at 
Monday September 17th, 7:07 PM
Tim Wakefield, RHP (16-10, 4.68) vs Dustin McGowan, RHP (10-9, 4.01)
Tuesday September 18th, 7:07 PM
Jon Lester, LHP (4-0, 4.86) vs A.J. Burnett, RHP (8-7, 3.42)
Wednesday September 19th, 7:07 PM
Clay Buchholz, RHP (3-0, 1.50) vs Jesse Litsch, RHP (5-9, 4.37)
Daisuke Matsuzaka will have his next start for the Red Sox pushed back.
Braves prospect Brandon Jones had a whirlwind weekend.
Blue Jays 2B Aaron Hill is closing in on some of Roberto Alomar’s club records.
Byung-Hyun Kim is pitching well for the Marlins, again.
The Devil Rays called up lefties J.P. Howell and Jeff Ridgway to help their bullpen.
Brian Lawrence will get a start for the Mets tonight.
Victor Zambrano will start for the Orioles this week.
Jimmy Rollins has seen plenty of action for the Phillies this season.
Yankees catcher Jorge Posada was feeling better after Saturday’s collision with Eric Hinske.
And because I can’t get enough of this video, here again is the collision between Hinske and Posada.
Oakland A’s outfielder Nick Swisher took a little exception to being hit with a Vincente Padilla pitch and charged the Rangers pitcher on the mound. It was Swisher’s third time being hit with a pitch during the weekend series.
It doesn’t appear that any punches were actually thrown.
Here is a look at Swisher charging the mound.
Derek Jeter’s 3-run homer in the top of the 8th spoiled an otherwise great outing by Curt Schilling as the Yankees held on to beat the Red Sox 4-3 in front of the 382nd consecutive sellout at Fenway Park. The score had been tied at 1-1 before the home run. Schilling had been locked up in a pitcher’s duel with Roger Clemens, who ended up going six innings. Mariano Rivera picked up his 28th save despite struggling and giving up a run in the 9th inning.
The local nine got on the board in the bottom of the 1st inning. Jacoby Ellsbury led off and reached on an error by Yankees left fielder Johnny Demon who dropped the fly ball. Clemens then got Dustin Pedroia to fly out. David Ortiz worked a walk off of Clemens and came around to score as my Red Sox MVP, Mike Lowell, drove him in with a single for a 1-0 lead. Clemens got J.D. Drew to fly out and the slumping Jason Varitek to ground out on a great diving stop by Doug Mientkiewicz.
Both pitchers were cruising right threw the lineups. Big Schill only had allowed two hits through four innings as only Jeter singled in the 1st and Mientkiewicz in the 3rd. In the even innings, 2nd and 4th, he set the Yankees down 1-2-3. After the hit by Lowell in the 1st, Clemens only allowed a walk to Julio Lugo in the 2nd through the first four innings.
Robinson Cano got the Yankees on the scoreboard in the 5th inning as he led off with a home run off Schilling to tie the game at 1. After the Cano hit, Schilling actually retired nine straight batters to get himself to the top of the 8th inning.
The Sox had chances to score in the 6th off of Clemens and in the 7th off of Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain, who took over for Clemens at the start of the inning. The chance to score in the 7th was started off by an Eric Hinske double to start the frame. The game was delayed for a few minutes as an idiot fan decided to run on the field and take Cano’s hat (more on this in the notes and musings section). After Cano got his cap back, Coco Crisp sacrificed Hinske over to third base. Joba reared back and got Lugo to strike out and Ellsbury to ground out to Mientkiewicz, who barely beat Ellsbury to the bag.
The Result
“May I have your attention! I have just been handed an important news bulletin…….”
The Patriots whip the Chargers, 38-14 at Gillette Stadium in front of a national television audience and improve to 2-0. The Chargers drop to 1-1.
You know the old saying, “You mess with the bull, you get the horns” well that applies here as LaDainian Tomlinson and the rest of the whiney cry baby Chargers got their asses kicked up and down the field tonight. This should show teams to just shut their mouths and play the game on the field.
Have fun on that long ass, late night plane ride back to California.
The Patriots battle cry. Camera’s? We don’t need no stinking camera’s. Folks this team is pretty damn good, in fact it may be the best team they’ve ever had and that’s saying a lot.
