Live at Fenway. Justsaw niuman in outfield wearing 13. Nothing else to report. Soo...

This is unbelievable. Let's go back to the time leading up to that LA series. Don and Jerry sat there wondering if Manny would come up with some fake injury to avoid showing up at Fenway Park. At the time I wondered if Remy had anyone asked him if he faked that cancer he had that made him miss an entire year. Or if anyone asked Don if he was faking recently when he was IN THE PARK, but was just too sick to announce that day, or the next few.

Then the series started--and Manny played every day. While JD Drew (who seems to be exactly what the media perceives Manny as: uncaring, in his own world, always missing time due to the weakest of excuses) pulled a hammy right at the beginning of game 1, and missed not only the entire series, but many days after that, too.

I was going to write about this, in fact I still have the window up with a tab for each of Drew and Manny's stats, and talk about how many times Manny played at least 140 games in a season (9) compared to Drew (3). Stuff like that. I kept meaning to do that every day Drew was out but I never did.

But here's the unbelievable part: Last night on the post-game, Tom Caron proudly announces how JD Drew is the iron-man of the Red Sox and that he went on record when Manny was traded and was correct in his prediction that Drew would be on the field more than Manny, which he backed up with the numbers since July 31st, 2008. He boasted that since then, Drew has played in a few more games than Manny....

HEL-LO????? He completely ignored the fact that Manny was suspended for FIFTY games since then! Of course, I'm not an idiot, I know that it was Manny's own fault that he was suspended. But that's not what we're talking about and TC knows it. We're talking about injuries. So Drew just happened to have edged out Manny in games played in the last two years, with a fucking PLUS FIFTY handicap. Nice work, guy.

I don't know, I just thought it was kind of ironic, Manny being picked on as usual, and TC calling Drew an "iron man" when he just missed extended time catching a Manny fly ball when it was assumed Manny would be the one not playing due to fake injuries.

Before I finally wised up and quit Boston sports radio I did hear TC on there a few times. You can tell that whole crew has gotten to him, made him one of these media liars who tries to control the way fans (who pay their salary) think, while mocking them and calling them "fanboys" if they actually care about or root for a player.

Now, Drew-lovers, please note, I'm not even talking about the skills of Drew--I could think he's a better player than Manny and still have written this exact same article. (I happen to think he's nowhere near the player Manny is, but that's a different debate.)

This game is just an hour and 55 minutes old as we go top 9! Crazy. Papelbon in. I am updating below instead of above.

9:08: Tool's Adam Jones up...K! One away. By the way, we're up 3-2.

9:10: I went to college with a guy named Weeder. And he smoked weed. Wieters up for the O's...two strikes....

9:12: Full count to Marijuana-er...pop up...2 outs!

9:13: Josh Bell...strike one....2...we're up....

9:16: K! A win in 2 hours, 7 mins. (Note that I love long games, I'm just pointing out the nuttiness of this.) More on this game coming in seconds....

Okay, briefly: Patterson vs. Patterson! And Patterson led off the game with a fly to Patterson. But McDonald got it at the last second. But each Patterson played a carom off the Monster nicely to hold guys to singles within a few minutes.

NESN almost missed that first Drew dong. How hard it is to see where the ball's going? Nice job by Drew with those two Jax, and good to see Nava get the game-winning hit in bottom 8 with 2 outs, even if it was a bloop.

Wakefield's moving up the W ladder. Fine job by him tonight.

We are a half game out of first for the first time in a good while. I'm seeing a game this weekend and I'd like to see the Red Sox be in first place in person. So...

And finally, in token outdated logo news: The new f0rd commercials are out for July. They're still the official truck of the Red Sox, and they're still using the old logo halfway through the its second season. Stubborn bunch. Even your average Josephine Schmosephine has updated her tire cover thing on the back of her truck by now...come on!

Yanks were one out away from getting to Mo with a 1-0 lead in the eighth. Jays rallied, tied it, scored 5 in the 11th to win. We're one back going into tonight.

If you do a news search for Jason Varitek right now, you'll see a bunch of stories about how he's now the starting catcher and how he needs to step it up until Victor comes back. But you'll also see a bunch more stories about how Tek himself is now (supposedly) going on the DL. Timothy Mc Oy Veigh. We've traded for Kevin Cash so that our pitchers don't have to throw to one of those folding chairs.

MDC is also DL bound. Is there some assistant trainer we can blame for all this? Or some new stretching routine like the Yanks had that one year? "Okay guys, these are called DL thrusts, 1! 2! 3! 4! Come on, exert, exert!"

The Ys won today and the Rs just won in 10, so we're 1.5 back, and TB is 2. Here comes Balty for the holiday weekend.

The Devils' outfield made a lot of nice catches on deep flies tonight. Cameron, however, couldn't get to one that he thought he had a bead on. I'd be yelling louder about this, but the 3-1 game became a 9-1 one and we were done, despite a slight comeback. The Spitting Image was good for them tonight. Dice wasn't horrible, but TB deserved the win, and they get a 1-1 split.

