PROPS TO JACK CUST who got a 95 mph fastball from Bobby Jenks, let it travel deep into the strike zone, and turned on it with sudden-ness.  He socked it hard and far, off the Green Monster.  The blow decided the ballgame.

It was a super-compact swing.  Inside out, 95 off the hands.  He squared it so cleanly you'd have thought he was an LPGA golfer.

An encouraging sign.   Don't bust Cust to dust just because Bobby Jenks lacks HOF credentials.  Jenks started Cust off with a change-speed and then on pitch 2, Jenks nailed him with a 95 jam pitch on the hands.  Two excellent pitches, but Cust beat him anyhow.

.

Mike Schmidt had 6 homers in 42 games the year he quit midseason, and over-the-hill players get some nice hits here and there, so let's not declare that one AB matters and that the previous 100 AB's don't matter.

But it was nice to see Cust put a charge into one, and I'll cheerfully take more, if there are any to come.  If Jack Cust were to start hitting, this offense would really take off.  Up to "pesky."

.

SLOPS TO BRANDON LEAGUE who looked terrible for two hitters.  For some weird reason, it looked like he'd been out ten days.

He was throwing 94 mph, real wild, falling behind ... the leadoff guy, the SS, hit a ball 400+ feet into that triangle in C/RF and League lucked out.

Third hitter, Drew, League was back, 98 mph and hitting his spots.

League has been pitching like an elite closer this month, we sez.  We don't sez he's a Certified Elite Closer.

.

SLOPS TO CHRIS RAY WHO WAS UP IN THE 7th.  Vargas was over 100 pitches and if he hadn't happened to get the Red Sox quickly, Ray would have been the ballgame.

The M's dodged a bullet and walk off the field on a cloud, but two men get on against Vargas and they walk off the field with a sick feeling in their stomachs. 

Something's gotta be done there, kind sirs.

.

PROPS TO JAMEY WRIGHT, who secured the actual save... here, let's split this out.

.

PROPS TO CHEMISTRY IN BASEBALL.  Baker points out that the M's 8-4 win streak began precisely the day after Wedge "reamed them out" in Kansas City.

SSI thinks that such a moment can serve as a "re-set" button for a team.  It helps them believe that they've started freshly, that now things will be different, that now their efforts will start being rewarded.

It works sometimes, and not just superstitiously by chance.  Which is why all pro coaches do it.

.

SLOPS TO THE UMPS who outrageously took a strikeout away from Jason Vargas right in front of the top of the Red Sox order, giving the Sox #9 hitter a walk.

The Red Sox went on to score runs 2 and 3 after two (actually three) were out.

I was also maddened by a bogus 3-2 strike call on Justin Smoak -- it was a good 8-12 inches inside.  Smoak legitimately had to lean out of the way; the ump rung him up, with gusto.

.

SLOPS TO THE SECOND-GUESSING OVER CLEANUP OLIVO.  As Geoff Baker pointed out, Olivo's LD% had been way over 20% .... so Eric Wedge ignored the non-saber AVG and managed off the saber LD%.

For this, he took flak from sabes, but it was a creative call that kicked off the current offensive avalanche (or, the current offensive mini-mudflow).

.

It's one thing to say that Hitter A is better than Hitter B in the long run.  But isn't a manager allowed intuit that Hitter B is better this week?  Is that the point we've reached in sabermetrics, that the players are truly little more than Strat-O cards?

Do we have near-perfect measurements of baseball players?  There are LH/RH splits.  What about the splits for hangovers, the splits for a guy who just got great news about his family, the splits for a guy whose hamstring problem just cleared up?

Eric Wedge put Miguel Olivo in the cleanup spot and pulled his team out of a power dive.  I'd think that was a lot closer to being graded "genius" than being graded "ignorant."

Anyway, this ballclub has gone from 5-12 to 12-15 in a real hurry.  Wedge is doing a grrrrreat job.

.

PROPS TO THE LUCK OF THE DRAW.  The Sox' rotation and their ERA+:

• Lester 167
• Beckett 160
• Buchholz 79
• Lackey 67
• Matsuzaka 104

We hit our 1-in-5 mathematical chance and missed both of their hot guys.  If the Sox don't figure out Doogie tomorrow, they're facing Felix Hernandez to avoid the .... sweeeeeep.  

Now these pokeys know how Detroit felt.  You can't stop the Seattle Mariners, you can only hope to contain them.

.

PROPS TO STEALING A TOUGH GAME WITH THE BACK OF YOUR ROTATION, which in our case consists of one pitcher.  Now it's back to the aces.  

I like baseball.  It makes me happy.

.

Be Afraid,

Dr D