Red Sox expand lead, Yanks lose & try to cheat the system

[Rock Strongo]

my boy lackey

7IP
8H
2ER
0BB
12K's

dominant

 

[Rock Strongo]

would this be considered fraud?





Source: A-Rod wary of Yankees



Updated: June 27, 2013, 12:37 AM ET
By Wallace Matthews | ESPNNewYork.com


NEW YORK -- Alex Rodriguez believes the New York Yankees do not want him to return this season, and perhaps ever again, a source told ESPNNewYork.com.
According to the source, Rodriguez thinks the Yankees are deliberately slowing his return to their active roster in the hope they can have him declared medically unfit to play this season, enabling them to recoup 80 percent of his $28 million salary through insurance.



"Alex thinks there's something really off about this situation," the source said. "Here we have a doctor declaring him fit to play. You think they would be happy about that."
Instead, Rodriguez's tweet Tuesday night -- "Visit from Dr. [Bryan] Kelly over the weekend, who gave me the best news -- the green light to play games again!" -- was met with an angry response from Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, who told ESPNNewYork.com's Andrew Marchand, "You know what, when the Yankees want to announce something, [we will]. Alex should just shut the f--- up."
According to the source, Rodriguez felt the GM's response was "over the top," and cemented his belief that the Yankees have been looking for ways to rid themselves of the 10-year, $275 million contract they gave him after the 2007 season.
"Alex thinks it's all about the insurance," the source said. "How could it not be?"
According to the source, Rodriguez believes the Yankees are delaying his return hoping time will run out for him to come back this season, or that Major League Baseball will hand down a lengthy suspension for his alleged involvement with Miami-area anti-aging clinic Biogenesis and its founder, Anthony Bosch, who is suspected of supplying numerous major leaguers with illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
Both Cashman and team president Randy Levine strongly denied that the Yankees would prefer A-Rod not return to play this season.
"False and false," Cashman said to both theories. "He's not being slowed down or anything. Make no mistake; if Alex Rodriguez is healthy, we want him, and I want him, playing third base for us yesterday. We're clearly a better team with him. We're taking every step in the process, but we can't have him unless he's ready. Period."
Added Levine: "Nobody wants to delay him. The sooner he comes back, the better. If he comes back healthy, he'll really help us to be a better team, and that's what this is all about."
Yankees spokesman Jason Zillo said in a statement that Rodriguez, Cashman and Levine spoke Wednesday evening.
"Alex called Cashman around 5:30 [p.m.], Cashman got Randy Levine on the phone, and they spoke for close to 30 minutes," the statement said. "It was a constructive, healthy conversation. Everybody is on the same page. And we're all going to communicate and work together to get Alex back as quickly as possible. Everyone fully understands the protocol and processes in place. We're all back on track."
As to the allegation that the team is delaying in hopes that MLB will sideline A-Rod before the Yankees determine he is ready to return, Cashman said, "We have no knowledge of where the Biogenesis stuff is except for what I read in the papers. Baseball's in charge of this stuff. We're not a part of that process. They're not keeping us in the loop or making us aware of anything. For us, it's business as usual until they tell us otherwise."

 

[Rock Strongo]

guess who has the best run differential in the AL, and second best in MLB only to the cardinals?

yup, you guess it

the red sox

+78

the yankees have officially gone NEGATIVE at a -3

 

[Rock Strongo]

Aaron hernandez waking up in a cell, probably crying

 

[redseat]

Alex, of course the Yankees want nothing to do with you. It's pretty obvious after Cashman drills you for tweeting! Take it like a man and move on you whinny little Bit^&

John Lackey - Best performance of all his career last night?

 

[Rock Strongo]

Alex, of course the Yankees want nothing to do with you. It's pretty obvious after Cashman drills you for tweeting! Take it like a man and move on you whinny little Bit^&

John Lackey - Best performance of all his career last night?

best of his sox career i think

 

[redseat]

best of his sox career i think

Yeah I do believe so. Bigger question: Can he continue to do this? Or was think a one time thing?

