Game time: 7:05 pm

Scheduled starters: Jeremy Bonderman (11-5, 3.76) v. Curt Schilling (14-5, 3.89)


Boston weather: 2 pm observation at BOS: Wind out of the northwest at 17 mph, visibility 10 miles, broken clouds at 9,000 and 25,000 feet, temperature 77F, DP 63F.


Forecast: The rain that fell in the area this morning is off the coast to the southeast, and it will be dry tonight. It will be in the 70's at game time, with the wind out of the northwest, becoming west, at between 15 and 20 mph.

That's blowing OUT toward right center/right.

Curt needs to step up tonight, hes been bad this month time for him to pitch like an ace.

If they can sack up and come back with a much-needed win after last night's display of shit, I think it would mean a lot.

In all honestly, I am not expecting a win tonight. I was just taking a look at the career numbers of the Tigers against Schilling, and something tells me that if he pitches like he did against the Royals, those doubles he gave up will be coming home instead of being LOB. Schilling was able to pitch out of quite a few jams against the Royals, but the Tigers are not the Royals.

Bonderman, on the other hand, has been able to confound our offense. While Manny has been able to have success against him, the rest of the team has struggled against him. To top this all off, Bonderman does quite well away from Comerica Park, posting a 7-1 record and an ERA of 3.01.

Win or lose, I can live with it if we don't play like absolute garbage. Sometimes, the other team is just better that day. Other times, you just play like absolute shit and don't deserve to win. Last night was the latter. I can live with the former, if that's what it comes down to.

Here, here! Let's see some good baseball tonight.

How about the rest of the way, for that matter? The law of averages has to be in favor of some good baseball after the last couple of weeks (including the O's series). Right?

[codebox]Detroit Boston
------- ------

Pos Player HR RBI AVG. Pos Player HR RBI AVG.
--- ------ -- --- ---- --- ------ -- --- ----
CF Granderson, Curtis 12 53 .273 CF Crisp, Coco 5 23 .275
2B Polanco, Placido 3 44 .294 2B Loretta, Mark 4 45 .304
DH Young, Dmitri 5 17 .276 DH Ortiz, David 41 110 .284
RF Ordonez, Magglio 16 79 .300 LF Ramirez, Manny 32 93 .323
SS Guillen, Carlos 13 69 .304 1B Youkilis, Kevin 13 60 .294
C Rodriguez, Ivan 9 51 .295 3B Lowell, Mike 14 59 .287
1B Casey, Sean 2 10 .268 RF Pena, Wily Mo 9 34 .316
LF Monroe, Craig 19 62 .271 C Mirabelli, Doug 6 19 .206
3B Infante, Omar 2 13 .263 SS Gonzalez, Alex 9 41 .274
P Bonderman, Jeremy (11-5, 3.76) P Schilling, Curt (14-5, 3.89)


08/15 17:36:30 ET[/codebox]

Why the hell is Mirabelli not catching Beckett, im sorry but he has to catch Josh from now on. He pitched his best game recently with him behind the plate.

Pattern im seeing is Belli for Schilling Lester. Lopez for Beckett and Boomer, dunno about Johnson seems like anyone.

way to go loretta

way to go leyland for giving Inge the night off

Me thinks I agree with the notion Beckett could be tipping his pitches, however he's better with Dougie behind the plate.

Hello?

I'm bored!

These guys are cracking me up. Great stuff

I like Leary, but does he even watch baseball?

Leary watches a lot of baseball, or used to.

Regardless, it's a riot having those two in the booth. This year took the cake.

Probably not as much as he'd like since he's busy making the best drama on telivision.

He's on The Shield?

Very nice play by Schill to end it.

Of course I was referring to the Gilmore Girls. DUH!

Were Covelli's eyes open when he hit that HR??

Bonderman looks good tonight, good thing Schilling's got his stuff going as well.

Every inning is a grind now...not good when you are clinging to a one run lead.

Need double play desperately.

We finally get a quality start (not counting Orioles games) and we score one run. Nice.

or just a double :S. you saw it coming after a rough inning last time out. hope he keeps us close cause i'm not sure i've i trust any relievers

**** you Tito. I've had enough of your ****ing shit all year...you do this every ****ing time! Yes Curt had a low pitch count but if you open your ****in eyes you can clearly see that his offspeed pitches were not there tonight. They started hitting him and you always ****in way until the damage is done to pull the guy. You just turned a 6 inning 0 run performance into shit once again...**** you Tito.

Need more runs now. Desperately.

87 pitches, 3 straight hits. Time to get someone up??

Tim to ****in get him out...he should've already been out but Tito loves to sit on his ass. If he isn't going to use his relievers, then send them home. **** you Tito.

Back to back strikeouts, yeah he's clearly done.

And who would you get out of the pen for 3 scoreless innings? we don't have the arms in the pen right now, we need our starters for at least 7, or els whe're screwed. we need runs now and hopefully get schilling back in line for the W.

Delcarmen can easily go one, he threw like 7 pitches his last outing. Timlin can go 1 and Breslow has showed us so far that he can get hitters out. It's been proven (read The Book) that relievers nowadays can be stretched out longer than usual and Tito continues to be apprehensive about making a pitching change. He's screwed Curt out of too many good performances...anyone watching the game can clearly see that Schilling's splitter is a meatball tonight and that his cutter/curveball has not been thrown for many strikes. So, he's throwing a fastball. And for him to get 6 innings and 0 runs out of that should be good enough for Tito.

and he strikes out the side. nicely done too bad he gave up the double in between. It's 3 in the morning, i'm having an other beer and the sox need to score some runs.

I really don't think this is Tito's fault. Most of the hits off Schilling weren't hit all that well (except the double in the 7th), his pitch count was low, and he hadn't given up a run yet. Schilling got into trouble early and there wasn't enough time to get a reliever ready. Besides, bringing in a reliever withh 2 on and noone out is a tough situation for anybody to get out of unscathed.

Strong finish, but that should be it for Schilling. If not there should definately be someone ready at the 1st sign of trouble, ie. one base runner.

People, please with the profanity. Won't someone please think of the children...



Seriously, though, watch the F bombs, please.

Now go dougie, this would be a good time for another 1 of those monster shots.

Polanco wasn't the monster i was refering to, try again :S

Wow, a manager that goes to the mound to basically give his relievers extra time to get ready. What will they think of next??

Nice catch Palonco.

ARod with his 23rd. Holy sh*t.

We need 1 guy on base to get Papi up, just saying

Why is Lopez PHing?

He just proved my point.

Because uuh, he used to be a better hitter :S

Didn't know starters could go 8 innings.

Nice idea with the bunt, Coco..... Pudge at 2nd and Casey at 1st. Sean Casey makes Dick Stuart look like Kevin Millar.... or something....

His speed finally pays off!!

Helluva game tonight.

For future reference Tito, you CAN remove your starter in the middle of an ining before the bases are loaded.

BIG ******* PAPI!!!!!!!!!

If this was the 9th, that would've been a HR.

Gotta love Papi

Grady would pinch run right here.

Seriously, as long as they have Ortiz, they've got a puncher's chance...

Leyland just lost a bunch of Manager of the Year votes if any writers are watching this game.