Don't look now...

...but some obscure team about 215 miles to the south and west of Boston has won 9 games in a row.

Jason Bay Sets New Sox Record

Jason Bay hit another multi-run home run in the bottom of the 1st inning of the Sox-Jays game tonight. It was his 11th multi-run home run in a row, surpassing Kevin Youkilis and Tony C. who each had hit 10 multi-run home runs. If his next home run is not a solo shot, he will have tied Ken Griffey, Jr. and Hank Aaron for the lead in that category.

Video of Jason's home run here.

And not only can Wake toss a mean knuckleball....

... the man can play guitar, too. This is Timmay at the Hot Stove Cool Music at Fenway 2005:

(photo by Steve Latham)

Wake is pictured here with Bill Janovitz, who has written a song about him.

Thanks to Surviving Grady for the heads up on Bill Janovitz and "The Ballad of Tim Wakefield."

(Now all I have to do is to see if I can get Tim to sit in with this country rock sort of jam band that I've been sittin' in with these days the next time the Sox are in Oakland.)

Blue Jays in 1st Place? Not For Long!!!

Boston's bats were all on fire as the Sox pummeled the 1st place Jays 8-3 tonight. Five (5), count 'em 5 balls were sent out of the yard, including 2 by 'Tek (Who says he's all washed up?!), solo shots by Lowell and Bay, and the most important one of the night- Big Papi's.

The Sox plated 6 men in the 5th inning. Every starter had at least 1 hit, and 7 of 9 starters scored a run. This was Youk's first game back from the DL, and he picked up right where he left before missing 15 days- 3/5 with 1 run scored, raising his BA to .404. Bay, Lowell, and 'Tek each had 2 hits.

The big news of the night is that Papi finally got that monkey off his back, and sent the elephant in the room with it. Papi went 2 for 5, the home run in the 5th, a double, and 2 RBI's.

Brad Penny turned in a good start going 6.2 innings, scattering 9 hits, while allowing only 2 runs. He struck out 2 and issued only 1 BB. MDC, Oki, and Saito pitched 1.2 innings of scoreless relief. In there too, was Bard who pitched 2/3 inning, allowing 3 hits and 1 run.

SOX WIN 8-3 BOX SCORE

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Blue Jays	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	3	14	0
Red Sox	0	0	2	0	6	0	0	0	0	8	15	0

Breaking News: Papi Homers!

David "Big Papi" Ortiz has finally hit his first home run of the year against Brett Cecil of the Toronto Blue Jays in the 6th inning of the game underway right now at Fenway Park.

The Sox are in the middle of taking the Jays out behind the woodshed right now. Besides Papi's homer, 'Tek has 2 homers today so far, Lowell has one, Baldelli has a triple.....



Update after the game! Sox lead 8-0 in the 6th!

Scary

Linda from Connecticut has a blog, that doesn't really have anything to do with baseball, but on a recent trip of hers to Las Vegas, she discovered this sign sitting in front of the New York New York Casino:

In her blog, she duly notes that it's not as scary as being a Red Sox fan in Yankee Stadium.

The Knight Life

Keith Knight is a part time rapper, comic strip artist and writer, originally from Boston (duh!)

Johnny Damon Strikes Out, 3 Umps Call It

Manny Being....

As seen in a small Red Sox discussion group: Was it Manny being Womanny?

Sox Skweek By Angels

Although his numbers looked good, Masterson was having trouble with his location, but he did manage (lucky according to 'Tek in the post game interview) to make it through 6 innings allowing only 2 runs. He also threw one behind Hunter in the 3rd, drawing warnings from umpires to both sides. MDC gave up a rare run, but that was due in part to a fielding error.

The Sox were down 3-1 in the 7th and tied it on 2 singles, a BB, a HBP, and a FC. In the 9th, Drew singled and 'Tek doubled to send him home and gain the lead. Ramon Ramirez continues to be lights out, his record stands at 4-0, 0.52 ERA. (All Star Game for RR?) Papelbon walked Abreu, who then stole second. (Oh, here we go again.) Torii Hunter whiffed to end the game.

Mike Lowell is swinging the bat well so far this season (.310 BA), but his FA has dropped a bit this season. He has an unusually high number of errors so far (5), but hopefully his fielding groove will return from surgery to match his batting. Ol' Shoebox Lugo added another error tonight. Nick Green is hitting well too, (.289), but he's added another 6 errors so far this season. Let's hope for a speedy recovery for Jed Lowrie. Papi had an RBI, but was still 0/3. I'm wondering at what point does Tito move him down in the line up.

It wasn't a pretty win, but it was a win nonetheless. Toronto beat the Yankees tonight, leaving them 6.5 games out, while the Sox remain 1 GB. BAL beat TBY tonight.