 

[Rock Strongo]

Yeah I do believe so. Bigger question: Can he continue to do this? Or was think a one time thing?

hes been our best pitcher not named clay

never thought id say that

i hated the signing from the moment it was whispered

 

[redseat]

hes been our best pitcher not named clay

never thought id say that

i hated the signing from the moment it was whispered

Yeah I just threw up a little in my mouth.

His numbers (prior to the signing) at Fenway were terrible. I thought for sure he'd get lit up like a Christmas tree

 

[Rock Strongo]

Yeah I just threw up a little in my mouth.

His numbers (prior to the signing) at Fenway were terrible. I thought for sure he'd get lit up like a Christmas tree

same here

at the time, i said if he landed at logan id have a sniper rifle ready

 

[Rock Strongo]

John Lackey all anchor, no rancor



BOSTON -- In retrospect, 3½ years after the winter news conference at Fenway Park to introduce John Lackey as the Red Sox's big free-agent prize, Theo Epstein got it half right.
As he has shown us now start in and start out since the beginning of the season, Lackey really is the kind of pitcher who can anchor a rotation, just as he did with the Angels and just as Epstein said he could here. The latest evidence came in Wednesday's 12-whiff, no-walk performance against the Colorado Rockies, one in which Lackey came out blazing, throwing a fastball that topped out at 95 and seldom strayed out of the strike zone.
Epstein was dead wrong, however, when asked about Lackey's health, which is why Lackey's emergence in the fourth year of his deal with the Sox is delayed gratification for something the Sox expected long before this, and paid dearly for ($82.5 million).
"Trust me, we've done a lot of due diligence," Epstein had said when asked if there were health concerns, downplaying the elbow and triceps issues Lackey had had in each of the previous two seasons.
[+] EnlargeMichael Ivins/Boston Red Sox/Getty ImagesJohn Lackey attacked the strike zone with 95 mph heat Wednesday, striking out 12 Rockies.


"He's been, outside of those two episodes, extraordinarily durable throughout his entire career and is someone who obviously finished strong last year," Epstein continued. "The last image of John Lackey is him demanding the ball on the field of Yankee Stadium. So he's somebody that we strongly believe is healthy. Trust me, we put him through quite a physical over the last 48 hours, and he's someone we trust to take the ball every fifth day."
As Lackey tells it, he was never really right physically since he got here, even though John Farrell doesn't recall the elbow becoming a problem until after Farrell left to manage the Blue Jays following the 2010 season.
Now, with a surgically repaired elbow and the resculpted body of a man a decade younger, Lackey has come to the rescue of a Sox rotation that has had Clay Buchholz for only two starts in over a month, may not get him back before the All-Star break, and is still waiting on Jon Lester to snap out of an extended funk.
Ryan Dempster, Felix Doubront and even Alfredo Aceves have all had their moments, but it is Lackey who has been the stabilizer, reeling off a 4-1 record and 2.44 ERA over his past eight starts. In 13 starts this season, he has allowed more than three earned runs just twice. He has struck out eight batters or more four times this season, which in late June already tops his previous years in a Sox uniform.
And most improbably for a pitcher who had become a pariah in his adopted city, he has been virtually unhittable in Fenway Park. His earned run average at home is 1.36, actually rising from the 1.03 ERA that led the American League in home ERA coming into Wednesday's start.
"The Tommy John surgery, the rehab, the reshaping of the body -- it's almost like we're looking at a different guy in a couple of ways," said Farrell, who once recruited Lackey when he was coaching at Oklahoma State. "His stuff doesn't tail off as it might have early on when he signed here. He's always been a tenacious competitor, we continue to see that every time he walks to the mound.
"But much of the credit [goes to what] John has put himself through, and that includes the surgery and all the work that he's put in following that."
Lackey's approach Wednesday was nothing more than an open challenge to Rockies hitters -- I'm coming after you with my fastball, and I defy you to hit it. Of the 98 pitches he threw Wednesday, two-thirds were fastballs. The velocity had dipped a couple miles an hour by the sixth inning, but that was understandable on a hot and humid afternoon.



