Daily Links - The Missed Opportunity Edition

Leaving all those guys on base was like making a delicious dinner but just as you finish putting it all out on the table you have to run to the ER because your son tried to headbutt a nail.

Link time!

Like turning on the TV and seeing the only episode of That's So Raven! that makes you think, maybe, just maybe there is some depth, some nuance, some self awareness here, Andrew Miller's most recent start has convinced the Red Sox to give it one more try. Hopefully Miller's next start isn't the episode where Raven eats a whole cake and then cries in front of the mirror for seven hours.

That sucked. But there were many aspects to yesterday's game that sucked beyond just the final score. The home plate umpire's strike zone left something to be desired. The clownish behavior of one Francisco Cervelli* also comes to mind. And yet the Red Sox didn't do themselves (m)any favors either. Lackey's meatball to Cervelli in the fifth was ill-executed if not also ill-advised. Nailing, to use Jerry Remy's term, The Pest in the back with a fastball on the first pitch of his next at-bat wasn't on the list of Ways To Improve Your Chances of Winning The Game either. Then there was the whole leaving sixteen men on base while only scoring two runs thing which, when you really think about it, is darn hard to pull off. Still, with Phil Hughes and AJ Burnett left in the chamber for the Yankees in this series you have to think the Sox coming back to take the series is at least a realistic possibility.

*Cervelli not only made a show of himself at every available opportunity, but via Brian MacPherson's article in today's Providence Journal (link above), referred to himself in the third person during a post game interview. Really. To wit:

"Every time I get a base hit or a double, I clap. That's me, that's my game, and I don't try to do anything bad to another player," Cervelli said. "That's Cervelli." Sounds like a bad sitcom.

According to Beyond The Boxscore, the Red Sox are tied with the Phillies as the most likely club to win the World Series this season. The Sox have a 25% chance of winning the ultimate prize this season. The figure seems high to me, in light of the fact that they'll have to go through at least one of the defending AL Champion Rangers and the New York Yankees, and then likely face the the Phils Phab Phive Pitching Pstaff in the series itself.

Like me, in all the hullabaloo over the Yankees coming to town you may have missed that the Red Sox signed lefty reliever Trevor Miller, most recently of the Blue Jays organization. Miller is a lefty arm out of the pen and could assist the Sox in their LOOGY needs over the next month.

The Red Sox have selected five players to participate in the Arizona Fall League. The penta-umvirate includes, according to the fine folks at Sox Prospects, Will Middlebrooks, catcher Dan Butler, outfielder Alex Hassan, and pitchers Brock Huntzinger, Jeremy Kehrt, and Will Latimer. The mini-Sox will be playing on the same team as uber-prospects Mike Trout of the Angels and Bryce Harper of the Nationals.

Finally, I pronounce this funny. Also, serves the bastard right. You don't burn Red Sox tickets.