Beck

Game 30 - Red Sox

Red Sox 4, Twins 3
Record: 20-10

Strange, long, and ultimately utterly worthless day down at Spacely's Sprockets for me, which kept me from my normal appointment with MLC. My colleagues are some of the nicest people on the planet - and you know what Leo Durocher said about nice guys.

Another solid to good outing for a Sox starting pitcher, as Schilling set the Twins down without much trouble for the first 6 innings before blowing a tire in the 7th. Okajima got the last out of the 7th and pitched a scoreless 8th before yielding to Papelbon, who never gave the Twinkies a chance. FIrst series victory by the Sox in Minnesota since 2000.

I saw bits and pieces of this one, finding it difficult to make any good excuse to keep from being an actual parent on a beautiful spring afternoon. I did see Paps nail it down, and noted with a distinct slowing of my heartrate that he seems to have shaken off whatever ailed him in his last two outings.

Douchebag Dan Shaughnessy fired another shot in the ongoing war between the Boston media and Curt Schilling, blatantly misquoting No. 38's response to the Yankees' signing of Roger Clemens. Writing in the Boston Globe, the CHB said the following:

"After the Sox beat the Twins in Minneapolis today, Schilling was asked his reaction to the Rocket's re-entry into the Yankees clubhouse. Ever the blowhard, Schilling declared, "We don't need him" -- a comment of stupefying arrogance that is sure to come up a couple of million times between now and the end of the 2007 postseason."

Setting aside for a moment the oddly personal and offended characterization of Schilling's "stupefying arrogance" (and hey, pot, I'm kettle - and you're a black motherfucker), it turns out the Shaughnessy clearly and blatantly twisted the words of the Sox' righthander. Ron Blum's AP story carries this quote from Schilling: ""It would have been nice to have him, but we didn't need him," Curt Schilling said. "I feel like we were a legitimate World Series contender without him." Not nearly incendiary, and exactly what I want the Sox players to be saying. Frankly, I agree with that sentiment entirely, notwithstanding the tired opinion of a desperate hack clinging precariously to whatever relevance he once maintained.

Off day for the Sox, so I'm watching someone named Matt DeSalvo shut the Mariners down in the Bronx. The M's seem to be the tonic for what ails the New York pitching staff, scoring 2 runs over the last 24 innings after exploding for 15 on Thursday. Looks like the Sox will be 5 games up as they head to Toronto for three with the Jays.

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Don't-Need-Him-Gate expands this morning to increasingly ludicrous proportions, as ESPN's Mike & Mike Show nominated Schilling (and Julian Tavarez, who said essentially the same thing before the Clemens announcement) as a candidate for their weekly "Just Shut Up" awards. Honest to God, what are the Sox supposed to say? How batshit would the media and the fanbase be if Sox players had come out and shed crocodile tears, channeling Bill Paxton in Aliens ("Game over, man. We're screwed.")?

We've decried the media quite a bit in this space, and we'll continue to if they continue to shovel this kind of bullshit manufactured controversy. It's crap like this that's driven people like me to get information from blogs and non-traditional sources instead of swallowing mass media pabulum. I used to hit ESPN.com every morning - it was my homepage. Now, my required reading is The Big Lead, Deadspin, and Dan Shanoff. I still know who won, and my bullshit hype intake is vastly reduced.

Oh, and for the record, I think Clemens will be fairly successful for the Yankees, and I think his presence won't make a difference. There. I said it.