What was constant were the swings and misses, and the strikes he was registering. Nine of the Rockies' strikeouts came on swings and misses, and they swung and missed 15 times in all, 11 times on his fastball. He threw 76 percent of his fastballs for strikes, with an equally impressive 72 percent of his off-speed pitches also going for strikes.
Seventy-two percent of the Rockies' plate appearances were over in four or fewer pitches, a further example of his dominance. Other than a fastball he ran back over the plate to Michael Cuddyer, who smoked it off the Advil sign in left-center, Lackey made few obvious mistakes.
"Probably the strongest he's been all year," Farrell said. "Outstanding fastball command, good power to it, a lot of strikes. And to me probably two at-bats probably stick out the most, the 3-and-2 counts to [Tyler] Colvin and [Carlos] Gonzalez. He was able to step off, regroup, make a couple of key breaking ball pitches in those counts and to add to his strikeout total. He was outstanding today."
Lackey has never lacked for support within his own clubhouse. His peers and managers to a man have sung his praises as a great teammate, which was the same refrain that was heard during his years in Anaheim. His reputation as a competitor was more easily discerned from the outside, but because it so rarely translated into success, his demonstrativeness on the mound was too easily mocked as a pitcher showing up his teammates.
Now, however, with Lackey defying the projections that say it usually takes a full season for a pitcher to feel fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, a once-skeptical public is beginning to appreciate the entire package. The man who as an Angels rookie won a World Series Game 7 in 2002 has recast himself as an indispensable part of Sox plans to return to October after a three-year absence.
And that means more to him than the pretty numbers he posted Wednesday, when he became one of just six Sox pitchers ever to have 12 or more K's in a game without walking a batter. Pedro Martinez did it 10 times; Roger Clemens six times; Hideo Nomo, Bruce Hurst and Jim Lonborg once apiece.
"All those little numbers, I'm kind of past that in my career," he said. "I just want to win, man. I'm here to try to win a ring. All the little numbers that they like to talk about nowadays, I'm not really all into that."

 

[Rock Strongo]

nice to see teixeira is finished

 

[redseat]

same here

at the time, i said if he landed at logan id have a sniper rifle ready

easy there Mr. Hernandez

 

[Rock Strongo]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slhdp0mYoSs]Coffee NOW!.wmv - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Paul Fizzle]

Rock,

You should dedicate tomorrow's thread to the Pirates.

They have the best record in baseball .... and have won 6 in a row.

 

[SportsChic]

New tittle favoring the NL Central

"Brewers lose to the sCrUBS now in a last place tie, Buccos win, Hickbirds lose, now tied for 1st"

 

[SportsChic]

Rock,

You should dedicate tomorrow's thread to the Pirates.

They have the best record in baseball .... and have won 6 in a row.

The pipe-dream season continues

 

[RedSoxWorrld]

Alex, of course the Yankees want nothing to do with you. It's pretty obvious after Cashman drills you for tweeting! Take it like a man and move on you whinny little Bit^&

John Lackey - Best performance of all his career last night?

he won a game 7 of a World Series

 

[Rock Strongo]

Rock,

You should dedicate tomorrow's thread to the Pirates.

They have the best record in baseball .... and have won 6 in a row.

+36 run differential

smoke and mirrors so far

its nice to see them in first tho

example:the redsox have scored 104 more runs then then pirates have

the pirates have also scored the least amount of runs in their division, one less than the freakin cubs

 

[SportsChic]

my boy lackey

7IP
8H
2ER
0BB
12K's

dominant

Yeah yeah yeah.

If I pick him up in fantasy those numbers won't come up again until I drop him.