The Red Sox spent a rough weekend in Texas, getting swept by the Rangers, including a walk-off loss yesterday at the hands of old friend Adrian Beltre.

The Red Sox offense fell silent this weekend, and Tim Britton notes that they’ve shown themselves vulnerable to most breaking pitches, especially the slider.

Clay Buchholz looks to play the role of stopper tonight against the Twins at Fenway Park. Alex Speier says the Sox need a strong (and long) outing from Buchholz to give some key bullpen members a bit of rest.

Despite the sweep, Michael Silverman says that the coming back optimistic and ready to get back on a winning track.

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LeBron James was named NBA MVP and it was revealed that he came one vote shy of becoming the first unanimous regular season MVP selection ever. Some speculation had Miami look-at-me radio star Dan Le Batard as the one who didn’t vote for LeBron, but instead, we found out today that it was none other than the Boston Globe’s own Gary Washburn who voted for Carmelo Anthony rather than LeBron.

Why my MVP vote went to Carmelo Anthony – Washburn explains his thinking, almost apologetically. He insists that this was not a “statement” vote and that he really didn’t think he would be the only writer in the entire country who didn’t vote for LeBron.

I’m really not sure whether Washburn should be admired or ridiculed for the vote. On one hand, writers in other sports have made picks that made headlines, yet were never revealed publicly. At the very least, Washburn deserves credit for raising his hand and saying it was him.

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It’s yet another spring where we’ve got the numerous “end of an era” columns written about the Celtics from the likes of Jackie MacMullan (who absolutely LOVES to predict dark days ahead for a franchise) and Dan Shaughnessy. It seems like these columns have been written annually since 2010, but this year, it seems like it really might be the end.

Maxwell: Doc, Garnett, Pierce won’t be back – WEEI Celtics radio analyst Cedric Maxwell went on CSNNE to say that it is his belief that Doc Rivers will leave the team, needing a breather, and that the Celtics will buy out Paul Pierce’s final year and that Kevin Garnett will retire.

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If you missed it last week, J.T. “The Brick” and his national show is back on overnights on WEEI starting today. The show airs from 1-6 a.m. weekdays and the program can currently be heard on approximately 260 affiliates across the nation.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

17 thoughts on “Sox Swept, Washburn Explains, Celtics To Be Gutted?”

  1. Bruce, nice of you to not join in the Twitter Politburo wanting to have Washburn deported to Gitmo and water boarded. To his credit, Gary went on M+M this morning and was on DP show:

    Will Leitch had the best write-up of what happened on SoE:
    http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/46752172/

    If anyone here missed what happened, search “LeBron MVP” and mentions to @GWashNBAGlobe on Twitter. It’s completely toxic.
    ————
    Did you hear Felger issue his mea culpa on Rondo last night? I don’t know if CSNNE posted the clip or if its part of another on there with Maxwell.

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    Stephen A. Smith, in talking about the Clippers, had this interesting bit this morning: Pierce, KG, and Doc all to the the Clippers, while Celtics get Bledsoe, and Blake Griffin. The Clippers aren’t exactly enthralled with VDN, and think that they have to bring in an elite coach to keep CP3, and still want KG. They can’t get Phil (Jackson and Sterling hate each other) and I guess think that the Van Gundy’s are out of the picture.

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    1. I watched that segment on Sports Sunday, bsmfan. I thought Felger had fun with it: “I was wr-wr-wr-wr….” It’s interesting to see how, when he drops the contrarian bit, and speaks a little more even-sidedly about the Celts and basketball, that Maxwell (who seems to dislike him more than any other reporter or former athlete, except for maybe Tommy), that Max finds himself agreeing with what Felger says. I’ll say this for Felger’s contrarianism: I take him at his word that he’s being honest on the air, and saying what he really thinks. Though Felger tends to emphasize the contrary viewpoints, and doesn’t often mention his opinions in the opposite direction (harping on Belichick’s shaky drafting of receivers and secondary players–which is pretty well demonstrated–and ignoring most everything else, comes to mind).

      I hadn’t heard that bit from Stephen A., but I’d hesitate to believe it for one reason: why would the Clips want to give up on Griffin, as opposed to DeAndre? Unless CP has made it very clear he doesn’t like him, I find it a pretty huge risk, giving up a flashy scoring big man like him.

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      1. Yeah, it looked like there was a jaws of life prying a “I was wrong” from him. Look, Felger was once billed as a Bayless but who can say who he’s wrong. Reasonable people have no problem when someone says they’re wrong. I know it won’t change opinions on Felger but it was nice to him say he was wrong.

        I don’t know when the Rondo stuff started (wasn’t it at least last year when he got booted from the Hawks series?) nor think Felger spearheaded the stuff with Rondo. He also was not alone in people who joined in on the “anti-Rondo” bandwagon. They Celtics had those two stretches w/o Rondo this year that did nothing but strengthen the anti-Rondo guys but most of the bigs @ national networks and serious writers seemed to all dish out the same message of missing him in the playoffs. Vindication for them.

        I think this is different than some of his other views and points because we do not know if Rondo is a guy that we can build around in the future, and what happens with PP/KG/Doc also affects this. The BB/WR drafting failures are fact, so you can’t argue there. It’s something like the “cap being crap” and his Jets stuff where he loses credibility. We’ve hashed those out already so I won’t bring them back up.

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        On what SaS said:

        @sbnation Stephen A. Smith: Doc/KG/Pierce for Bledsoe/Griffin/Jordan/Butler rumor http://sbn.to/13mZIEn

        Already been shot down by locals:

        @gdickerson_csn Spoke w a celtics source about the Stephen a smith story..their one word response to it? Absurd!

