It was a another rough outing for Josh Beckett yesterday afternoon at Fenway Park. The right-hander gave up eight runs on eight hits in 5 plus innings of work. The Red Sox battled back from multi-run deficits all game long, eventually tying the game at nine, but Adrian Beltre’s sacrifice fly in the ninth gave the Rangers the lead and the Sox couldn’t do any more in the bottom half of the inning, losing by a count of 10-9.

Following joint practices the past two days at Gillette Stadium, the Patriots and Saints will meet Thursday night for the Patriots’ first preseason game. It will be the second game for the Saints. Although the starters are not expected to play much, football being back is just what many fans in the area need right now with the Red Sox struggling. Also, it will give reporters and analysts game action to discuss, rather than what happened in practice. Hopefully it will put an end to some of the bogus story lines coming out of camp thus far such as: Is this offense going to be better than the one in 2007? or Is Tom Brady still a clutch quarterback, having not performed  well in the postseason of late?

Another rough day for Beckett– Alex Prewitt looks at Beckett’s start on Wednesday, one in which he was boo’d off the mound when he was taken out in the fifth inning.

Root of all Red Sox woes– Michael Silverman says the majority of the problems with the Red Sox this season all come back to pitchers Jon Lester and Josh Beckett and their poor records.

Broken record: Beckett buries Sox– Joe McDonald looks at Beckett’s outing and season, one the right-hander feels like he is letting down his teammates.

Everything is wrong with Josh Beckett– Kirk Minhane looks at Beckett’s rough season.

Thanks to starters, Red Sox will be forced to call uncomfortable audible– Rob Bradford looks at the Red Sox starting rotation going into next season and possibly who the team might need to try and deal away, likely Beckett or John Lackey.

Playoffs?! You kidding me?– Gordon Edes says if the Red Sox don’t get hot on the upcoming 10-game road trip their playoff hopes will be all but over.

Brady, Brees pass the compliments– Shalise Manza Young and Julian Benbow in the Patriots notebook have the respect Drew Brees and Tom Brady have for one another.

Five things to watch for with Patriots vs. Saints– Greg A. Bedard has five things to watch for in tonight’s game.

Patriots: Five things to watch– Jeff Howe has his five things to watch tonight.

Ten spot: Who you should watch for Thursday against the Saints– Christopher Price has 10 players to keep your eye on tonight.

Things to watch: Patriots-Saints– Field Yates has 13 things to watch for in the Patriots first preseason game.

 

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

15 thoughts on “Red Sox, Beckett fall to Rangers, Patriots open preseason tonight”

  1. Where is Peter Abraham to chastise the fans for booing Josh Beckett again? This is further proof that he wasn’t booed for getting hurt the previous game but for his overall performance and lack of effort these past two years. Let’s face it, if he was in better shape maybe he doesn’t get hurt as often. It is documented from previous members of the Sox training staff that Beckett does the minimum amount of work required to get himself in shape. Someone needs to call him out for that..

    Like

    1. Abraham was too busy tracking more important matters such as which players speak to the media after the game and whether or not fans sing Sweet Caroline.

      Like

    1. I agree — silverman don’t know DICK about sports. The Red Sox have set a record for days missed due to injuries and Valentine is a complete moron when it comes to managing the pitchers and making out a lineup.

      Like

  3. Where has Mike Felger been the last two Thursdays? Last week the Felger & Maz team was in Foxboro, I believe, this week, there’s a pre season game against the Saints in Foxboro. Is he boycotting the {atriots for some reason?

    Like

    1. He probably didn’t come in because the F&M show was only going to be 3 hours because of the Pats pregame show. He has been kind of muted on the Pats during the run-up to the preseason. The Pats made the SB last season, they used both 1st round draft picks on defensive talent and found out the cap isn’t crap. There’s not much there to be contrarian about.

      Like

    2. As ltd (I think) hinted at, I think he’s taking time off TSH to work on his massive powerpoint presentation on “THE CAP IS CRAP”.

