Nuthin'

(August 7)

Short take:  Nuthin' good about it

What must Kip Wells be thinking about?  It's any Sox Fan's guess except to know Kip ought to be contemplating a trip to the bullpen.  A fourth lousy start in a row leaves the Sox shot in the head and dead in the ditch for the first game of this west coast trip.  An ugly 9-3 loss.  It wasn't even that close.

Last year Kip got in trouble for walking too many batters.  Then-GM Ron Schueler told Kip he could live with hits but not the walks.  So next time Kip pitched, he served up homerun pitches rather than the walks.  This year he is being told to work faster.  While he might have been a shade quicker on the mound, he never managed to get out of the inning without being scored on.

Maybe we ought to stop giving Kip advice?

It was 5-0 Anaheim in the fourth inning when Jerry Manuel finally came and dragged Wells' carcass out of the game.  Kip gave up nine hits and three walks in just 3.2 innings work.  

Meanwhile Sox hitters were held silent by yet another pitching mediocrity.  The fat and mighty Pat Rapp picked up his fifth victory of the season pitching a no-hitter into the sixth inning.  If the Sox have ever looked they mailed it in, this was it.

A sixth inning rally was shot down with Jose Valentin batting with the bases loaded took a 3-1 pitch clearly out of the strike zone that should have forced in a run.  Instead it was a called strike two, Valentin grounding into a double-play with the next pitch.

Even the bullpen was getting hit.  Anaheim added four more runs off relievers Matt Ginter and Rocky Biddle.  You know it's bad when Alan Embree is your most effective pitcher.

Is it time to wonder if the team has given up?  With all the goofiness of this season, has Jerry Manuel finally lost them?  Magglio Ordonez puts a ball over the short wall in right field in centerfield, his 100th career homerun, a feat he has been trying to achieve since June.  With the game hopelessly loss, the ninth inning feat only served to highlight just how pathetic he has been the past five weeks.  He got over his personal "hump" but the Sox fail again to get over .500.  Meanwhile Carlos Lee is so cold, he spent the game on the bench.

This team is the definition of mediocrity.