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        1. Oh, I’ve heard Felger admit he was wrong before, usually about the Patriots. I’ve never heard him deny his take was wrong, once it’s over (in this case, “it” being the Celtics’ season). Folks on this board and elsewhere confuse tone with message. Felger plays a DB on the radio–very well–but a wrong take is a wrong take. (As for the “cap is crap”, I still have a different opinion from you and other folks on this site–it’s an overly simplistic, jingo phrase meaning that the cap isn’t the big deal people claim. Point 1 to that: the NFL lets teams restructure deals in ways that the NBA and MLB don’t (Brady this year, case in point). Point 2: take away Tom Brady, and what does the Patriots’ bodacious cap management get them? A team which qualifies for the playoffs, if that. It’s still about top-end talent, first and foremost. It takes really dumb management (the Jets and Sanchez come to mind).

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          1. If you take away Tom Brady their bodacious cap management probably gets them to 11-5 and a playoff win. They’re a really good team and they are really well run.

            Do you really look at the Pats organization and come away disappointed?

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          2. No, not at all. You’re missing my point. We’ve seen what comes of the Patriots without Brady: exactly what you said, 11-5, and either just getting in or just missing the playoffs, but they’re no longer a contender. And that’s the entire point to “the cap is crap”: to be a genuine contender in the NFL, you need top-end talent. You need more than that, to be sure, and I’d say that during the Pats’ Super Bowl years, the rules were kinder to rough defenses with comparatively no-name players like they had, so cap management was even more important, because depth was even more important then than it is now. The point to “the cap is crap” is that the salary cap doesn’t allow you to get every player you might want (otherwise Dallas and Washington would), but if there are a couple of players you really want, you can massage your numbers to make it work. Why did the Patriots not keep Welker this year? Not because of his cap number. They didn’t want him. (And I’m okay with that.)

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          3. I agree with you that you need top end talent to win and I understand your point. But in one breath you’re telling me that you need top end talent to win (agreed) and then in the next you’re proceeding to take away a big chunk of that top end talent by saying that they wouldn’t contend without Brady. I don’t think the Ravens or 49ers or Broncos would be able to contend without their starting QB’s either. In fact they’d probably all end up in that 10-6 range.

            Also, I feel like you’re severely underestimating the value of guys like Gronkowski, Hernandez, Mankins, Wilfork, Ridley, and Mayo. They are all top end talent at their respective positions.

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          4. But that’s the point: cap management for uber-depth isn’t the big deal that local writers & commentators have made it out to be. I think we’re actually on the same side of the argument here. You need elite talent, like the guys you named, to win and challenge for the title. Brady took a discount this year, but Mankins and Wilfork are paid at the top of their positions. Obviously a team can’t afford to do that if they’re stupid with the cap. But take away the big-money guys and the Patriots are in trouble like just about any other team (what would that defense be without Vince in the middle? He’s been the team’s defensive rock for two or three years now). You need top-end guys to do well in the NFL. Managing the cap in the NFL has a lot more to do with keeping your best guys signed, than it does with building bottom-of-the-roster depth. And to a certain extent, you can fudge contract details to fit players you really want under the cap. So I don’t buy explanations based on the cap for players like Asante Samuel, Deion Branch and Richard Seymour. Belichick had decided they were in decline and either moved or released them.

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  2. Until there are two separate awards, one for league’s best player, and one for league’s most valuable player we will always have these stupid arguments at the end of every sports season. Best player is self-explanatory and MVP becomes more of the classic, team would not have done as well without this player.

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  3. The Boston Marathon bombings sure seem like the best thing to have happened to Dennis and Callahan since Howard Stern went to Sirius. How long are they going to milk this thing for? So distasteful and self serving. Masquerading as hard hitting concern when really it’s just a lame attempt to grab ratings in order to sell dunkacinno’s and scam mortgages.

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    1. That surprises you? Those old hens have built a career of trolling, including (right now) concern trolling. Dennis in particular can’t stand sports aside from golf, and he’d rather spend his time talking about anything else.

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      1. My listening of John and Jerry is mornings in the car for roughly 5.5 seconds, the time it takes to change the channel from previous night’s Celts or Sox broadcast. Every morning they are talking bombing.

        Anytime new depths of cloying narcism are reached it is a bit surprising. Contrast their reaction with Rich from T&R a guy who’s apartment was bombed. Couldn’t be a bigger contrast.

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    2. D&C has been unlistenable for months now, but they’ve taken it to a whole new low post-Marathon. Listened for about 15 minutes this morning… Callahan was on some xenophobic rant asking why the Muslim community at-large wasn’t apologizing for the bombings, which was followed up with a segment that featured callers offering up crude suggestions on how best to dispose of the dead terrorist’s body. –CLICK–

      Just awful, lowest common denominator radio. It’s so obvious D&C, who know they’re on thin ice, are sensationalizing and exploiting the tragedy to boost ratings. It’s disgusting and Entercom should be embarrassed for letting this continue on for 3+ weeks.

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      1. By the way, putting JT the Brick back on overnights is the first good programming move WEEI has made in about 4 years. Guy has his share of detractors, but I appreciate the energy and enthusiasm he puts into his show on a nightly basis. Caught some of his first show back early this morning–seemed like every other caller was from New England.

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        1. JT the “Brick” is just awful. I don’t see how that could be considered a good move.

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  4. Has anyone listened to the Sheppard show? I have tried it twice from 5:30-6pm, and no one calls.

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    1. That’s because everyone’s listening to the hilarious new segments “Miked Up” and “Answer the Question, Jerk!” at 5:30 on Salk & Holley. #sarcasm

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