Before we get into a quick game recap of today’s Boston Red Sox game against the Dodgers, Amalie Benjamin has some scoop for us on the Jonathan Papelbon contract situation as Paps has agreed to a record 1-year deal worth $775,000. It is the highest contract for a reliever with 2 years of service time.
Papelbon had wanted $900,000 while the Red Sox were initially offering him around $550,000. I had said yesterday give him around $750,000 to make both sides happy. The Red Sox also announced that everyone on the 40-man roster is now signed. They did not have to renew anyone as everyone agreed to the terms the Red Sox were offering.
The Red Sox took on the Joe Torre-led Los Angeles Dodgers today and early on the Red Sox regulars looked good. Unfortunately, the baby Sox pitchers didn’t fare so well as Hunter Jones and Lee Gronkiewicz gave up seven runs in the top of the 9th to give the Dodgers a 9-5 lead after trailing 5-2. The Red Sox tried to come back in the 9th as they loaded the bases but were only able to bring in a run and lost 9-6.
Tim Wakefield looked good today as he only gave up one hit in 3 innings of work. He walked 2 and struck out 3. Mike Timlin, David Aardsma and Bryan Corey were decent today as the trio combined to pitch 4 innings giving up 6 hits and no walks and 1 run. The run was allowed by Timlin who gave up a bomb to Matt Kemp.
On the offensive side of things, Sean Caseywas 2-for-3 with an RBI while Dustin Pedroia was 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs.
Next up for the Sox is a split-squad doubleheader with the Orioles and Twins. One team will be traveling to Ft. Lauderdale to take on the Orioles while the other split-squad team will try to clinch the Mayor’s Cup with Twins.
Julio Lugo wasn’t in the lineup again today but it looks as though he’ll be one of the regulars heading over to Ft. Lauderdale to play in the Red Sox split-squad game against the Baltimore Orioles. Coco Crisp will also be out for a few more days as well, not with the sore groin, but rather with a sore mouth as he underwent a root canal this morning.
As you can see in the picture, Torre and Terry Francona were able to finally share a hug, something that never happened when Torre was with the Yankees for obvious reasons. The two were and are great friends even though Torre managed the Yankees. With Torre in town, he reminisced about his visits to Boston. He shared a great story with the media.
“Fans here were always very kind to me. I’ll never forget in 1999 when I came back from my cancer surgery and decided I felt well enough to get back into it, I went up to Boston and it was funny, I said to [Don Zimmer] why don’t you take out the lineup card. Zim said, ‘No, you do it.’ I went out there with the lineup card, people gave me a standing ovation like I’ve never forgotten.
“People around town in Boston, it’s been a great place to go. The only place that’s stressful is Fenway. I have some stories that were nuts, the one that’s my favorite: We were playing a Sunday night game, coming down in the elevator, this man and his wife get on, and they’re staring at me. He says, ‘Are you Joe Torre?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘We’re going to beat you tonight.’ I said, ‘I hope not, but if that’s what happens, that’s what happens,’ and I know something’s coming next.
“He says ‘You know, if I had a choice of capturing Saddam Hussein or beating the Yankess, I would pick beating the Yankees,’ and with that the elevator door opened and he walked out and I just stood there ‘Ok, we know where we are.’”
Steve had a great post earlier this afternoon about the Red Sox national television broadcasts. As Steve pointed out, there will be times when the Red Sox are on TBS and ESPN while on NESN. For those of you who don’t live in the Boston television market and don’t receive NESN, you do have options to catch the Red Sox play.
The easiest solution would be to purchase the MLB Extra Innings Package. They provide up to 60 out-of-market games a week. You can also get DirectTV with the sports pack which will give you access to other teams besides the Red Sox as well. You can also also purchase a MLB.tv subscription to catch all of the games.
Of course, like Steve said, if you don’t live in the Boston television market, you can also check out the games on TBS and ESPN. While ESPN hasn’t released their weekly schedule other than the Sunday night games, they will be covering the regular season Red Sox games from Japan on ESPN2, which will also be broadcast on NESN.
- Wednesday, March 25 6:00 AM, Boston Red Sox @ Oakland A’s
- Thursday, March 26, 6:00 AM, Boston Red Sox @ Oakland A’s
TBS has released their schedule of games for April and May.
- Sunday, April 6 1:00 PM, Boston Red Sox @ Toronto Blue Jays
- Sunday, May 18 1:30 PM, Milwaukee Brewers @ Boston Red Sox
Ok I want to offer a correction/explaination here on Ian’s terminology. The blackout of ESPN and TBS games of which the Red Sox are playing and can be seen on NESN is more than the “BostonTV Market”. It is the “Red Sox Home TV Market” as set by MLB which is most of New England. So if a a non-Sunday game is on ESPN or the Sox are on TBS on a Sunday afternoon and for whatever reason you do not have have NESN and you live in the “Red Sox Home TV Market” you will not be able to receive the game.
This has nothing to do with the actual Red Sox or the networks carrying the game, it is per the MLB broadcasting contract which is truly a screwed up mess when it comes to team tv and radio territories. A lot of it is done to protect those broadcast rights of the TV/Cable Stations/Radio Stations that pay dearly to carry those games and try to recoup the fees through advertising rates/sponsors.
I hope I have thoroughly confused all of our readers with this info. If you have any questions leave them here or email me: steve[at]soxanddawgs[dot]com and I will try my best to answr them or get you the answer. Just make sure you tell me what state or city yo live in so I have some idea as to where you fall.
Thanks. Even after you explained in the email to me, I still couldn’t get it right. LOL.
You will see in the above post I went back and edited it to include my email and if readers have questions Ill try to answer them best I can.
From Gordon Edes:
Second-year player Dustin Pedroia came to terms on a $457,000 contract (minimum is $390,000 in 2008). Other notables signing include (Jon Lester $421,500), Manny Delcarmen ($421,000), Jacoby Ellsbury ($406,000), and Clay Buchholz ($396,000).
every year i receive a mlb.com subscription for my birthday and since the subscription is paid in ct. i have to call mlb.com to tell them that the subscription is a gift and i’m out west where the games shouldn’t be blacked out. every year when the season starts i’ll go to watch the sox and it will say blacked if there playing at home. glad to see everyone got paid. i think paps should be happy w/ his raise.
That’s strange though because last year I had the MLB.tv package and I gave my brother my sign-in information and he was able to watch the Red Sox games out in Hawaii where he lives. But anytime I would try to use it, it wouldn’t let me watch the games.
I’d have to think Paps is happy. While he didn’t get what he want, he did make more than any other closer has with the same amount of service time.
sometimes it would happen later in the season too. i’m not sure what nesn has in its contract because some of the games i couldn’t watch at all.i also had problems with certain met games too. if that happens to you this season call the 800# and say your in hawaii and see if the let you watch the game.it also seems the more people logging on to the games the system seems to freak out sometimes. but no complains here, i can watch most of the sox games and check out other teams too.
From what my brother was saying, he thinks they do it based on where your IP address is located. But from what you said, I’m not so sure.
I did notice a few times last year that they did the games on the road. I actually don’t plan on getting it this year since I still have NESN and now have it in HD. I got it to help get some video and now that I have the DVR, I can do it that way.
It was nice to see some of the other teams plus it’s been great for spring training games as well that aren’t on TV like most of the games for the Sox next week.
Keenan did you have mlb.tv or extra innings? It sounds like you had extra innings (available through your your cable or satellite provider) you do not get all the Sox games or all the Mets games and when you do you may not get the NESN or SNY feeds but the feeds from the opponents television provider.
mlb.tv is the computer based package.