With the Yankees sitting 13.5 games out of first place and trailing in the season series with the Red Sox (6-3 Sox), this is a big weekend for the Yankees. Could it spell the end of a lot of people’s jobs on Monday or will it be status quo? Only way to find out is to watch the games this weekend.

With that being said, here are your lineups for tonight’s game, courtesy of the very pretty and talented Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe.

Red Sox

1. Julio Lugo, SS
2. Kevin Youkilis, 1B
3. David Ortiz, DH
4. Manny Ramirez, LF
5. J.D. Drew, RF
6. Mike Lowell, 3B
7. Coco Crisp, CF
8. Doug Mirabelli, C
9. Dustin Pedroia, 2B

SP – Tim Wakefield

Yankees

1. Johnny Damon, DH
2. Derek Jeter, SS
3. Hideki Matsui, LF
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Jorge Posada, C
6. Robinson Cano, 2B
7. Bobby Abreu, RF
8. Josh Phelps, 1B
9. Melky Cabrera, CF

SP – Chien-Ming Wang

Mike McDermott of the ProJo SoxBlog gives you how each team is doing against the starters for tonight’s games.

Yankees vs. Tim Wakefield
-Melky Cabrera, 1 for 3 (.333)
-Derek Jeter, 28 for 87 (.322), 3 HR
-Josh Phelps, 8 for 25 (.320)
-Johnny Damon, 16 for 51 (.314), 2 HR
-Bobby Abreu, 5 for 18 (.278)
-Robinson Cano, 7 for 27 (.259), 1 HR
-Alex Rodriguez, 17 for 67 (.254), 6 HR
-Jorge Posada, 14 for 59 (.237), 3 HR
-Hideki Matsui, 7 for 43 (.163), 2 HR
-Doug Mientkiewicz, 1 for 19 (.053)

Red Sox vs. Chien-Ming Wang
-Manny Ramirez, 11 for 19 (.579), 2 HR
-Eric Hinske, 10 for 19 (.526), 2 HR
-David Ortiz, 10 for 22 (.455), 2 HR
-Kevin Youkilis, 6 for 15 (.400)
-Alex Cora, 5 for 16 (.313), 1 HR
-Coco Crisp, 4 for 14 (.286)
-Doug Mirabelli, 2 for 7 (.286)
-Julio Lugo, 6 for 24 (.250)
-Mike Lowell, 3 for 18 (.167)
-J.D. Drew, 0 for 3
-Dustin Pedroia has never faced Wang.

That’s all for now from the shores of Lake Williams in beautiful Lebanon, CT.

In a collaborative effort with Sooze from Babes Love Baseball, we are presenting to you the Rookie Card Playoffs. Check out these current players’ rookie cards and pick your favorite. The top vote-getter of each bracket will make it to Round Two and so on, until there is only one Rookie Card Champion of the World.

Jason Giambi smoked, snorted and injected the competition in the (Alleged) Juicer Round of the Rookie Card Playoffs with a 52% victory over come-backer Barry Bonds, who notched 36% and Gary Sheffield, who managed only 7% of the tallies. Sammy Sosa came in with 4% and Pudge Rodriguez didn’t get one single vote. Not one.

This brings us to the fourth set of the first round with Before They Were Managers. Check out these old farts’ rookie cards and choose your favorite. As always, your favortism can be based on absolutely anything. Ump-bumping? Base-throwing? Spitting and frothing at the mouth? Screaming pycho-babble? Career ejections? The sky’s the limit.

The Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League held a contest a while back to find all the Bob L. Head’s in the country and have them compete for their very own bobblehead doll.

The finals came down to the three in the picture above and wouldn’t you know it, Bob L. Head won. Well the one from Maquoketa, Iowa did. He won with 51% of the vote, while Evansville, IN’s own Bob L. Head got 34% AND Bob L. Head from Vallejo, CA brought up the rear with 15%.

Bob L. Head will receive his bobblehead doll on August 18th when they hold the promotion.

There’s nothing like waking up this morning and seeing AROD on the front covers again of the main two NY tabloids. But before we get there, let’s just refresh what’s been happening in this week’s episode of the Days of Our Lives with AROD.

This came with the DJ thumbs up.

Even Manny reacted to it.

[Editors note: The parts about Manny and Jeter are for comic relief only. The pictures don’t reflect what they think because they haven’t commented publicly on the situation.]

You wake up and you go out to your door to get your morning NY tabloids and you’re greeted with this.

and this

So you wake up this morning, you put your robe on and head out to your front stoop to pick up the daily tabloids and this is what greets you.

This has to be a record for being on the cover of the NY tabloids for a week.

Head over to the NY Post for the juicy details about the Playboy wannabe and the NY Daily News to find out the news on why AROD was seen with his wife.

Welcome to Boston, Cynthia and Alex. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long weekend for you two.

UConn’s very own Sue Bird, now of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, made the Best Damn Sports Show Period‘s list of Top 50 Beauties coming in at #46.

Personally I think she was too low on the list and should have been at least a top 20 or 25. The only requirement was that they had appeared at some point of the Best Damn Sports Show Period.

Some of the other Beauties in no particular order included Heather Mitts, Natalie Gulbis, Brandy, Meg Tilly, Brooke Burke, Danica Patrick, Jessica Alba, Gabriel Union, Jennie Finch, Shannon Elizabeth, Denise Richards, Ali Landry and Elisha Cuthbert.

It’s bad enough that AROD did such an asinine thing last night and call for the ball, then you wake up see his mug on the front cover of the New York tabloids for something totally different. So let’s refresh your memory.

This came with the DJ thumbs up.

