs away from winning this thing," said Hunter beside me. I shushed him, believing out-counting to be a monstrous jinx. (Hunter doesn't believe in too many jinxes or superstitions.)

As Andrew Miller issued a walk to open the inning, I amended the statement: "We're Andrew Miller away from winning." 

"And there may still be six outs by the time he's done," added Hunter. He turned out to be correct. 

A few minutes later, on came Alfredo Aceves with the bases loaded. He is supposed to be our closer, but with inherited runners is worse than league average; true to form, he allowed the tying run to score on a sacrifice fly. But he let no more runs across, and so there was still plenty of hope heading into the bottom of the inning, as Pedro Ciriaco stepped to the plate in place of Ryan Kalish. 

On the second pitch he saw, the svelte Ciriaco belted the ball into the Monster seats, a no-doubter from the moment it left his bat, and the triumphant roar of Fenway rose with the ball into the night. 

It's a mistake to do this, but immediately I assumed the game's narrative would come to an end. Sure, there was the insurance run courtesy of Cody Ross and Dustin Pedroia, but that would be essentially a tasteful garnish setting off the main dish.

And sure, there was another half-inning, at the least, to go, but I had made up my mind. I think many of us had. Ciriaco's heroics were to carry the day; the rest was just formality. 

Hunter was a bit more reserved about the whole thing. "It's a good thing they got two runs, because Aceves is going to give up at least one," he said. "And he'll probably end it with a man on third and a full count." 

He turned out to be almost exactly rght. Except instead of ending the game with the man on third, Aceves would work a 1-2 count on Joe Mauer, prompting the Fenway crowd to rise to its feet, clapping rhythmically, sure that the next pitch would send us home...

...and then Mauer would jolt a homer of his own into the Monster seats, this one a three-run job, putting the Twins ahead, 6-4.

Some people screamed. Overall, the sound of the crowd became a rueful howl as the ball sailed over the outfield. I gasped. Clapped a hand over my mouth. For all the team's struggles this season, I still couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. 

But, well, that's baseball. You've got to throw it over the plate and give the other man his damn chance. The low point of the game for me would actually come a few minutes after Mauer put the nail in the coffin. 

Between innings, as half the remaining crowd filtered out and the rest of us stayed out of some sense of duty, or paralysis in the face of what had just happened, or both, "Shipping Up to Boston" started blaring out of the PA system. The big screen started cranking out propaganda. You could even hear whoever was operating the PA system turn the volume up a little louder, as if cranking it to 11 would encourage Sox fans to get to their feet and start losing their minds, believing in the comeback. 

In the stands, most people exercised their right to remain silent. 

It was a sad moment, not because the Red Sox were losing the game, but because it felt like the disconnect between the franchise and the fans hadn't been bigger during the HWL era. "Shipping up to Boston before bottom of 9th?" Tweeted Joe Haggerty, summing things up succinctly. "Supposed to remind everyone Papelbon doesn't live here anymore? I'd say we just saw the evidence."

There was a time when this ownership had this whole town, myself included, swallowing cornier treacle. Since last September, though, some people's patience with blithely blasting "Shipping Up to Boston" or "Tessie" (or "Sweet Caroline") while Rome burns has been wearing thin.

It felt, in that moment last night, like some spell cast by the marketing wizards under Dr. Charles Steinberg had been definitively broken. Many of us were still there, at least physically, but on this particular evening, we weren't going to be playing along. 

Photos

Hot Hot Heat

When the fourth inning began on a sweltering evening last night at Fenway Park, the game between the Red Sox and the Marlins was, well, still a game. 

Before a single out had been recorded in that fourth inning, though, the contest was all but unquestionably in the bag for the Sox, thanks mainly to the man whose smile is pictured lighting up the ballpark above. 

It used to be Manny whose presence at the plate would send the Fenway audience into hysterics; now his old friend has fully taken over the mantle of setting the faithful a-jangle with his every RBI opportunity -- and when he stepped to the plate that inning with the bases loaded, the place was more than aflutter. It was pandemonium. 

People were on the edges of their seats, the heat momentarily forgotten. Papi fouled off one pitch, and then connected with the next, sending it screaming out toward the right field foul pole as the crowd leapt to its feet.

