It's always shitastical when you lose a series to a last-place team, but....there's no but here. Except that we stay in first by a half-game since the Yanks were rained out today.

It seemed like everyone from the umps to NESN (fine, only those two) were conspiring against our enjoyment today. Let's start with a play where both of them let us down. At left, you'll see Jed Lowrie about to catch the ball at second and make the turn on a double play. The runner is so far from the bag he's off screen. So please give me one reason why an umpire would call the guy safe in this situation. You can't because he's out. But the ump said safe. My guess as to why: Jed got the ball and very quickly slid to his left to avoid the runner and make the throw. I think the ump saw this and thought he left the base area too early, much like the way a first baseman will come off the bag to try and sell a call. However, that was not the case. As you see in the picture, he's catching the ball while still at the bag.

Here's where NESN comes into play: Remy thought out, too. Said he thought there was no question. As the first replay airs, he suddenly becomes obsessed with whether or not Jed actually made contact with the bag. He left it at that: did he touch it, or not? This former second baseman didn't even mention the neighborhood rule. The phantom tag. Every baseball player and fan knows that a player turning the double play at second base doesn't have to be ON the base to get credit for the forceout. Just be right near it when you catch the ball, then get the hell out of the way of the barreling runner, and you've done your job. They eve went back to two more replays later, and Remy was still in deep focus on whether or not he actually touched, in a situation where just being close is good enough. The ump shouldn't even be watching for that! You think he's watching Jed's foot sliiiide across right near the bag and thinking, That better touch, I got my eye on that foot! No! He's seeing what you see in the pic, and he knows that right there is good enough for an out, as long as he doesn't either drop the ball or move away from the base before he gets the ball. So in Remy's mind, he's safe because the foot juuuuust missed second as he brushed across the dirt inches from the base (which IS an out, at every level of baseball--this isn't something I'd try to argue against if it was the other team in the field), and in the ump's mind, he's safe because Jed pulled out early, but in reality, neither of those things happened. (Maybe you could make a case that the ump felt that since the runner was so far away, he needed hot spikes-on-base action to give credit for the out, I don't know.)

NESN is also killing me with these new angles they'll show on pitches. I've said it a million times: If you wanna give us crazy and different views of things, that's wonderful--do it on replays! Only. Why are you suddenly showing me a live pitch from behind the catcher, zoomed in. One time we saw Youk swing from this angle. You could barely tell that he hit it. And where he hit it was anyone's guess. Since it was a 3-2 pitch and he was still batting, we knew he'd hit the ball, and that it went foul. But we never saw the secondary camera shot that should show the ball after it's hit, and Don didn't even say what happened at all. We completely missed what happened on a batted ball. No video, no description. How does that happen? Later, they showed that angle again. And again, it turned out to be the money pitch. Guy hits it. Ball goes up. We have no idea. At least with the regular shot, you get a sense of where the ball's going right when it's it. Once when Pedroia was up, they showed a live pitch from off to the side! And once again, it's the pitch he puts in play. Turns out it's a deep fly out. But we never got to have that sense of "Oh, this could be a dong." Just "he hit the ball." Sadly, these aren't mistakes by NESN. They're clearly making an attempt to try new things. I just can't understand why we all have to miss the game while it's happening because of it. Is that what people were begging for? Joe from Walpole tweets: "more othr stuff, les game shit." Kristi Z. wrote on our facebook wall "baesball's for fags, more conseshun stand reports plz." Be smart, NESN. Lots of people went to Justin Beiber concerts last year. Doesn't mean lots of people have a clue. You know you're supposed to be showing a baseball game to baseball fans. Do that first.

Then there was the time when they cut to a pre-taped Heidi Watney segment where she talks about the train in left field. While we're still getting that audio, they cut back for a pitch, on which there's a stolen base attempt. Guy slides into second, and the ball gets away. Guy starts to run to third as the fielders chase the---CUT BACK TO HEIDI'S TRAIN REPORT. Yes, they cut away mid-play. Action was happening. There's action in baseball, what, 10% of the time? When you actually get some, please show it. But nope, we got Heidi instead. We were finally taken back to the game only to find out the Raiders had scored two quick touchdowns and won 43-32! Will these networks ever learn?