M-O-S-S MOSS MOSS MOSS!

I think the only Patriot that didn't have a good day was Matt Cassel, who fumbled a perfect snap during a field goal attempt. Cassel didn't even get to do the kneel down to end the game.

We just rolled all over New York. Maroney had a solid day, Brady was great, Moss was monstrous, the defense was impressive against the run and rushing the QB, and Ellis Hobbs tied an NFL record for longest play ever.

We started off with a surprisingly run heavy drive that was textbook. We had pretty bad field position, which I was worried about, because for the past 4 or 5 years, we've been a team that wins by winning the field position battle, and gradually wearing down an opponent. Not anymore, it looks like. We started at the 9 and went 91 yards on 11 plays for the touchdown.

We sputtered a bit for the rest of the 1st quarter. We also used up all our timeouts. We played some sloppy football at times, which cost us a few opportunities. We could have put this game away earlier than we did.

Cassel had a fumbled snap, we used up our timeouts thanks to the Jets' no huddle offense, Welker dropped a ball that would have been a drive continuing first down, and so on.

The Jets tied it up after the fumbled snap, but we did something that we seemed to always do a few seasons ago: score right before the 2nd quarter ends. Moss accounted for 55 yards out of the 73 total yards on the TD drive.

We exploded in the 3rd quarter. Hobbs returned the kickoff for a 108 yard touchdown. Then Pennington got hurt (which seemed to please some Jets fans. you stay classy, New York). Then we had a 4 play, 85 yard drive, with Moss catching a 19 yard pass to begin it, and a 51 yard pass to end it. Moss outran three Jets to catch the 51 yard bomb and score the touchdown. The way New York was playing, the game was over at 28-7.



The Jets responded with a touchdown drive that made the game 28-14, but their drive took nearly 5 minutes. We got the ball back and proceeded to drain the life out of the clock.

"Clock Killin" Sammy Morris just doesn't have the same ring as "Clock Killin" Corey Dillon, but Morris did to New York what Dillon had been doing for us. The Pats drove for 10:28, draining over one sixth of the game's length off the clock, kicking a field goal, and leaving 6:44 for New York to score three times.

Heath Evans got the game sealing TD behind Seau's blocking. Seau basically threw himself into the Jet linebackers. He missed everyone, but prevented Vilma from jumping at Heath, who was leaping behind Seau, over the goal line.

The story of the game was the Patriots offensive line. Brady had all day to pass, and the zone blocking seemed to work well for Maroney and Morriss. We ran for 137 yards, and Brady was only hurried once.

Part of Brady having so much time was due to our receivers. In order for the Jets to blitz, they would have to cover Moss, Stallworth, Welker, and so on, man-to-man. Covering Randy Moss man-to-man just doesn't work. So the Jets didn't blitz us very often. And when they did, we made them pay.

Brady looked good, but he also had about 20 seconds to find open receivers, and when he didn't find anyone open, he'd toss the ball in Moss's general direction, and Randy would jump 7 or 8 feet, and come down with the ball.

I was really impressed with our defensive play. We held New York to 60 yards on the ground. We stuffed a lot of plays early on and broke up a lot of those long scoring drives Pennington and the Jets like to put together. We also did a great job of pressuring Pennington. We sacked him 5 times, and kept him busy in the pocket all day.

We made some mistakes, and very easily we could have won this game 41-7, or even 48-0. We're going to have to work those kinks out when we play teams like San Diego and Indianapolis. However, we're 1-0, and we're already a game up on everyone in the AFC East, because they all lost yesterday.

And by the way, Belichick and Mangini had a short handshake after the game. And who friggin cares?



No photographers were harmed by Coach Belichick.

PATRIOT PESSIMISM

I remember when we traded for Randy Moss, people would come up to me and ask: "What do you think of the Moss deal?" My simple reply:

"19-0."

We had just acquired one of the most talented receivers in the NFL, along with two other very good receivers, and an amazing and versatile defensive player in Adalius Thomas. We went 14-5 without these guys, and came a few dropped passes away from making it to the Super Bowl.

