B.B.W.A.A. HAHAHAHAHAHA

The success of Boston area sports teams has sports fans around the country celebrating the failures of our athletes and hissing at us fans when we complain. Well to all you fans out there who are in that group, prepare to hiss. Josh Beckett was robbed of the Cy Young Award today. Beckett finished the season 20-7 one win better then C.C. Sabathia. The other statistic categories were practically identical with Beckett pitching about 40 innings less. Many point to the gap in innings, which was caused by Beckett having a stint on the disabled list as the reason Sabathia won. The first reason to complain about the voting of the 2007 Cy Young is the fact that Beckett was left off two ballots completely, Sabathia was also left off one ballot, this shows that the voters are either totally clueless or failed to vote for each of them for personal reasons. Were the two New York voters bitter that the Sox prevailed in the East? Perhaps the two Cleveland voters wanted to give the edge to Sabathia in what was thought to be a close race? Was there a Boston voter who did the same? Voters need to be held accountable by the public for how the cast their votes and the ballots should be released to the public. The other side to this whole argument uses pure fact to show that Beckett deserved the Cy Young more. He pitched 11 times this season against teams that would end up in the playoffs and 17 times against teams who would finish above .500 at seasons end. On the other side of this was Sabathia who pitched only four times against eventual playoff teams and 11 times against winning teams. Cleveland fans, and Red Sox haters are quick to point out that Beckett had a lot more starts against playoff teams because the Yankees made the playoffs. And that is actually the whole point. Beckett faced tougher competition and still succeeded at a similar rate to Sabathia, so shouldn't the one who had the tougher road end up on top at the end? Sabathia faced divisional opponents 18 times in 2007 and aside from Detroit, the teams in the AL Central were very bad offensive teams. Detroit was third in runs score in the majors while the other three, Minnesota, Kansas City and Chicago were ranked 25th, 27th and 28th respectively. Meantime up in the AL East Beckett had to face the top run scoring offense in baseball four times. Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Toronto meantime were ranked 15th, 16th and 17th in runs scored. Beckett by far had the tougher road and in the end he lead his team to the World Series title. Sabathia got an award he didn't deserve.

Future On Display

Beggining tomorrow and lasting throughout most of the remainder of the season, the future of the Boston Red Sox will be on display at Fenway Park. Portland and Lowell will both play games at Fenway on Saturday while the Sox are playing in Baltimore. Portland will play the Harrisburg Senators (Washington) while Lowell plays the Hudson Valley Renegades (Tampa Bay). The Lowell game is at 12:05 followed by Portland. In just a couple weeks a handful of top prospects could find themeselves with a September callup. Jacoby Ellsbury is one who is very likely to get the call to provide speed off the bench down the stretch. Should he continue his solid play from earlier this year when he was up he could also find himself on the bench in the playoffs. Boston won't discount the importance of a speedster on the bench, its the very reason they won the World Series in 2004. George Kottaras could also find himself in Fenway park in September. He is the only minor league catcher on the Sox 40 man roster and they would love to have a third catcher around to give Varitek added rest, assuming the division race isnt close. There are no infielders on the 40 man roster who aren't already in Boston. The Red Sox do have 2 spots on the 40 man roster open and also can move Brendan Donnelly to the 60-day disabled list if they needed another spot. We know Bobby Kielty likely will be called up sooner then later and that would require a spot, though his arrival would depend on Wily Mo Pena's departure which would clear another spot. Another spot to be taken on the 40 man will be for Clay Buchholz and that could be as soon as next week when the Sox play a double header. Buchholz has been dominant in the minors this year and could join a powerful young rotation next year that will include Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jon Lester. Other pitchers who could see time in Fenway in September are Javy Lopez who was recently sent down to make room for Curt Schilling, Craig Hansen who has been very good the past several weeks and Craig Breslow could provide another solid left handed arm from the bullpen. Brandon Moss could join Ellsbury in the outfield mix in September after a recent three day stay with the Sox in California.

Meet Your 2007 All Stars

Josh Beckett SP After a dismal debut season with the Boston Red Sox in 2006, Josh Beckett came out on an impressive run this season. Beckett leads the team in wins while posting a 3.38 ERA. His 83 strike outs is second to rookie Daisuke Matsuzaka. Beckett sits at 11-2 and will pitch once more before the All Star game which he could start. The most impressive stat for Beckett this year, which has led to his remarkable season is that he has allowed just 6 homeruns. Mike Lowell 3B Rewarded with a strong first half, Mike Lowell was named as a reserve to the All Star team. His 55 RBI leads the team. He's second on the team with 12 homeruns while batting .297 Lowell who came over in the trade with Beckett was long considered a throw-in, a take him or no deal kind of thing. Boy what a throw-in he has been for Boston. This is Lowell's fourth All Star selection having been a member of the National League team from 2002-04. David Ortiz 1B With the game being played in a National League park this season there was no DH on the ballot, thus David Ortiz appeared as a first baseman, and he walked away in the voting. Ortiz has had a down year in the power category, but is still having a great season. He leads the Red Sox in homeruns with 13 and doubles with 27. He's also batting .314 and has 49 RBI. This is his fourth consecutive selection to the American League All Star team. Jonathan Papelbon Closer Picking up where he left of last season, Jonathan Papelbon is again one of the best closers in baseball. He of course leads the team in saves with 19 in 20 chances. He leads Sox relievers in strikeouts with 42 in 30 innings and one would expect he be leading the relievers in ERA as well, but he's not. A 1.50 ERA is fabulous but good for just second among Sox relievers. Manny Ramirez OF Manny being Manny, boy do Red Sox fans love it. Ramirez has had a slow start but he is finally hitting the ball better, and Sox fans hope the power isn't far off. Combined with Ortiz, Ramirez is part of what is one of the most feared hitting duo's in baseball. When there on, the middle of the Sox order is one tough place for a pitcher to navigate through untouched. American League pitchers know they have had it easy thus far with Ramirez hitting just 11 homeruns, and American League East opponents fear whats going to happen to them when Ortiz and Ramirez are hitting like they usually do considering Boston has built a 10 game lead without their power. The wake up could occur as soon as this week when Boston open its first series of the season against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.