Keep Lawton for walks, Sierra for power, and Womack for speed – but mostly keep them stapled to the pine. Bubba plays RF or CF everyday here on out.

Schilling’s not the only player in the news today:
Tiger Woods Signs $15 Million Deal To Endorse Alex Rodriguez
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40739

["All the glory of last fall has not blunted the repercussions of a new season in which the Sox have gone from ''cowboys" and ''idiots" to injury-ravaged survivalists."]

Oh woe is us, Red Sox Nation! “Injury Ravaged Survivalists” my ass. maybe they should look South at the team in the Brownx before they cry about injuries. Do the names Pavano, Mussina, Wright, Sheffield, Wang, Brown, and Giambi mean anything? These were all major players and pitchers who have spent some time injured during this season.

["...He remembers Ed Wade, his former general manager with the Phillies, once saying Schilling was ''a horse every fifth day and a horse's ass the other four."]

HAHA, I couldnt have said it better myself.

["And he will never forget some other detractors, including Pedro Gomez, a former writer for the Arizona Republic, who chose the day Schilling started Game 7 of the 2001 World Series to describe him as ''a con man, someone more intent on polishing his personal image by whatever means possible."]

Pedro Gomez is my hero!

That said, I’m not sure he deserves one. Fellow lefty Bubba Crosby, despite an 0 for 5 last night, is hitting .333/.333/.431 on the month and playing outstanding defense. Meanwhile, Lawton has been a poor second half performer over the past several years:

2002-2004

Pre-break: .268/.359/.446
Post-break: .233/.337/.342

Oops. Lawton’s a more valuable bat off the bench than Womack, as he can work a walk and hit a homer (he has two as a Yankee, one of which accounted for all of the runs in a Yankee win). But he falls short of even Womack in the field.

I’m taking faith in the fact that the Jays have done well against the Sox this year, and they seem fired up to play spoiler, but my real concern is Baltimore. Not so much on an intellectual level, the Yanks are clearly a better team, more just that nagging feeling that after so many losses, they’re just due to win, no matter who they’re playing.

Of course, what was that streak of consecutive wins we had against the Twins?

I don’t have the constitution for this…

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2005/09/27/painful_season_eats_at_schilling/

Must he always play the holy victim? What a self-serving asshole.

I wonder why people think last night was Embree’s last game. He’s been doing what he did all year and Torre keeps on coming back to him. My guess is that we’ll see him in Fenway as Torre will think given his experience in Boston he’ll be able to handle his old mates.

And a loss isn’t out of the question to the Os. Yeah, we handled Chen pretty well last week, but he’s still a pretty hot pitcher — didn’t allow more than 2 runs in eight of his previous nine starts (and 3 runs in the one other start in that stretch). Plus Chen’s numbers are better at home, I believe.

Even if Moose gives 6 1/3 or so good innings, that still leaves the 7th and 8th innings, which have never been breathe easy time around Yankeeland.

If we win today and tomorrow, then I start to look forward to the weekend. But only then.

I think that’s a load of crap. 40 ABs is way too small a sample to make a judgment on. With the Mets, only Lawton’s batting average and power numbers were down – but Shea depresses average and power, especially for lefties. He’ll probably be fine, if he were to get playing time.