Grand slam. 11-4 Red Sox. As Ortiz trotted the bases, he gave Marlins third baseman Hanley Ramirez a flippant little salute.  

An inning later, for a few moments, there was the possibility we might witness the same feat twice in back-to-back innings, as Papi once again stepped to the plate with the bags juiced. He would strike out (and anyway, Nick Punto scampered home from third on a wild pitch during his at-bat, de-loading the bases), but the situation alone ensured that a sweat-drenched crowd was risking heatstroke to get their money's worth. 

Years from now, those moments -- moments when everyone's problems, the team's included, were far away -- will be what I remember, not whatever Buster Olney or David Ortiz said about the clubhouse, or what the team's record was. 

These are the things I care about, that I treasure: the cheers as Big Papi approached from the on-deck circle, bat under his arm. His spit and clap, and his slow, hypnotic settling into his stance. Sweat pouring down everybody's faces. Then, a WHACK!! a rising roar, and the ball flying out over the field, into the waiting arms of the fans beyond the Pesky Pole. 

The Ballad of Darnell McDonald

Four score and seven years ago, when this game first began, we were at least prepared for the possibility of a nice, predictable loss behind the struggling Clay Buchholz, and a few hardy souls may have dared hope for the Red Sox to stave off the sweep with a small miracle or two. 

No one could have predicted the kind of scorched earth that would be left at the Fens today when all was said and done. 

That's not to say Buchholz wasn't true to form; in fact, we now find ourselves in the position of longing for Daisuke to save the rotation. Not good. 

Then there was the brightest moment of the game, the moment of highest hopes, when Will Middlebrooks stepped to the plate in the fifth and belted his first Major League home run. Which just happened to be a game-tying grand slam, over the Monster and onto the roof of the parking garage across Lansdowne Street.

It was almost cartoonish, how hangdog everyone* was right up until the moment Middlebrooks made contact, and how shocked and overjoyed we all were beginning with the moment his no-doubt shot headed for the Monster.

...until the eighth inning brought us back to reality.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia got things started by dropping a foul tip into his mitt, allowing Adam Jones to continue batting. Jones then reached on an "infield single" to (read: clank off the glove of) Vicente Padilla. After Matt Wieters flied out to center, Salty kept the O's rally going by throwing the ball into center field on Adam Jones' steal of second. 

There was some measure of redemption for Salty as his sacrifice fly tied up the game again in the bottom of the inning. But as it would turn out, tying the game would not be enough. Instead, it would be the beginning of a long day's journey into the ninth circle of baseball hell. 

That same inning, after David Ortiz doubled, he was lifted for Darnell McDonald, at which point, unbeknownst to us, the fate of the Red Sox was sealed.

In the 10th inning, instead of Big Papi, Darnell came up to bat in a key spot with two outs. And, predictably -- some might say inevitably -- just a few minutes later, NESN would cut to commercial wth Darnell standing toe to toe with the home plate umpire, arguing over the third called strike.

In a game and after a series seemingly designed to leave every last one of them an depleted shell of a human being, the bullpen pitched valiantly over the course of the many innings that followed. But ultimately, both bullpens would just plain run out of bodies. 

So it was that Darnell McDonald would come on to pitch -- yes, pitch -- in the 17th inning, an inning which went like this: walk, caught stealing, double to left, walk, Monster shot by Adam Jones to make the game 9-6 O's. 

If it was debatable whether Darnell should've been playing instead of Papi in the 10th, it was beyond argument that he never should have been on the pitcher's mound in the first place. In the bottom of the 16th, Marlon Byrd reached on an error at third base, and then Mike Aviles hit a double to deep center. But, inexplicably and indefensibly, as Byrd chugged around third base he was sent home, where he was out by a good ten feet, and ended the inning for good measure. 

But wait! Things would get still more ridiculous! Hapless Orioles DH Chris Davis pitched the bottom of the 17th after Darnell served up his meatball, and given he was facing Ryan Sweeney, Dustin Pedroia, and Adrian Gonzalez, all bets were still off.  