Obviously, my projection of 19-0 was not a serious prediction. But I did feel supremely confident in the Patriots, and felt as though they were the favorites to win the Super Bowl. And I still feel that way. But with the beginning of the season looming on Sunday, I'm starting to have doubts.

Maybe doubts isn't the right way to describe it. I think we will win the Super Bowl, and go 17-2 or 16-3 overall. BUT, if we don't, if we fall on our faces and go 9-7 and miss the playoffs, or go 10-6 and lose in the 2nd round, I can easily see how it will happen. The margin of error for this and any other NFL team is so slim, that almost any team could go 17-2, or 7-9.

So if we fail this year, here are some of the reasons why:

Missing players:
You expect to be injured and missing players in the middle or end of the season. But the Patriots will be starting with Richard Seymour out for 6 weeks, and Rodney Harrison suspended for 4 games. These are two keystones to our defense. Thomas can step up and rush off the outside, but there is no replacement for Harrison's presence in the defensive backfield. We play the Jets and the Chargers to start the season, a pair of playoff teams, and we'll be missing two of our best defenders.

Samuel Holdout:
Asante Samuel has rejoined the team, but he missed most of training camp during his holdout. The Patriots are better with him than without him, but for the first few games, he will not be at top form. We have two divisional games in the beginning of the season, and winning them will be huge for our playoff drive. But what are we going to get out of Samuel?

Maroney:
Laurence has been wearing the red shirt for most of training camp, and he will be our only main option in the backfield this season. He's never been a runningback for a full 16 (and up to 20) game season He was very good last year, for a rookie. But he had a lot of help from Corey Dillon, which he won't be getting this season.

We ran for about 1,800 yards last year, with Maroney accounting for 745 of those. Dillon got a lot of hard yards, wearing down opposing defensive lines, which allowed Maroney to slip tackles, run to the outside, and get his kind of yardage. Maroney now has Sammy Morris and Kevin Faulk supporting him, but Faulk is not a power back like Dillon was. Morris isn't half bad, he's actually a solid back, but he is no Corey Dillon. I think it's safe to say that our running game will not be as good this season as it was last year.

Moss + Stallworth + Welker
We really have no idea what to expect from this combination of guys. Brady has never had a WR as talented as Moss. Nor have we ever had as many deep threats as we do now. I've never been a big fan of the deep ball. I think it's important for the deep pass to be a threat, but I prefer the medium routes that guys like Branch and Givens used to run to perfection, spreading out the defense horizontally, as well as vertically. I think Welker and Watson will be able to do this, and we could potentially have a really dynamic passing offensive, but it could all collapse just as easily. It's an unknown. Also, Moss just started to participate in full practices.

Loss of Daniel Graham
Ben Watson has shown some potential to be a very good TE. He was one of our best deep threats last year. But Graham was a leader, an excellent blocker, and a very good complimentary tight end to Watson. I like David Thomas, though, but we've only seen him for a few plays. I think having multiple tight-ends will be key to our offense, ensuring that linebackers don't rush Brady and have to cover TEs, creating mismatches, and blocking for Maroney. How David Thomas performs will be a big part of how we perform as a team.

Distractions
Tom Brady just had a baby, Rodney Harrison just got suspended for HGH, and Randy Moss is a potential distraction bomb waiting to detonate. The Patriots are just as vulnerable as any other team to being distracted by all this off field crap. In the past, we've been able to remain focused no matter what, but that could all change easily.

I still think we're the top team in the NFL because of who the coach is, who the QB is, who the team leaders are, and how our talent performs. My prediction is a 13-3 regular season, and a Super Bowl victory.

I can't wait for Sunday.

NICE AND EASY

I'm glad that Terry Francona finally listened to me and benched Ortiz against Kazmir. And I'm sure it was me and only me that made Terry come to this conclusion.

End of sarcasm.

This was a nice, easy, and enjoyable victory. No Eric Gagne, no small army left in scoring position, nice starting position, and early offensive opportunities exploited.