      Like

    3. Who cares where Felger is? Maybe he’s back in Wisconsin rooting hard for his favorite teams. Tanguay said on Sports Sunday that “the Sox owners don’t get it because they’re not from here.” I say who cares what an out of town, agenda driven, style over substance talking head thinks about Boston teams.

      Like

  4. Tonight, if we can get some Nielsen data, I think we can dispel or prove fan interest.

    Tonight, we have on:
    7:00-10:00 Patriots -> Patriots Pregame on Network TV
    7:00-11:00 ESPN NFL Countdown into GreenBay/San Diego. It’s preseason but that’s a sexy matchup.
    7:00-10:00 NESN – RedSox @ Cleveland who isn’t exactly an AL contender.

    You can also mix in some Olympics in here. NBC is showing it’s 6hour tape-delayed 200m where (spoiler) Bolt wins. Last time, they did well with his 100m win, so it will be interesting to see how all of these ratings pan out.

    Bruce (and Chad Finn if you do read the board and comments) – maybe this would be a good column?

    Like

    1. It has been established for a while that Pats preseason beats the Red Sox. I remember a situation in 2000 in which an early Pats preseason game destroyed a Sox regular season game in the ratings.

      Like

      1. Ok, I’ll modify my proposal to lets look year-over-year then and see what the numbers are. I’d assume they (or someone) has access here.

        Like

  5. This is great:

    FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Patriots’ preseason opener against the Saints
    was worked by replacement referees, and coach Bill Belichick was asked
    afterward if he was comfortable with the officiating.

    Belichick chuckled, knowing that officiating is a topic that is
    generally off-limits (unless he’d like to pay a big fine to the league
    office).

    So he found a creative way to share his opinion.

    “I think Mike Pereira has made his comments on the officials. I
    don’t know who knows more about NFL officiating than Mike Pereira. I’ll
    leave it to him,” Belichick said.

    FROM: http://es.pn/MGlKaX

    For those who don’t know what Pereira has been doing on basically every outlet who has had him on, he’s ripping the NFL a new one for how horrible these replacement refs are.

    Bonus on how Hoodie integrated this into there, basically ignoring the league’s edict and memo in the process.

    Like

    1. I see the officiating and what Mike Pereira is doing differently. I think the NFL is correct in locking the ref’s out. I think the real refs are inconsistent and trying to become more and more part of the game (Ed Hoculi). The fact that teams run scouting reports on teams and how they ref games tels me all I need to know about the state of officiating in the NFL. Further, a few calls get missed in a fake game by “replacement” refs. I watched the Pats/Saints game last night. it was a 1 point game. There was no call made or missed that effected that outcome. The game pace was fine. All in all unless the causual fan, unless they were told that they were using replacement refs would not have known.

      I want, heck we all want this contract impasse resolved, However, the refs are not the star of the show, they should be seen and not heard. THey are easily replaceable. The do not have much leverage and as such they need to be real careful how far they push this.

      Like

      1. Well, I agree on the Hoculi point, but do you need some more video evidence?

        http://deadspin.com/5933558/how-bad-were-replacement-refs-last-night-lets-examine-the-video-evidence

        That’s bad.

        The worst had to be the hit DRC leveled on Bryon Leftwich. He’ll get fined but that was a no-call. If you missed it, he completely launched.

        The only reason I’m harping on this is because I think the media can genuinely change this. Now, finally, it’s getting some coverage.

        Like

        1. My bigger point is the regular refs missed stuff all the time. If they didn’t reply would never have been needed. On whole I thought the game last night was officiated no worse than any preseason game last year with regular refs. I am not going to waste time and look up obvious missed calls from last year with the real refs…some blatant ones. We all know it happens. I think all of the leagues need to get better control of officiating. The NFL is more proactive right now and I am praying something gets done in this CBA. But honestly if all existing refs were fired and replaced with new people hungry to learn how to do a good job, I doubt the causal fan would see any difference in the quality of the game and the way it is called. I think the players and coaches would then adjust and within 4 weeks even very knowledgable fans would not see officiating as an issue.
          My last comment should scare the heck out of the current NFL officials if they still want a job. It should really scare the hell out of MLB ups and NBA refs who are actually worse on whole than NFL officials.

          Like

Comments are closed.