The time is now, and other thoughts...

The Rays are getting dinged up - Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford, the team's two biggest offensive threats just went on the DL. Crawford is likely done for the year, and, with a broken wrist, it would be surprising to see Longoria back before the middle of September. The Red Sox, meanwhile, just finished a 4-3 road trip, winning two of three against the bottom of the barrel Royals, and taking two of four from the wild card hopeful White Sox.

What should be encouraging is that the Sox outscored their two opponents 38 - 22. Their big issue on the road this year has been scoring runs.

Jed Lowrie is making if very difficult for the Sox brass to justify keeping Julio Lugo. In fewer than half the at bats, Lowrie is on pace to have 105 RBI's over the course of a 500 at bat season. Lugo is on pace for 42 over the same number of at bats. Add to that the fact that Lugo leads the team with 16 errors, six more than Mike Lowell in only 11 more total chances, and eleven more than fellow middle infielder Dustin Pedroia (in 256 fewer chances than Pedroia), Lugo may have played his way into being a very expensive back up.

On a separate note -

This weekend I finally got to see the Pats-Ravens pre-season game, and here are some of the thoughts regarding that...

Matt Cassel didn't look as bad as his stats line. He wasn't good, but he had at least two completions dropped on him. If he doesn't improve, in over the next couple of games, I think he's gone by opening day.

The Pats brain-trust needs to hope that Brady doesn't sustain any major injuries.

More than Cassel, Chad Jackson has to perform. Jackson was outperformed by Matt Slater, CJ Jones, and even safety Ray Ventrone at the wide-out position.

I don't know that the Ventrone experiment is going to land him on the roster or not, but it's going to be fun to watch during the pre-season.

The team's young linebackers looked good - Jerrod Mayo had a great hit, standing up and stopping the Ravens running back at the line of scrimmage, Shawn Crable was very active, and even Pierre Woods, who really needs to show improvement this year, looked good coming off the edge. If I were to base the linebackers on what I saw in that game, all three of those guys are making the final roster.

Lamont Jordan looked good, but it was mostly against competition that he should look good against. I would like to see more of him against the first and second stringers.

I would like to see less of Billy Yates pretending to be a turnstile at right guard.

I would like to see better pressure from the front four on defense.

Anti-climax

The Sox spit the bit against the Tigers...well, Julio Lugo did, and to some extent, so too did Papelbon. While the lion's share of the blame rests with Lugo's error, Pap's cannot be held blameless. Lugo's error was not responsible for the men on base who crossed the plate. Pap's was.

By the same token, maybe the Sox get out of Detroit with a 9-8 win instead of a 10-9 loss if Lugo doesn't screw up at a crucial moment.

White-Walshed...

Former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh is turning over eight tapes. None, reportedly, are a taping of the Rams practice before the 2001 Super Bowl.

The most interesting item that came up was the denial issued by Walsh's lawyer -

"Mr. Walsh has never claimed to have a tape of the walkthrough," Levy told The New York Times. "Mr. Walsh has never been the source of any of the media speculation about such a tape. Mr. Walsh was not the source for the Feb. 2 Boston Herald article."

From the Herald -

“Mr. Walsh has never been the source of any of the media speculation about such a tape,” Levy added. “Mr. Walsh was not the source for the Feb. 2 Boston Herald article.”

He might not have been the original source, but he didn't, until now, deny having a tape of the walk through. And he certainly fueled the story with intimations that he knew more than what was previously disclosed and that he had evidence in his possession that was damning to the Patriots.

This raises any one of a number of potential questions -

• Does said tape really exist?
• If so, who has it?
• Why did Walsh wait until now to issue the denial?
• Did Walsh really tape a Rams practice (the lawyer didn't actually deny that)?
• If he did and claims in his meeting with Roger Goodell, without the evidence of said taping, what is Goodell's recourse? What's Walsh's credibility?
• Where do the Patriots go from here (in regards to the Herald story)?
• What is the Herald's recourse in regards to their "unnamed source"?

Let's face it, here are some of the scenarios that could still play themselves out -

• The Patriots, fearing the report was indeed accurate, rattles their sabers and then let's the story die out.
• The Kraft Family sues the pants off the Boston Herald. The Herald saves face, and redirects the Pats' ire by doing the only thing available to them - naming the source.
• The Herald issues an apology to the Patriots, and performs its own investigation into John Tomase's story and the source.

Now, the really interesting thing to note, Chris Mortensen of ESPN mentioned that a number of media outlets, including ESPN, pursued these allegations for months before the Boston Herald reported on it,"and it just didn't meet the standard in terms of" reporting the story.

For many this was expected to resolve the whole Spygate thing. For some, they will lock onto the lawyer-speak and believe, no matter what evidence to the contrary comes out, that the Pats taped the Rams' walkthrough. For others, this won't be done until the situation with the Boston Herald resolves itself.

Still a long way from a climax.