Even Manny reacted to it.

[Editors note: The parts about Manny and Jeter are for comic relief only. The pictures don’t reflect what they think because they haven’t commented publicly on the situation.]

You wake up and you go out to your door to get your morning NY tabloids and you’re greeted with this.

All I can say is this. I can’t wait til tomorrow to see what AROD has done next. Head over to the NY Post for the latest on where AROD is putting his parts.

Once in a while here at SOX & Dawgs, we like to step out into something different. Being a fan of Zach Braff and Scrubs, I find this video pretty funny, in a non-gay way of course.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_gebFHutLw[/youtube]

Just about 18 hours after being on the front page of the New York Post, AROD may very well find himself there again. Check out this little tidbit from Rotoworld.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hYZA_s_E8M[/youtube]

First the slapping the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove in the 2006 ALCS. and now this. Whatever happened to Yankee pride and playing the game the way it was meant to be played? Johnny Damon’s quote sums up things,

“I wasn’t sure that was allowed. If it is, maybe we’ll keep on doing it.”

I can tell you one thing, teams don’t forget things like this. I am sure there will be some sort of retribution when Toronto comes into New York on July 17th for a 4 game set.

On a personal note, I think Howie Clark is the only player still playing from the team I worked for back in 1994 in Albany, GA. The good ol’ Polecats.

On a night when Daisuke Matsuzaka had far from his good stuff, he struggled into the 6th inning, giving up six runs and 12 hits to a potent Cleveland line up as the Sox ended up losing to the Tribe 8-4.

Matsuzaka was chased with two out in the fifth when Grady Sizemore drilled a two run homerun into the Indians bullpen to bring home the 3rd and 4th runs of the inning for the Erie Warriors.

After working out of a first inning bases loaded jam by getting old friend Trot Nixon to hit into a twin killing, the Sox staked Matsuzaka to a 1-0 lead in the second. J.D. Drew reached on a lead off error by second baseman Josh Barfield and moved to second on a wall ball double by a hustling Mike Lowell. Drew would score when Jason Varitek grounded out to Ryan Garko at first, moving Lowell to third. Paul Byrd settled down and got Alex Cora to fly out to shallow center and Dustin Pedroia to pop out to Jhonny Peralta at short to strand Lowell and end the inning.

After the first, Matsuzaka seemed to settle in and got into a rhythm retiring 11 of the next 13 hitters including Sizemore, Nixon and Peralta on strikeouts. The only base runners were on a second inning single by Josh Barfield and a Garko double in the fourth.

After dinging a very expensive camera Manny Ramirez lead off the fourth with a double into the right field corner. He then advanced to third when Byrd bounced one off of Kelly Shoppach’s shinguard for a wild pitch and Manny would come around to score the Sox 2nd run on Drew’s RBI ground out to Peralta. Lowell popped out to short, Varitek ripped a double down the rightfield line that bounced into the seats but Cora would fly out to Sizemore in center to end the inning with the Sox leading 2-0.

The Tribe got to Matsuzaka in the fifth inning. With one out, former Sox farmhand Shoppach singled to center and Sizemore followed with a double down the line in left sending Shoppach to third. Casey Blake grounded out to Cora scoring Shoppach. Travis Hafner followed with double into the gap in center bringing in Sizemore to tie the contest at 2-2. Garko then struck out to end the threat and leave a runner in scoring position.

The Tribe took over and broke open a tie game with a four run sixth inning. Nixon doubled to right, advanced to third on a fly out to center. David Dellucci then doubled high off the wall in left breaking the 2-2 tie as Nixon scored. Barfield singled, scoring Dellucci to make it 4-2 Indians. Shoppach singled to left but Manny threw out Barfield at second when he rounded the bag too far. It was a good thing because then Sizemore took Daisuke deep for a 6-2 lead for the Tribesman of the Cuyahoga and ending the rookies night. Kyle Snyder came in to walk Blake then got Hafner to fly out and end the frame.

After retiring 6 in a row Byrd started to run into some trouble in the home half of the seventh. Varitek, Cora and Pedroia had back to back to back singles to start the inning and load the bases. Pedroia’s single chased Byrd after 6 plus innings leading 6-2. Coco Crisp came up facing the new Indians pitcher Tom Mastny with bags juiced bringing the crowd back into the game. Blake then made a great catch on a foul pop up leaning into the Cleveland dugout to retire Crisp. That brought up Youkilis, the hottest hitter in Red Sox Nation, but he ended up striking out swinging for the second out. Aaron Fultz was brought in to face David Ortiz with the bases loaded and two out and after a nine-pitch battle he lined out softy to Blake as the Indian bullpen got out of the jam.

Shoppach got his third of four hits on the night when he lead off the 8th and greeted JC Romero with a solo shot into the Monster Seats for a 7-2 Tribe lead. Sizemore walked, Blake whiffed but Sizemore stole second on the strike out. Hafner than hit a ground rule double into the seats along the leftfield line to score Sizemore and increase the lead to 8-2. Romero was able to get Garko and Nixon to ground out to end the eighth with Hafner stranded at third.

The Red Sox got a few runs back in the eighth when Ramirez walked and got forced at second by Drew on a fielders choice. Drew then came around to score when Lowell hit his 10th HR of the year into the Monster Seats to cut the lead to the final 8-4 deficit.

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When Manny was asked about the AROD situation, he had this expression.

Manny didn’t say anything about the whole AROD saga. I made that up.

But today is Manny’s 35th birthday. Put one on the Mass Pike for us Manny.

[Editor’s note: Other than it being Manny’s birthday, nothing else in this post is true]