Is Mike Lowell a dark horse for MVP of this team? Without his 85 RBI, where are we? For most of the season, he's led the team in RBI. For a while, he was the team leader in homeruns, as well. I really do hope we extend his contract and keep him on the team. He seems like a quiet guy, he's no Kevin Millar, more of a Billy Mueller kind of guy. He produces, he fields well, and he seems to gel with this team. He'll also make about a third of the money A-Rod will make. Is Mike Lowell on the same level as Rodriguez? No. But is A-Rod three times better than Lowell? No.

I'm really glad Ortiz was benched, and Kielty was hitting 3rd. I know it didn't really seem to work out as Kielty went 0 for 5, but before the game, when the lineups were announced, I think Francona put out the best possible lineup to score runs.

It was also nice to beat Scott Kazmir, and beat him pretty badly. Nothing against him, I'm just sick and tired of watching Manny and Ortiz looking like fools every time Kazmir throws that low slider.

Kevin Cash had his first start with Wakefield, and looked pretty good. I think it's either very smart or very fortunate for the Sox that we have some knuckleballers in AAA to give guys like Cash and George Kotteras some experience catching the knuckleball.

And how about Timmy Wakefield this year? He's a huge reason why we're in 1st place. his 4.35 ERA is unremarkable, but I think he's pitched better than that number suggests. This was his 13th Quality Start of the season. And for the $4 million Wake is earning this year, he might just be one of the best values in baseball. He's now tied with Beckett and Lackey for most wins in the Majors.

Lester goes tomorrow night.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE GAGNE

The good:


The bad:


The Gagne:


Sweeping a doubleheader against the Angels would have been difficult to do, especially with Lackey on the mound. But we were very close to doing so. Clay Bucholz pitched very well in his Major League debut. I was most impressed by how he pitched after the big JD Drew error in the 1st inning. Of course, getting to Lackey for 6 runs in the bottom of the 1st made the game much easier for everybody.

The first game was the one we were supposed to lose. We had 23 year old Bucholz against one of the best pitchers in the AL. But we won, and had Beckett going in game 2. It seemed as though we had an opportunity to win a big doubleheader.

Even more surprising than us getting to Lackey was us getting to the Angels bullpen. In game 2, we rallied in the 8th and looked to be on our way to a momentous victory. But we used Okajima in the first game for 1.2 innings and Papelbon for 1.1. Gagne came in to pitch 9th, a 1 run save opportunity. And he fell flat. Again.

What the fuck is wrong with Gagne? The best theory I have is an adjustment problem to not knowing exactly when he will pitch in a game. But that's just a theory. Whatever the problem is, it is killing us.

Gagne's pitched 7 innings for us, and has allowed 13 earned runs. He's allowed a run in 5 of his appearances. He's allowed a hit in each outing. He's allowed multiple hits in 4 of his outings. He has a 16.71 ERA with us, and a WHIP of 2.429. Opponents are hitting .459 off Gagne since he joined the Sox. He's got 2 holds, and 2 blown saves. He is killing us. If he doesn't turn this around, does he even belong on a playoff roster if we make it that far?

Maybe this is part of a trend that started when Gagne was in Texas. Starting on June 23rd, and ending June 24th, Gagne's ERA saw a 1 run increase. He allowed runs in 4 of 11 outings. 7 of those 11 outings were not "clean" innings. He also blew his first save of the season.

Anyway, Wily Mo Pena was traded to Washington for a player to be named later. This marks the end of the WMP experiment. He struck out 148 times in a Red Sox uniform in 432 at-bats.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but this trade of Pena seems to be too little too late. Last year, Pena hit .301 in 276 at-bats. He was showing some potential, with some power, and a decent OBP of .349. We signed Drew in the off-season, had Ellsbury already soaring up to AA, and still had Moss and Murphy in AAA. We didn't really seem to have much of a spot for Pena. Then again, with Drew's injury history, the Sox might have felt as though having a 4th outfielder with some pop would be a good idea.