Sweeney reached on an infield single. Pedroia walked. Gonzalez can now say he capped off an 0-8 day by striking out against a freaking DH. 

And then who should come up to bat but -- you guessed it -- Darnell McDonald. He took one strike before grounding into a game-ending double play, becoming both the losing pitcher and the last hitter of the game at the same time. 

The Red Sox are now 4-10 at Fenway this year. They've lost 6 of their last 7, and sit in the basement of the AL East with an overall record of 11-16. 

It's not just the fact that they're losing that bothers me...it's the way they're losing, in such ridiculous and improbable fashion, all the while giving us hope right till the very end. If they're going to suck, they could at least suck utterly and spare us the ulcer flare-ups, that's what I say. Or, if there's going to be some kind of miraculous turnaround, well, there's no time like the present. 

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* Full disclosure: when I say 'everyone' I'm basically referring to the people I talk to on Twitter. 

Of Feast and Famine with the Red Sox

All the Red Sox needed to do this past weekend was win one game.

A frustrating inability to capitalize on Yankees losses while they played in Toronto was in the past. For the time being, injuries to the starting rotation seemed surmountable, at least for one game.

One game, and they'd at least tread water in the division as well as in the Wild Card standings. One game, one win -- which would have been just their third in the month of September -- and the complexion of things would remain overcast, but steer clear of dour.

They couldn't do it.

Of the three games the Red Sox to the Rays this past weekend, the most surprising was the 9-1 rout behind Jon Lester. But the most frustrating, by far, was the walkoff win for Tampa Bay late on Saturday night.

Nobody was expecting much from Kyle Weiland, and he delivered a lukewarm four-inning, three-run start before being yanked in favor of Alfredo Aceves.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, had squeezed a run across in the top of the second on a fielder's choice groundout courtesy of Jed Lowrie, and in the top of the fifth, Adrian Gonzalez hit a resounding two-run homer to tie up the score at three all. Gonzalez hollered as he high-fived his teammates in the dugout -- some fire, some spark, at least, seemed to be returning to the team with that hit.

And that's when Aceves gave up two more runs, only the fourth time in 42 relief appearances this season that he's given up more than one.

But the Sox weren't done raising our hopes -- in the top of the ninth, with one out, Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit a solo home run that just barely cleared the wall. Jacoby Ellsbury's homer, which followed, was much more decisive, a towering blast to center at 413 feet. Tie game, for the second time.

Then--worse--the Red Sox had a chance to put things away right there and then, when a slumping Dustin Pedroia doubled, and Gonzalez walked. There was still just one out when David Ortiz came to the plate -- and grounded into a double play.

From there, the game would continue for another two innings. Jonathan Papelbon did his part, pitching two perfect innings, but so did Tampa Bay's Cesar Ramos and Brandon Gomes. With each passing out, the win that had seemed imminent in the top of the ninth slipped further from Boston's grasp.

Suddenly, in fact, it seems we're witnessing the return of the team that went 0-6 and 2-10, the team that now seems like the evil alter ego of the 2011 Red Sox we've been able to enjoy most of the summer.

The worrisome return of the Slumping Sox just in time for the stretch run was embodied on Saturday by Daniel Bard. On Opening Day, he kicked off the bullpen malaise that marked the early season with a career-bad appearance, in which he surrendered four runs and allowed the Texas Rangers (another September nemesis) to blow open the game.

Now, in September, Bard has been at the helm of two walkoff wins for Boston's opponents, first, for the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre last Wednesday night -- and again on Saturday, when he surrendered an RBI single in the bottom of the 11th to Evan Longoria.

Of course, it's not all on Bard, or even the bullpen. The injury bug has also begun a slithering return, claiming our best pitcher with an ankle injury to Josh Beckett and one of the staples of the Sox lineup with bursitis and a hernia suffered by Kevin Youkilis. Had the two of them been there on Saturday...well, who knows.

Victims of circumstance or not, however, though we're less than halfway through the month and it doesn't seem quite time to hit the panic button just yet, things have begun to take on a whiff of heightened urgency around the Red Sox. There's a quiet note of strain in the otherwise cheerful intonations of NESN broadcasters. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous -- if only because, within this very season, we've seen this same movie before.

