Apology

Game 63 - Red Sox

Red Sox 7, Rays 1
Record: 38-25

Mom, Dad, I know you read MLC from time to time. If it's not too much trouble, could I ask you to go ahead and skip this one? Thanks. That'd be great. I'll make it up to you later.

Aside from one memorably deranged rant, I've spent this season playing against type for the most part, avoiding my regrettable tendency to work blue. Advance warning: the floodgates, they're about to open, in gratuitous fashion, as I was much more worked up when I started this post than I am now as I finish it.

All because of the motherfucking Rays and that cocksucker Jonny Gomes. (And Coco Crisp, who proved last night that his guts outsize his brains by a goodly margin.)

The Sox and Rays have a long history of squabbling, with notable melees featuring Pedro Martinez, Gerald Williams, Brian Daubach and numerous others highlighting the teams' antipathy. Frankly, it's been a bit of a big brother/little brother thing, as the Sox have won 44 of the last 53 meetings between the squads in Fenway. Even as the Rays are much, much improved on the field, their command of the unwritten fundamentals remains loose. To wit:

1. James Shields threw at Coco in the 2nd inning of a tight ballgame. Coco deserved to get hit after his takeout slide of Aki Iwamura in Wednesday's game and subsequent mouthiness. And Shields hit him the right way, below the waist. But by hitting him early and intentionally, Shields effectively guaranteed that the Rays' best starting pitcher would be eliminated from a fairly important game.

2. That cocksucker Jonny Gomes and his partner, Carl Crawford, both piled on Crisp after Dioner Navarro correctly tackled him. Cocksucker Gomes and Crawford threw some hammers at the defenseless Crisp - fortunately, none landed to great effect.

After the ledgers were squared and the final accounting made, it's fair to say that a Crisp for Shields and Gomes trade is one the Sox would make 10 times out of 10, though they might think about it for a moment if the subsequent injury to Jacoby Ellsbury - who had to move center after Crisp was run - was factored into the equation. Motherfucking Rays.

Ellsbury's injury on top of Crisp's ejection meant that the Sox played the game's final 5 innings with an outfield of Chris Carter (making his major league debut), J.D. Drew, and Kevin Youkilis. Meanwhile, Manny Ramirez and Youkilis scuffled in the dugout after the fight, allegedly because Youks questioned Manny's indifference during the original fracas. According to Terry Francona, "We had a lot of testosterone in the dugout tonight". You don't say. Fucking Rays.

Later, Manny tweaked a hamstring injury that's been bothering him, forcing Kevin Cash to come in at DH for the final few innings. The lineup was reminiscent of nothing so much as a split-squadder against Boston College. I blame the fucking Rays.

After all the hue and cry from one of the odder games I can remember, the operative facts are these: the Sox swept the Rays fairly easily to regain first place in the division; Boston's injury situation is getting close to a crisis and will be even more so if Manny and Ellsbury are truly hurt; Cocksucker Jonny Gomes is a cocksucker who will undoubtedly wear a fastball in his upper ribcage at some point this season; and I'm really looking forward to some entertaining games with Tampa for the rest of the season.

Fucking Rays.