Sometimes it just seems like the Red Sox lack a big picture, long term plan. I understand trading Arroyo when we did. His stock was high, and Pena seemed like a good opportunity to grab a talented hitter. Last year Pena showed some promise. But he was still a 4th outfielder on this team, any way you cut it. We'll get a player to be named later from the Nationals, but we could have gotten a lot more had we traded Pena before this season.

Doug Mirabelli was placed on the 15 day DL. The Red Sox purchased the contract of Kevin Cash from AAA Pawtucket and he will be the backup while Mirabelli mends his calf-strain. Mirabelli is not expected to be on the DL for long.

The Red Sox also brought up newly acquired Bobby Kielty. He essentially took the place of Wily Mo Pena.

Schilling against Weaver tonight.

CAPTAIN AND COCO

1-41. That was our record when trailing after the 8th inning. Now it's 2-41, which isn't much of an improvement. But let's be optimistic here. We've DOUBLED our 9th inning come from behind wins! Hooray!

Anywho, I find it funny that my last article criticised Jon Lester. A few articles ago, I criticised Gagne. So what happens? Lester throws a gem, and Gagne gets the win. Should I take responsibility for this a la Steinbrenner? I probably shouldn't, but I will. Your welcome, Sox fans.

Here's my favorite stat for Jon Lester's night: 13.9 pitches per inning. That's actually really good. For him, that's simply astonishing. This was Jon's best start in a Red Sox uniform since he went 8 scoreless against the Royals on July 18th of last year.

As of right now, our 5th starter is Lester, and probably will be for a few weeks, at least.

Gagne's inning wasn't perfect, but it might have been his best with us so far. He allowed a double, but also struck out the side. He threw 17 pitches, 11 of which were strikes.

Some fans at Fenway gave some boos to Gagne. He was also booed a bit at Camden Yards. I think it might be a bit too early to be booing him. This is what happens in Red Sox Nation. We fall in love with the likes of Butch Huskey, and Rico Brogna, who we expect nothing from. Then when we get a top of the line player and they perform less than perfectly, we start to dislike them.

For some reason, Manny Delcarmen struggles against the Devil Rays. He let up a hit and a pair of walks last night. He had that awful outing on the 29th in Tampa, allowing 3 runs. I don't know what it could be. Maybe because he's up against Tampa, he thinks he's back in AAA, so he eases up a little.

At the end of the game NESN did the dramatic "cut to nervous fans" series of shots in between pitches. However, I have to give props to the director for showing attractive female fans being nervous. I still hate the constant cutting to fans to see how some person in Box 86 is feeling, but having it be a cute girl makes it a fair compromise.

There was also some guy right behind home plate that was calling out Al Reyes' pitches before they were thrown. In Varitek's at-bat in the 9th, the guy yelled "Change-Up!" before the 1-2 pitch was delivered. It was a high changeup that Varitek took for ball 2. The next pitch, the fan called for the same thing. Lo and behold, Tek hit the changeup to right for a double. The guy behind home plate must have done his homework. Either that or Al Reyes pretty much throws changeup after changeup. I think it's the latter.

The next time we face Kazmir, I don't think David Ortiz should start. He's got that bad knee, and bad shoulder anyway. He's hitting .147 (5 for 34) against Kazmir. Manny is actually doing a little bit worse. He's hitting .139 off Kazmir (5 for 39). Using these numbers, the odds of either Manny or Ortiz getting a hit off of Kazmir in an inning are about 1 in 4. That means that neither one of them will get a hit off Kazmir 3 times out of 4 chances. For you hold em players out there, those are slightly better than the odds of hitting a gutshot straight draw on the turn or river. And if you don't know, I'll tell you that you shouldn't be chasing gutshot straight draws.

Having Ortiz and Manny hitting 3 and 4 against Kazmir is just a bad idea. He owns them, let's face it. Having the heart of your lineup having very little chance of doing anything is not the way to score runs.

Anyway, a nice heart warming win for the Sox, which was made even warmer by the Yankees loss to the Orioles. Daisuke goes tonight, looking for the sweep.

LAST CHANCE FOR LESTER?