Notes on the Game

Top 1

No excuses or meanderings this time. Just trying to get back off my own personal DL and into the regular groove again.

Bot 1

About the only thing Erik Bedard has going for him so far is his face, a kindly looking mug, all rounded or beveled edges, hangdog eyes under permanently raised brows, and rosy cheeks. He looks like a cross between a Kewpie doll and Winnie the Pooh.

Ellsbury and Ortiz could be back tomorrow (per OtM). Me, I still wish Clay Buchholz was going to be walking back through that door.

The Late Late Show

While it occurred under protest from the ESPN broadcast booth, the fact that last night's game featured slow and deliberate play, multiple tie scores, and in general the sense of the proverbial irresistible force meeting an immovable object really shouldn't have come as a shock. This was Sox-Yankees, after all.

These days, there's a gravity which has no regard for time when these teams face each other, particularly when something meaningful is at stake. And last night was heavy with meaning --the teams came in not just tied in the series with a win apiece, but tied for first place. And not just tied for first place on a technicality, with a half-game here or there, but tied precisely, both with 69-43 records on the season.

As is their habit, then, the teams proceeded to grind past one another for ten long innings with the force and glacial pace of tectonic plates. Neither team ever enjoyed more than a one run lead, or for very long.

Josh Beckett was every bit the force of nature we Red Sox fans had expected him to be in a game like this, with a curveball that buckled knees and, in general, a presence on the mound that suggested he'd enjoyed his usual big-game breakfast of nails, bolts, light bulbs and raw meat. On the Yankees side, Freddy Garcia found himself in more jams -- the Red Sox would leave a dozen men on when all was said and done, 8 of them at the hands of Jacoby Ellsbury alone. But he would always wriggle out of them, or the Red Sox would decline to take advantage of the opportunity, take your pick.

As a result, Beckett and his filthy curveball were in for another tough no-decision when he'd pitched well enough to win (and make no mistake, this is a trend this season). The win, and first place, lay four innings beyond his efforts.

There were buckets of spittle devoted to the top four batters in the Red Sox lineup last night from aforementioned broadcast booth, but these vaunted hitters would end up a combined 1-16 fpr the night. That "1" belonged to Dustin Pedroia in the bottom of the fifth, and was promptly negated when he was caught attempting to steal second. Ellsbury, who has singlehandedly won several of this past week's games, was so ineffective at the plate all night that when it came run-scoring time in the bottom of the ninth, his contribution was a sacrifice bunt to move the runner -- Marco Scutaro -- over to third base. Pedroia would then bat him in with a sacrifice fly, and Adrian Gonzalez would end the inning rather than continuing the rally.

Still, with Mariano Rivera on the mound and this precision at work -- station to station baseball, the overall feel of an arm-wrestling match breaking slowly and painfully from a standstill -- it was hard not to think of past nights at Fenway that looked very much like this one, right down to the strange atmosphere of slow-motion inevitability.

In the end, it was the bottom of the tenth inning before the Red Sox would put this one away and take sole possession -- at least for now, by a single game -- of first place, when Josh Reddick, until then 0-4 on the night, singled in Darnell McDonald (running for Big Papi) with a single to deep left field. It was about 12:30 am, and had become the longest game between these two teams all season. Color me unsurprised.

Rubber Game

However grudgingly I may do it, I have to give John Lackey some credit.

Last night, I caught part of the game while sitting at a bar in Great Barrington, Mass., technically still in New England, but more a part of the Hudson River Valley, meaning I was surrounded by highly vocal Yankees fans. I came in just in time to watch Lackey surrender the Red Sox' two-run lead in the top of the fourth.

In the bottom of that inning, two unlikely heroes batted in first one run (Carl Crawford), and then another (Marco Scutaro). To the curses of the Yanks fans around me (music to my ears), Jacoby Ellsbury would add to his case for MVP with a three-run homer that, in retrospect, pretty much put things away.

But at the time, as Lackey took the ball again for the top of the fifth, that still seemed a dangerous conclusion to reach, even with a five-run lead, as Lackey surrendered a single and then hit a batter, before surrendering an RBI single to Derek Jeter. Once again, applause rang out around me at the bar. "Freakin' Lackey," I Tweeted. "Doing his best to give it right back."

