Doug Mirabelli: Didn't do a whole heck of allot in the boxscore, his 1-3 didn't do much to help the team. But he did set the tone in the first inning by throwing out two would be base stealers in Ichiro (single) and McLemore (walk). Without those plays, we have two on and no-out in the first with the heart of the M's order coming up. Could have been a bad night from the start.

David Cone (6IP 10H 3R 3ER 1BB 5K): That's allot of base runners for six innings of work, but for the most part he was able to get himself out of it, and that is the most important part. So what are we now 13-2 in games he starts?

Homers: Anyone notice a real glaring difference between this years squad and last years? We can actually expect a homer or two each game, as opposed to last year when we'd be lucky to hit two over the course of a week. Obviously different players make that difference, but for some reason it seems to have boosted the rest of the line-up as well. Homers are one of the most overrated stats in the game, but they are fun to watch, and so is Bichette's bad ass flick of his bat when he knows it's gone.

We should have won two of three from the best team in the game, should have, but we didn't and were only able to salvage one. If we don't take two out of three at worst from the O's this weekend I'm heading back over to the Tobin Bridge, and this time I'm not coming back.

Supposedly Kerrigan wasn't the Sox first choice, DD contacted Felipe Alou first, but they couldn't agree on the length of the deal. Alou wanted more years than the Sox were willing to offer. So they went with the back up, Kerrigan, and signed him through the 2003 season. The jury is going to be out on him at least until the end of the season, but I'm not so sure this was the best move in the world. We all know how good Joe K is with the staff, and now he's not going to be able to nearly spend as much time with his hurlers as before. Will be interesting to see if the staff suffers from the move.

The other thing was that I don't think it was fair to blame Jimy for the recent slump. Sure he is very quirky and doesn't play the same style of ball that most of us would like, but through all the injuries we have suffered this year and to still have us within striking distance, is pretty amazing to me. There was however, an air of difference last night, I thought so anyway. It seemed to me that something was missing, but I have no idea if it was a good or bad thing.

In short, it's always the manager that gets blamed for what the players fail to do, this isn't the first time and it certainly won't be the last time either. Thanks Jimy, you took some really bad teams on paper and turned them into playoff teams while you were here. That's definitely worth something...

paul@redsox2000.com