The good news is that the Red Sox had a nice 3-0 win last night behind Tim Wakefield's near no-hitter. The not so good news is that Jon Lester is pitching tonight.

It's been 3 weeks since Lester returned to the Majors. His first start was one of the brightest moments in baseball this year. But since then, he's struggled mightily.

Lester's problem last year was the large number of pitchers he required to get through each inning. He threw an average of 18.6 pitches per inning last year. And although he finished with a 7-2 record, it came along with a 4.76 ERA. He also averaged a mere 5.4 innings per start last year.

This season, it's been more of the same for Jon. He's averaged 18.5 pitches per inning in his 4 starts. This is partially why he has averaged 5.3 innings per start. Another reason is his 6.43 ERA. His WHIP of 1.714 is bound to let up runs. In 2006, he had a WHIP of 1.648, but was able to pitch out of jams. This year, he hasn't been able to do it as efficiently.

The Red Sox are still 3-1 in games that Lester has started. But the Red Sox have scored 31 runs in those 4 games (7.75 runs a game).

The only game that Lester pitched well in was his first game in Cleveland. This was also a game played by an Indians team that had flown into Cleveland at 5 that morning. The Indians were also uninformed about Lester starting until the last minute.

The Yankees are 4 games behind us, folks. We cannot afford to have a 5th starter who gives the other team more of a chance to win than us. As of now, Lester hasn't really cost us that much. Tonight, he'll be up against the Devil Rays. We'll probably be able to score some runs to support him, so as long as he pitches a few decent innings, we'll probably win.

But his next scheduled start is against the Angels. They are not an easy team to score runs off of.

If Lester struggles in this start tonight, do we continue to put him on the mound every 5th day? Do we consider putting Tavarez back in the rotation? How about Devern Hansack, or Clay Bucholz?

My argument is this: we have other players who can start in Lester's place. I think if Lester struggles in this start, it will be clear that he does not belong in the rotation right now. In which case, it is important to replace him, considering we are in a pennant race. Now, if we had a 10+ game lead on New York, we could let Lester pitch and not really worry. But we don't. It's only 4 games. And we've got 6 games left against the Yankees. Do you really want Lester going out to the mound in Yankee Stadium?

COUGH, CHOKE GAG(NE)

Remember when Okajima pitched the 8th inning? Remember when Okajima faced righties and lefties? Has Hideki done something to lose time on the mound? Before Gagne allowed Okajima's runner to score today in Baltimore, his ERA was 0.98. It's been at or around 1.00 all season. He's got 3 wins, 4 saves, 19 holds, and only 2 blown saves. But he was used as a platooned set-up pitcher this afternoon, facing the lefties, then being lifted for Gagne to face the righties.

Gagne's troubles do not seem to be a statistical anomaly, just a bad stretch of games that coincidentally occurred during his first few games with the Sox. His pitches are inconsistent. Some pitches make hitters look like fools, some make him look foolish.

Gagne's been a closer since 2002. He's recorded 2 Holds in his career before coming to Boston. A Hold, by the way, is just like a Save, only the reliever doesn't finish the game. It's a stat for set-up men. Hideki Okajima has 20 Holds this season. Anyway, Gagne has 2 Holds since coming to the Red Sox, which matches his career total up until this point.

Gagne is used to coming to the ballpark knowing when he'll pitch. As a closer, he never knew if he would pitch in any given game, but he knew that if he did pitch, it'd be starting the 9th inning. Now he has no idea when he will pitch. And I think that's messing with him a bit. He's got a different routine now. He can't just sit around and wait for the 9th, he has to be ready to come into the 6th, the 7th, the 8th, and so on. He gets maybe 10 to 15 minutes of warning, at the most, before he goes in.

The new routine (or lack thereof) might not be the cause of Gagne's problems. Nevertheless, there is definitely a problem. This weekend series in Baltimore was a disgrace. The Orioles are a joke team. We had a good lead in every game, and we let it slip away twice. Our so-called "best bullpen in baseball" allowed 10 runs in 5.1 innings this weekend. Our starters allowed a mere 3 runs.