No sooner had I shot my mouth off than Lackey made me have to eat my words, sacking up big time and striking out Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira in succession, followed by inducing a groundout to first from Robinson Cano.

Even more surprisingly, in the top of the sixth, when Eric Chavez sent a screaming liner toward the hole between short and third, and then Kevin Youkilis was there, fully airborne, snagging the ball for the kind of lineout to which a box score will never do justice, for once, Lackey was seen praising a teammate for a balls-out play with as much gusto as he's been seen cursing them when they screw up.

If you'd told me ahead of time how these two games were going to go for the Red Sox given the pitching matchups, I'd have slapped you silly, or at least assumed someone else already had. But now here we are, looking at the biggest rubber game in recent memory, as tonight, Josh Beckett takes the mound (weather willing) against Freddy Garcia, winner take all, first place or bust. And it's all thanks to Gentleman John.

Sweeping up Seattle

On the seventh anniversary of the unforgettable game of July 24, 2004, The Red Sox posted 12 runs against the Mariners and completed the sweep, handing Seattle their 15th straight loss, a franchise record for Eric Wedge's team.

Some people felt a little sorry for the Mariners. They are probably nice people. I, on the other hand, am not feeling like a particularly nice person right about now, baseball-wise, as the Red Sox head into the stretch up three games on the Yankees and playing miserable teams. Frankly, I'd have been disappointed if the best offense in baseball hadn't swept these fools.

Once again, the Mariners weren't utterly humiliated offensively speaking, posting 8 runs, only the second time this season they've scored more than 7. This time, it was Mariners pitching that was made the Red Sox' primary victim -- in the first and fifth inning, especially, just when the Mariners had pushed some runs across, the Red Sox came back in the next half inning and stomped the crap out of them. I can only speak for myself, but I found this an enjoyable pattern.

Ultimately, though, today belongs to Tim Wakefield, our city's historic treasure, who collected his 199th career win and 2000th strikeout in a Red Sox uniform. It came in the top of the 6th, a swinging K for Mike Carp, after which Wakefield was summoned for a curtain call by the Fenway Faithful. Wake would even give up a grand slam in the next inning to make it 11-7 Red Sox where it had been 11-3, and still left to a rousing ovation from the crowd.

In how many other ballparks would this kind of happen? Several people asked on Twitter. Me, I wonder, to how many other Red Sox players would this kind of thing happen?

I know it seems impossible, but someday, and sooner rather than later, Old No. 49 will no longer take the field in home whites. And it will probably have me doing double-takes and feeling strange for years afterwards.

P.S. Jerry Remy was once again the subject of conversation today, as Don Orsillo solicited suggestions for a hobby for him. The longer they talked about Remy's life (or lack thereof), though, the fact that he remains pretty seriously depressed became clear -- uncomfortably so. And then there was the story about Don being attacked by a sea turtle, which...I can't even...either you heard it, or you missed out. That's all I can say.

About Last Night...

Here's an imponderable: what exactly happens to the Red Sox offense when Josh Beckett is pitching? The numbers are startling -- he is by far the least supported pitcher on the team, despite being its clear ace this season. What gives?

Last night the Sox managed just three runs against the dreaded Unknonwn Pitcher in Blake Beavan, all of them scored after Beckett left. And portable defibrillator units would remain at the ready even once Beckett was out and our best relievers took the hill: first, Daniel Bard ended up in a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the eighth, which he escaped with sheer velocity alone. Then, in the ninth, a Jonathan Papelbon pitch was sent soaring into the air off the bat of Brendan Ryan, representing the tying run and seemingly destined for the Monster seats, until it finally, somehow, fell harmlessly, unbelievably foul.

Despite the roller-coaster, the game still went in the Red Sox' favor in the end, representing Terry Francona's 1000th career win, a three-game lead above the Yankees in the standings, and a reprieve from Icy-Hot in everybody's jockstraps courtesy of a certain Texan on the team.

But even with all that went on between the lines, it was a pair of things that happened outside them which really sparked conversation and debate as the game went on.