Daily Red Sox Links: Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz, Bill James

The Red Sox can't win for losing. They won (the game) but they lost (David Ortiz). They got Crawford and (a few games ago) Ellsbury back, but they lose Ortiz and are haunted by the ghost of Kevin Youkilis who roams the halls to ethereal shouts of "Youuuuuuuuuk..." It's a weird season and as Ortiz's injury shows, it's only getting weirder.

The Red Sox haven't exactly been setting the world afire despite their 3-1 mark post-All Star Break. Jay Jaffe notes that, and also that as soon as Kevin Youkilis put on a Chicago White Sox jersey he began to set the world afire. In a nice way. (Jay Jaffe: SI.com)

As stated above, last night's win was marred by David Ortiz's Achilles injury, caused as he was rounding second base on what turned out to be Adrian Gonzalez's three run homer in the eighth inning. Oh, baseball gods. So, so mean. Ortiz will have an MRI sometime today. (Scott Lauber; Boston Herald)

Speaking of weird, the whole Penn State awfulness has been going on in the news and, wouldn't you know it, but the 2012 Red Sox couldn't not butt their heads into the mess, albeit in a small way (thank the baseball gods). Senior Advisor of Baseball Operations Bill James, the seminal pillar of the sabermetric movement in baseball, spoke out in support of embattled (and now deceased) head coach Joe Paterno. I'm going to stay out of this mess as much as possible, but basically James opened his mouth when he should've kept it shut. (Craig Calcaterra; Hardball Talk) Then he did it again. (Craig Calcaterra; Hardball Talk) So the Red Sox wisely told him to shut and keep it shut. (Craig Calcaterra; Hardball Talk) Hopefully he abides by their edict, if for no other reason than his own career. Some are not unjustifiably calling for him to be fired. (Kirk Minihane; WEEI.com) What an awful, awful mess on every single level.

At the risk of just quoting Hardball Talk, the Red Sox are supposedly pursuing Cubs starter Ryan Dempster. Dempster has had a great season so far, but he won't come cheap and, as Marc said yesterday in his Armchair GM piece (which you should read if you haven't already), going forward he's probably not much better than what the Red Sox already have on hand. Anyway, according to Buster Olney. Ryan Dempster. Yeah. (Matthew Pouliot; Hardball Talk)

After repeatedly quoting Hardball Talk, here's friend of OTM Jason Wojciechowski with some measured criticism of some specific content from said site. (Jason Wojciechowski; The Platoon Advantage)

Speaking of Jason, here's his Beane Ball podcast (at 20 minutes, I feel safe saying it's the longest podcast Jason has ever done) in which he discusses the Red Sox with our own Marc Normandin. It's good stuff. Am I a bit hurt that I wasn't asked on the podcast? Yes. Will I get over it? Probably. Will I stop asking myself questions and then answering them in an obnoxiously overdone writing trope? Sure. Why not? (Jason Wojciechowski; Beaneball)

Speaking of Dempster, depending on whom you talk to, the Red Sox are or are not in the market for a starting pitcher. In case they are, Chip Buck runs down some of the possible acquisitions. (Chip Buck; Fire Brand of the AL)

Finally, after writing that the All Star game was unfixable at Baseball Prospectus yesterday (behind the pay wall, sorry), I wrote a free piece on how to fix the All Star game. So, write something at BP then in the same day write something completely contradictory at the same site. [checks it off bucket list] There! (Me; BP)