Sox win 4-3 BOX SCORE

I participated in a live game chat on SawxHeads.com, tonight's host being none other than our esteemed Fenway West host, Matt O'Donnell. It was an interesting experience. I was not able to watch the game on the tube tonight, but I was chatting with other Sox fans on one tab, while checking the stats on 'Game Day' from RedSox.com as the game proceeded.

Red Sox Fan Needs New Home

OK, another OT post except that it's a Sox fan, and that Sox fan is me. My landlord lives with his GF and I thought she owned that house. It turns out she rents, too, and that house is now up for sale, meaning they will be moving in back here. I'll be looking to move to West Sonoma County, CA where it's a bit cheaper and a bit cooler than where I am now.

Follow this link to my post to find out more about my rental history and what I'm looking for. Feel free to forward this post to any landlords you may know of, and thanks in advance for any leads sent my way!

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Former Red Sox Merloni Claims Sox Received Steriods Training

Former Boston infielder Lou Merloni claimed on Saturday that during his tenure with the Sox (98-03), they were given steroids training:

"I'm in spring training, and I got an 8:30-9:00 meeting in the morning. I walk into that office, and this happened while I was with the Boston Red Sox before this last regime, I'm sitting in the meeting. There's a doctor up there and he's talking about steroids, and everyone was like 'here we go, we're gonna sit here and get the whole thing -- they're bad for you.' No. He spins it and says 'you know what, if you take steroids and sit on the couch all winter long, you can actually get stronger than someone who works out clean, if you're going to take steroids, one cycle won't hurt you, abusing steroids it will.' He sat there for one hour and told us how to properly use steroids while I'm with the Boston Red Sox, sitting there with the rest of the organization, and after this I said 'what the heck was that?' And everybody on the team was like 'what was that?' And the response we got was 'well, we know guys are taking it, so we want to make sure they're taking it the right way'... Where did that come from? That didn't come from the Players Association."

Merloni has since backtracked a bit with a clarification of his statement, and former GM Dan Duquette chimed in with a disclaimer for a response. In his statement, Merloni made no specific claims of anyone on the team at the time using steroids, and said that the 'training' was more of a warning than an endorsement of any type.

Breaking News: Lugo!

In the 7th inning of today's Red Sox game against the Rays, Julio Lugo fielded a ball that was hit to him by Evan Longoria and he made the play to first base without making an error.

Totally OT Post (almost)

So I've been playing in Grateful Dead tribute bands since 2003. This is a side project for our new lead guitarist in this latest incarnation of the band. He's a Yankee fan, and a great guy and guitarist nonetheless. I've already posted that we were able to watch the Sox and Yanks together without killing each other (lol). Jimmy Brighton is in a band called Stackabones, a band that has 3 CD's out, with a 4th due out this year (and I'm on it.) This band has been together since 1981 or so, but Butch Zito, his songwriting partner and bandmate for all these years happens to be living in Delaware (where?) at the moment, but flew in Friday for the local Dead show tonight.

Apparently, Jimmy is impressed with my rhythmic skills behind the drum set as he took me up to the studio to add some percussion to a couple of tracks, as well as some harmony vocals, too. Since Butch was coming in, we hastily arranged a show at The Connecticut Yankee, a Red Sox bar that I've previously written about, with me as the drummer, since George Marsh, the previous drummer is now working with David Grisman, (so I've been told.)

George, Jimmy & Butch after 10 hours in the studio

Butch grew up in Yankee country with Jimmy. He knew we were playing at 'The Connecticut Yankee', but he didn't know it was a Red Sox bar until the end of a short rehearsal when Chip the bass player started to tell him that the bar was a Red Sox bar. I was frantically motioning the 'cut' sign across my throat trying to get him to STFU! Well Butch started complaining about playing with a Red Sox fan in a Red Sox bar. (heh heh heh) I told him there was a big photo of Lou Gehrig on the wall as you walk in.

I left the rehearsal early to get to the club to grab a bite to eat and get my kit set up as drummers usually are first in, last out. I sat down at the bar watching the O's beat up the Yanks. I asked the barkeep if he knew how the Sox had done earlier, and he told me that Fox didn't show the game here yesterday. (It's just as well that I didn't discover the outcome of the game until today.) Butch walks in and I told him, "Don't look at that TV!" Grumble, grumble, bitch, piss, moan. The rehearsal went well, so I thought he was just being an average Yankee fan. He noted earlier in the day when he found out I was a Sox fan that the Sox are the reason he stopped watching baseball. (heh heh heh)

I told him that besides being an exception to the rules of being a drummer (I show up on time for rehearsals and shows, I have a running vehicle, and despite not having a girlfriend at the moment, I am not homeless), I am not one of those Yankee hating, vitriol spewing & bat slinging Sox fans. (I take my occasional shots at the Yankees here on this board, but hey, that's my job!)