We're only 4 games ahead of New York, with 6 games head-to-head left. New York rolled through Cleveland this weekend, so they're not just beating up on bad teams. We need to start winning games here if we want to make the playoffs. And we need to resume winning games when we have a late lead.

We have a 3 game home series with the Devil Rays. It would be nice to sweep them. It might even be necessary that we sweep them.

SAUERBECK, I MEAN GAGNE, BLOWS IT

Eric Gagne has yet to throw a clean inning of relief for us. In fact, he's only thrown one inning of scoreless relief. Granted, he's only had 4 appearances with us, but with Texas he only had 5 outings in which he allowed a run. He also had 12 perfect outings with the Rangers before being traded. So with Texas, he had 29 scoreless appearances out of 34, and 12 perfect outings out of 34. With us, he has had 1 scoreless appearance and 0 perfect innings.

Last night, the so-called best bullpen in baseball collapsed...to the fucking Orioles.

We were down 1-0 in the top of the 8th with 2 outs. Bedard was mowing us down, as usual. But we finally got to him. CB Bucknor helped with a questionable ball called on Wily Mo Pena. Bucknor is, without a doubt, the most inconsistent and therefore the worst home plate umpire in baseball.

Anyway, Pena wound up hitting a single up the middle to tie the game at 1-1. Lugo had a bunt single to give us a 2-1 lead. Pedroia hit an infield single to load the bases. Ortiz came through with a basehit that knocked in a pair of runs. Manny finished the scoring with an RBI single. It was 5-1 going into the bottom of the 8th. With the so-called best bullpen in baseball, the game was over, right?

WRONG!!!

Gagne comes in to pitch the 8th. Just a question for Francona. I don't mind using Gagne here, but couldn't we have used someone besides a set-up pitcher? Couldn't we try Timlin here?

Anyway, Gagne allows a double, a single, and a walk to start off the inning. Yikes. Millar helped us out by grounding out, but then Huff hits a 2 run double. Now a 5-1 lead has disintegrated to a 5-4 lead.

Nevertheless, best bullpen in baseball. Right?

Okajima comes in and allows an RBI single. One of the few times Hideki has allowed an inherited runner to score. But he got out of the inning with the game still tied 5-5.

In the 9th, the Orioles doubled, sacrificed a man to 3rd, then hit a Sac Fly to knock him in and win the game.

What does it feel like as a position player to score 5 runs in one inning, take a good lead, hand it over to the best bullpen in baseball, and lose? I don't know, but it probably doesn't feel very good.

And what the hell is wrong with Gagne? He's been healthy all year. And at times with the Sox, he's looked sharp. But with pitchers, it's all about mistakes. Gagne is making far more mistakes than he has with Texas or the Dodgers.

The only thing I can think of is the move from closer to set-up. As a closer, your role is very simply defined. If your team has a 3 run or less lead in the 9th, then you go in. Also, if there's an emergency situation in the 8th, like bases loaded and 1 out, you might go in early.

But as a set-up pitcher, your role is a bit less defined. You come into games in the 6th, the 7th, the 8th, sometimes the 9th. You come in when your team has a 1 run lead, a 4 run lead, a 5 run lead. You come in when your team is tied. You come in when your team is down 1 or 2 runs. You pitch in the 10th inning. You come into the game in the middle of an inning. You come in for certain spots when the matchups with hitters are good.

Ballplayers are creatures of habit. When required to change their habits, things can go wrong. It takes some time to adjust to new routines. And it takes time to adjust to routines that are not as regular.

Gagne was acquired to make the end of our bullpen shorten games to 6 or 7 innings. As of now, he's cost us one game, and caused 2 other games we led to be closer than they should have. Is he the 2nd coming of Scott Sauerbeck? I don't think so. I think he'll adjust to his new role on his new team.

But if not, what do we do? If we're in the playoffs (that "if" is becoming more and more visible, it is definitely no longer "when we're in the playoffs"), and Gagne still hasn't adjusted, do you go to him in a 1 or 2 run game? I think if he hasn't settled in by then, he is not a viable set-up option.