Random Thoughts (July 19, 2010)

The injuries have caught up to the Red Sox and now that they find themselves 6.5-games behind the Yankees in the A.L. East it is time to focus our hopes on Bud Selig's lasting gift to baseball, the Wild Card. Grabbing the Wild Card will be no walk in the park. The Rays are playing good baseball in their own right and are capable of making life in Boston pretty miserable this summer. What the Red Sox need right now is a stretch of dominant pitching from Jon Lester and John Lackey to coincide with strong performances from the soon-to-return Josh Beckett and Clay Buchholz. Having four pitchers capable of going deep into ball games will minimize the issues the team has in the bullpen beyond Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon and take pressure off of a lineup that is still missing Dustin Pedroia, Victor Martinez, Jason Varitek, Jeremy Hermida, and Jacoby Ellsbury. Red Sox Nation is going to experience reality over the next 10 days as the team travels to the West Coast to take on the Athletics, Mariners, and Angels in a stretch that will decide if the Sox will be in contention in August and September... It's easy for professional writers - as well as amateurs like myself - to mock the choice LeBron James made to join forces with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh with the Miami Heat as a cowardly act that proves he is not motivated to be one of the all-time greats in the NBA. Well it's even easier for the greatest basketball player who ever laced up a pair of Nike's that bore his image to make the same claim. Speaking at a golf tournament yesterday, Michael Jordan stated that the "opportunity" for James to join Wade and Bosh in Miami was not available to him during his career but that there is no way he would have called Larry Bird and Magic Johnson to form a superteam because he was too busy "trying to beat those guys." It makes me feel a whole lot better that Jordan disapproves of this move just as much as I do... Speaking of the Miami Heat, read Rob Peterson's take on all of the action on South Beach as it pertains to the greatest movie ever made. The comparisons are fairly obvious but it is an entertaining piece... I finally broke down and purchased a Playstation 3 in one final attempt to hold on to my youth. Not surprisingly, when I played as the Red Sox in "MLB 2010: The Show," against the Yankees, I fired fastball after fastball at the neck of Alex Rodriguez... Enjoy Daisuke tonight...