I only played two rehearsals with this band, and each was missing one key player, but the show was a total success! Tom, Steph, and Mike from Leadfoot Betty sat in with us on a couple of numbers, as well as a very competent sax player who just happened to be in attendance last night. Many good friends were in the house, too. I had Butch smiling at me while we were playing, and the whole band was smokin' hot despite only two rehearsals with the new drummer. Not only that, with Butch living in DE, the rest of the band hadn't even played together in some six months or so. We recorded the show semi-professionally (16 tracks, where as most audience tapers only use 2 mic's and maybe a PA soundboard feed if they're lucky), and I hope it will get uploaded sometime in the near future to archive.org, a web site for downloading free and legal live shows by many taper friendly bands.

So not only can a Red Sox fan and a Yankee fan watch a game together without killing each other, we can all play on the same stage together, too! A great night!

Molina Now Injured- Swisher to the Rescue?

Yankee's back up catcher Jose Molina left the game tonight in the 6th inning against TBY with strained quadriceps. Francisco Cervelli (who?) replaced him in the line up. Rumor has it outfielder Nick Swisher may be on tap to man that position as Jorge Posada is on the DL.

Tribe Thumpin'

What happens when you take Ellsbury, Ortiz, and Youkilis out of the line up all on the same day? No, the Sox don't get whipped, the rest of the bench pours it on, which is what they did in a 13-3 Tribe thumpin' tonight. As previously reported, 12 of those runs came in the 6th inning before 1 out was even registered, thereby setting a new AL record. All 9 starters scored at least 1 run, all 9 starters got on base at least once. With 3 regular starters out of the line up tonight, Tito got creative for the line up using Lugo as the DH and leading off, Bay in the #3 spot and Lowell- clean up.

The hot bats tonight:
Lugo (Yes! Lugo!)~ 3/5, 3 runs
Pedroia~ 2/4, 2 runs, 3 RBI's
Bay~ 2/5, 2 runs, 4 RBI's
Bailey~ 2/4, 1 run, 2 RBI's

Wakefield had yet another quality start: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 1 WP, 101 pitches thrown. Lopez allowed another run in his only inning. Delcarmen before him and Saito after him threw scoreless innings.

Wakefield is now 4-1, with a 2.92 ERA.

SOX win 13-3 BOX SCORE

Red Sox Set New AL Record

Before an out was made in the sixth inning of tonight's game at Fenway against the Cleveland Indians, the Red Sox scored 12 runs in the inning for an American League record.

ISO West Sonoma Rental

51 yo, single, quiet male ISO 1 BR house, granny, duplex, condo, or bungalow (700+ sq. ft.) in Sebastopol, Graton, Occidental, West Petaluma, Forestville, or Guerneville. I keep a clean home (no pets, tobacco, or illegal drugs in my home), have a guaranteed income, and an excellent rental history. I am looking to move towards the end of June, but for the right rental, I will move sooner. I am looking for a long term rental- 2 or 3 years minimum, possibly much, much longer. I am hoping to find something around $800/month and have deposit money ready now.

Please note: I am not looking for any type of shared rental situation.

Thank you for reading this post.

Kindest Regards,

Dave

Look Who's in 1st Place!

In the AL East, it's NOT BOS, NYY, nor TBY ftm, rather Toronto. Won't be long before proper order gets restored in the AL East, but has anyone taken a peek over at the AL Central or AL West?

Are you sitting down? Kansas City sits atop the ALC at 15-11. Likewise SEA atop the ALW, also with a 15-11 record.

Never thought I'd see the day with KCR and SEA in 1st, but not the Sox or the Yanks.

I watched tonight's game with Jimmy from the band again. That makes it 2-0 Sox over Yanks when we watch the game together. I guess we'll have to do this more often!

Dave Roberts Now with NESN

Boston.com staff writer Chad Finn reports that Dave Roberts has joined the network to serve as a studio analyst.

May West Coast TV Schedule

For those of you such as myself without pricey CATV or MLB.com TV packages, here is the network TV schedule for the Sox in May:

03 Sun 10:38 AM- SOX @ TBY on TBS
04 Mon 04:05 PM- SOX @ NYY on ESPN
09 Sat 12:40 PM- TBY @ SOX on Fox
10 Sun 05:05 PM- TBY @ SOX on ESPN

All times PDT.

The Ellsbury Steal

The youtube clips have all been pulled by MLB.

Here's a better one: Ellsbury surprises Yanks with swipe of home (via mlb.com)