Yanks lose to Seattle (but finally face one of their not-good pitchers tomorrow night). So we're 1 back, TB is 2, and Toronto is way back there at 8. The Orioles are tied for the top in the 2011 standings--so they've got that GFT.

Don and Remy were raving about those "rickshaws" (pedicabs) when they were in Denver. They acted like they were in the only city where these exist, even though Boston has them, too. Then tonight they were back on the topic, wondering if any other cities might have them--hellloooo, those bike cabs line up outside Gate B toward the end of every Red Sox game at Fenway! Oh right, no media ever goes east of Yawkey Way....

Great moment when Don accused Remy of not listening to him. Then when he went to recap the incident, it was proven that he just heard Remy wrong, making him think Jerry wasn't listening when he actually had been. Usually when an announcer says something that the other guy just said, the other one just lets it go. Don came right out and said "I just said that," and it backfired, as he hadn't said what Remy said he said. Wait....what?

NESN Awesomeness Watch! Okay, tonight's blunder was the foul pop up down the left field line. It seemed out of play, but suddenly you saw players looking out there as if it's really borderline. At that point Don's voice gets higher as he starts saying how it might actually be catchable and that the left fielder has given up on the play. So we're sitting there waiting for a shot of the ball, and NESN quickly switches cameras...to a different shot that's not showing the ball. And we hear Don say it went "a row deep." That means it WAS catchable (which at Fenway means it was also almost FAIR), but they didn't show it, and didn't show a replay. The next pitch was another ball over there--this time they followed it all the way...and it was nowhere near the field. Too lit too lAt.

Peter Brady did a fine job tonight. Not middle-childish at all. He was the hero. He punched Buddy Hinton in the face. It was nothing but pork chops and apple shauce on the mound at Fenway tonight. In fact, I won't even bring up the two grounders to him that he botched/shied away from for no reason. Whoops. Neither were costly anyway.

Papi with a monster dong and we never looked back. Though I'm pissed we brought out our closer in a game where it was 8-1 and our starter went 7.

Yanks LOSE, so we are ONE back and two ahead of Tampa.

Okay, you know how we've noticed that Bill Hall does a lot of ball-watching after he hits it? I've noticed he's done it a few times on grounders down the line. So I don't think he necessarily is "admiring" his possible dongs, he just needs a second to see where the ball's going before he starts to run. Which is still not what we're looking for, but whatever. I actually wrote this and THEN he hit a ball that actually did go out. Complete with his patented pause. I like the guy regardless. I just hope the "Hause" doesn't cost us.

If I had to guess who Longoria got pissed at, I would have said Crawford judging by the way he plays defense sometimes.

A guy held up a sign tonight calling himself "Wakefield's Twin." Did anyone else think he looked way more like Tek?

When Upton hit that ball down the left field line, I was thinking triple. I was simultaneously thinking that you CAN'T hit a triple down the left field line at Fenway, but the way that ball sneaked past the wall "where the boxes jut out," I knew that one little corner-rattle could mean he actually goes for three. As soon as I saw the ball roll away from DMC, I knew now there was a chance. He took it, and he made it. What kills me is that on the replay you see Upton jog almost all the way from first to second! And he still got to third! Fortunately we were up 8-3 with two outs in the 8th at the time. But I wonder how many people have hit ground balls down the third base line at Fenway and gotten a three-bagger before tonight...

A "Wally the Green Monster Coolatta"? Really? My co-worker/friend likes Coolattas and also drinks this green juice she makes out of cale. So this would be a happy medium right? Eh, maybe I should have cut this paragraph.

Night.

Is anything from the 80s not back?

Sox and Tampa, two games, Fenway, commas, starting now. Be not shitty, Lackey.

...has been left blank intentionally.

Excellent job by Lester. Complete game. 5-1 win and we take 2 out of 3 from San Fran. We're in second place alone. If the season ended today, I'd sue my calendar for libel.

Update on Victor: Broken thumb, as the ball that hit his foot hit the glove first. So you can start the DL All-Star lineup with: Ellsbury, Pedroia, Martinez.... We just gotta stay in this thing while we're crazily injured, and then pull away in September.

I was in the car right before the game started today, and heard Joe & Dave talking about today's match-up. They noted how a lot of times these supposed pitchers' duels often don't live up to their billing, but that today....TO-DAY would be one of the great ones. They actually went on and on about it as if it were an absolute guarantee. Joe went so far as to say something about a "work of art." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Some things are certain in life: that stupid van that picks up my neighbor WILL honk its horn at 5 a.m., Yankee fans will get their facts wrong, etc. But how these guys with so many years of experience in baseball could be THAT sure of how ANY baseball game will play out...

And after three innings, Lincecum is out of the game. Papi put one in the Pacific Ocean. Jon Lester almost hit a grand slam off him! I didn't like how Remy said that Lincecum "wasn't himself"--the guy who's won the Cy Young the last two years doesn't need an excuses, as I'm sure he'll tell you after the game. Now Remy's suggesting an injury! I guarantee he's not injured. Just kidding.

We lead 4-1 in the fourth. TB lost so we can be alone in second if we hold on to this.

(And now Vik-E Mart's out of the game after taking a ball off his toe earlier. Great.)