Not much to say about last night. Byrd did pretty much what we expected (though I could smell MDC’s troubles coming and was praying for him to get sent out of the sixth), the bats did what they do, and Victor proved just how valuable he can be to this team. I am really starting to enjoy the bullpen combo of Wagner, Bard and Papelbon. It just makes me feel good to see when one of them is on the mound these days, especially Wagner, who is still an all star caliber closer who just happens to be throwing the seventh for us these days (at least every other day), and has a great angry look after he walks off of the mound having struck out two of the three batters he faced.
Last night’s big hit by Victor throws a sad fact into focus: It is becoming less and less likely every day that the Sox are going to pick up the team option on Varitek. Victor has shown that he can catch everybody on this team, including Wake, and he caught the 2007 and 2008 CY Young winners, so he obviously knows how to call a game. His newfound connection with Clay Buchholz has helped the kid go from somebody that we couldn’t depend on against the Orioles, to a legit third starter for October. 
He doesn’t have a very good throwing arm, but neither does Tek, and since he came to Fenway he has hit.326, with six home runs and 28 RBI in thirty six games. Those numbers equate out to better than Varitek’s career highs of .296/18/73 in 2004. Victor is a quality Major League catcher, and he is showing his clutchitude in appearances like last night’s pinch hit three run double. (If you want a rundown of his Clutchitude moments, check this column on Over The Monster) The Captain will have to either retire, find a new club (he will likely not be a type one free agent anymore, and not cost the other team any draft picks), or pick up his own option for $3 million and accept a back-up/piching coach role with the Sox next year.
It’s an off day but at least we’ve got some real live, meaningful NFL football to watch. SMC and I are doing picks again (perhaps we will call them the AngryBlackAle memorial picks) and anyone who would like to join us just send in your picks to MyBallpark@gmail.com. Hopefully they will be up around game time today. If not we’ll just ignore tonight’s game and anyone who doesn’t like that can go fornicate themselves with a splintered piece of balsa wood.
Go Sox.
Done.
Pingback: Baseballbriefs.com