Scoring Plays
NE 1st Qtr Brady 7 yard pass to Watson – kick good, 7-0 Patriots
NE 1st Qtr Brady 23 yard pass to Moss – kick good, 14-0 Patriots
NE 2nd QTR Gostkowski 24 yard FG – 17-0 Patriots
NE 2nd Qtr Thomas 65 yard interception return – kick good, 24-0 Patriots
SD 3rd Qtr Rivers 1 yard pass to Neal – kick good, 24-7 Patriots
NE 3rd Qtr Brady 24 yard pass to Moss – kick good, 31-7 Patriots
SD 4th Qtr Rivers 12 yard pass to Gates – kick good, 31-14 Patriots
NE 4th Qtr Morris 3 yard run – kick good, 38-14 Patriots
Offensive Player of the Game
Tom Brady 25 of 31 for 279 yards, 3 touchdown passes and 1 interception.
Defensive Player of the Game
Roosevelt Colvin had an interception and forced a fumble as well as making 5 tackles and getting 2 sacks.
Turning Points of the Game
Rosevelt Colvin’s interception in the first quarter and his forced fumble later in the quarter set the tone and then Adalius Thomas’s 65 yard interception return for a touchdown broke the Chargers back.
According to NFL sources the New England Patriots have extended the contract of head coach Bill Belichick through the 2013 season. It is unknown what the financial terms are but it is widely speculated to be worth between $6 million and $8 million annually.
Belichick has been the Patriots coach since 2000 his career record between New England and Cleveland is 111-81. In addition he is 13-3 in the playoffs and has won 3 Super Bowls. Only Hall of Fame coaches Tom Landry, Don Shula, Joe Gibbs and Chuck Noll have more playoff wins than Belichick.
Tonight’s final Red Sox/Yankees game of the regular season brings us a pitching matchup of old (Curt Schilling) vs older (Roger Clemens). While nothing is official just yet, a Red Sox win more than likely locks up the AL East. Although I think it’s pretty safe to say that is already wrapped up.
I really hope that the retaliation business is over with now. Josh Beckett did his job in protecting Kevin Youkilis yesterday when he plunked Jason Giambi. The Red Sox are lucky as it is that Youk wasn’t seriously hurt when Chien-Mien Wang hit him. The Sox can ill afford an injury like that. Although with Clemens on the mound tonight, who knows what will happen.
Nonetheless, here is a look at tonight’s starting lineups courtesy of Steven Krasner from the Providence Journal.
Yankees
Damon lf
Jeter ss
Abreu rf
A. Rodriguez 3b
Posada dh
Cano 2b
Cabrera cf
Mientkiewicz 1b
Molina c
Clemens p
Red Sox
Ellsbury lf
Pedroia 2b
Ortiz dh
Lowell 3b
Drew rf
Varitek c
Hinske 1b
Crisp cf
Lugo ss
Schilling p
And in case you missed the video, here is the Eric Hinske and Jorge Posada collision once again. Press play to see the video.
Jim Thome picked a nice moment to get his 500th home run. With the score tied in the bottom of the 9th at 7-7 vs the Los Angeles Angels, Thome cranked his 500th home run as the Chicago White Sox walked off the field with a 9-7 win over the Angels.
Congratulations to Thome on the milestone.
Video of Jim Thome’s home run and the celebration afterwards.
Tonight brings an interesting dilemma for the residents of Red Sox Nation who happen to also be Patriots fans. At 8:05 PM on ESPN, the Red Sox will take on the New York Yankees. On NBC at 8:15 PM, the Patriots will kick off their game against the San Diego Chargers.
Both games have a lot to offer. For one it is the Red Sox vs Yankees. The other is the first game following “Spygate”. The Sox/Yanks game offers a pitching matchup of Curt Schilling vs Roger Clemens. The Pats vs Chargers game offers Tom Brady and Randy Moss vs LaDainian Tomlinson and Shawne Merriman.
One solution to overcome this problem would be to head your local sports bar in your area to catch both games. Another would be to set up a second television in your living room (this is what I have chosen to do). If you have a TV capable of doing a split-screen picture, that will also work for you.
If you are attending the Red Sox game tonight, you could also bring a small portable television as the game is being broadcast over the air on NBC. Unfortunately if your heading up to Foxboro and want to do the same thing, you can’t because ESPN is a cable channel and not broadcast over the air.
The folks at ESPN and NBC really need to get together and work a little better to serve the needs of the people up here in New England. It will be interesting to see what the ratings for both games end up being.
Despite this post number being 2246, this is actually the 2000th post in the history of Random Thoughts/SOX & Dawgs.
There have been a lot of design changes and even a name change to the blog during the course of these 2000 posts. Steve has joined me and has helped a great deal. Without him, we wouldn’t have made 2000 posts for a while.
So now we move forward and work towards 3000 posts.
Thanks to everyone for their support and please keep your comments coming.