Rooked

On a night when Julio Lugo did everything he could to give the game away defensively, and JD Drew reverted for the first seven innings to being, well, JD Drew, Boston's rookies came up big. The AL East champions saw the rookie tandem from the far East, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima, combine for seven innings and two earned runs.

Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury combined for three of Boston's eleven runs, with Pedroia knocking in five. In the seventh Ellsbury made a play on a ball hit to the triangle in center that normal mortals wouldn't have been able to run down, and then one helluva diving catch for the first out of the ninth. Way for the rooks to stand up and be counted.

Realistically, though, this game may well have turned on the call of a certain third base coach that might find himself collecting unemployment in Cleveland this winter.

Kenny Lofton likely would have scored from second on the hit to left in the top of the seventh inning, tying the game up. There's no telling how that might have changed the dynamic of the late innings when the Sox came to bat. That's the kind of mistake that gets coaches fired.

Instead of a tie game, the wheels fell off in the eighth as the Indians imploded.

Adjusted...

For those keeping track - through seven games Tom Brady has 27 touchdowns. The new adjustment for the pace he's on? 61 for the season.

He's gotta slow down, right?

Thoughts that hit on a lazy Sunday in Maryland...

Those that know me well know that I would rather be talking about what players are doing on the field, or when off the field, what they are doing to help - Saints defender Charles Grant buying the Saints administrative assistants lunch, Drew Bledsoe and his foundation, the work many Boston area pro-athletes do with the Jimmy Fund. There's a lot that many big-leaguers have to offer to the community, and many do.

Then there's what's happening now.

With Vick.

After today I am going to make an effort to stay away from this story as much as possible considering what the media saturation is going to be like. However, I wanted to touch on a few quick things that have not yet come up.

If indeed Vick is found guilty he could miss up to seven seasons, assuming he doesn't play this year. Or he could receive a suspended sentence, probation, or a number of other options. Assuming he remains free after a guilty verdict, whether on probation, or for some other reason, this opens up a whole new can of worms for the NFL and the Falcons.

The studies will start coming out of the wood-work. The studies that PETA, the SPCA, and every mental-health professional in the united states has on file that people who abuse animals are five times more likely to abuse people at some point in their life. Or people will begin creating psychological profiles of Vick based on passages like the following:

In 88 percent of 57 New Jersey families being treated for child abuse, animals in the home had been abused. An unpublished study by Frank Ascione of Utah State University found a strong pattern suggesting that child abuse victims are more likely to harm animals.

Ascione found that 25.5 percent of physically abused children were cruel to animals, 13.2 percent of sexually abused children were cruel to animals, and 34 percent of both physically and sexually abused children were cruel to animals, while only
4.7 percent of non-abused children were cruel to animals.

To put it bluntly, Vick can kiss endorsements goodbye if he is found culpable in any way, shape, or form - and with black community leaders like Al Sharpton and hip-hop mogul Bill Simmons publicly siding with PETA and calling for corporate America to cancel those deals, it's likely to happen anyway.

Just 'cause he was a running back doesn't mean he has to stick his foot in his mouth...

But Emmitt Smith went and did it anyway. I won't reprint Smith's statements, but he said, in essence, that Vick was probably going to end up taking the fall for everybody else because he was the biggest fish in the pond.

I don't know how they sounded when he said them, but the way they read comes off as a"Vick's being railroaded by the government" sort of sentiment. Of course it couldn't be because they believe that Vick could be bankrolling the dogfighting ring, could it? No...the money behind it couldn't be coming from the athlete with the $130 million contract.

Anyone else wondering if Emmit Smith's ESPN career will be over before it began? Come to think of it - with the way they're going, Smith is fine...it's not like he has sexually harassed any of the people behind the scenes.

Will the real slim shortstop please stand up?

Over the last six weeks the Red Sox have gone through their toughest stretch of the season. I'm not talking about scheduling - I'm talking about hitting.

They have been brutal, leaving an inordinate number of men on base. The clutch hitting has been non-existent. Baseball's best three-four combo in the game has been mediocre, and Kevin Youkilis - a big reason why the offense got along with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz hitting like...well, Dave Magadan - has five hits in his last 31 at-bats over the last ten games. His average has dipped from .324 to .310 during that time.

However, following three losses, the Sox had three wins. Mostly due to timely hitting from the team's lightweights - Coco Crisp, and Julio Lugo.

Lugo has been something of a freak, and it's time for the real Julio to stand-up.

In spite of hitting below the Mendoza line for a greater portion of the season than any regular has the right to, somehow Lugo is tied for fourth on the team in RBI's with 47, and leads the team in stolen bases, in spite of the fact that his .291 on base percentage ranks him ahead of only Wily Mo Pena and Doug Mirabelli among position players on the team.

The freakish thing really is the last ten games, after he broke out of a slump that felt much too long. Over the last week and a half's worth of games, Lugo is 16 of 39 (.410), 7 RBI, and a grand slam.

To put that in perspective - Ortiz over the same time frame - 14 of 40 (.350), 9 RBI, and two homers.

Will the real Sox shortstop please stand up? I'd like to know what to expect for the second half.