Yankees didnt get caught with roids in the middle of their 4 championships. However, I and all the other Yankees fans here have taken this steroid issue in stride with all the due criticism here. The second someone makes a crack about Papi and Manny using, you get your bridesmaid dress in a bunch. Wake up and smell the steroids Murrell. Everyone's shit stinks...
It's actually exceedingly unlikely that Ramirez used from 03-08, and also just as unlikely that Ortiz used anything after 03 because there was testing during those years and they never failed a test. I don't think Arod used after 03 for the same reason. There is absolutely no way to tell when any of them started though because they didn't have testing of any kind before the initial 03 sample.
I think tonight and Sunday they have a shot, but if they lose tonight I have a feeling they get swept. A think a lot is going to change in the next week or so. Smoltz sounded like he was ready to retire last night, and there's no way he gets another start. Whether or not Wakefield will be ready by then I don't know, but if he isn't it shouldn't be much longer after that. Matsuzaka is also going to start throwing off a mound this week, so he may be back soon. Hopefully one or both of them can get back quick and be effective.
You may have a valid point about Papi and Arod. What about Manny, though? Why did he all of a sudden start to use steroids again? That wouldnt make any sense to stop when the testing begins, but a few years later to start back up again regardless that there is some serious testing in place. Maybe its just that they finally caught him. We can speculate all we want, but I guess were never going to know how long these 2 juiced for....
I wish I could be around for the game tonight, but I need to make some cash before the weekend. I will be watching the game at work, as it likely will be on half of the tv's that we own....
Manny is a strange case if he is in fact on the 03 list. I actually haven't heard anything from him or anyone really as to whether or not he was really on there. I assume he was, but I do think it's strange that no one has mentioned him. What I think probably happened is he started using again during the contract issues when it looked like he was going to get a 1 or 2 year deal, hoping to put up huge numbers and get a big contract after that. I just don't see how he could be tested at least once a year, if not more, for 5 years and not get caught if he was using.
I just read something that may explain a little about Pedroia's reaction last night. Apparently the two had a history from college when Pedroia was at AZ State and Melancon was at AZ. Makes a little more sense now.
so we definitely will be seeing a brawl sometime soon. Likely tonight... Care to link us to whatever you read that in?
They've got the best run differential in the AL by one run, and it has been trending down down down for the past two months. Partly due to injuries. Partly to ineffectiveness (which could just be regression to the mean). But nothing that says it should change. Is Dice-K going to be better than Smoltz was? You'd think so. But he wasn't better than him before he went down. Wakefield should be an improvement over someone... but he's also been notorious for falling off in the second half in the past several years. And that's the book on Penny, as well.
They still have no test urine for HGH so who knows? As far as Ramirez is concerned, he was caught in '03 and he was caught again in '09 so it is only logical to assume he wasn't squeaky clean at anytime in between.
With that logic you can say ANY player is on HGH. And also, if Manny was using HGH that whole time, why would he suddenly switch to something there was a test for? Why not just keep using the HGH?
I'm really getting sick and tired of this whole steroid debate. Let's move on and watch some baseball.
The offense also spent the better part of two months falling of the map way past regression towards the mean... I would definitely expect the run production side of things to be much better from here on out. If this team's true talent level is somewhere between its performance from the start of the season, say through the Nats series 6/23-6/25, and everything after that up until now, it's still easily one of the best in the baseball. And they've added one of the best hitting catchers in baseball since. Also not sure what you mean by the run differential trending down... they are currently at +85. Pretty much all year they've either been leading it or second behind Tampa in the AL. With two aces, there good parts are really, really good but the holes are dragging the ship down. They've got to get either through waivers of internally a good defensive shortstop and a few back of the rotation inning eaters. They should have filled these holes before the deadline, but they still are correctable IMO. Bowden got torched his last start but I really would like to see what he can do. And believe it or not, I still like Buchholz's chances for thi year. He looks dominant at times still, I think he's close enough to think he's one good start or an adjustment or two get it together at some point. Lester looked bad his first few starts last year too.
If we really want to move on from the steroid debate and attempt to put it behind us then the list with all of the names needs to be fully released asap. Also any other alleged names that are still out there or thought to be. Once this happens, then we can truly move on and work to restore the integrity of the game. As long as the media still has more names to release steroids will continue to be on everyone's forefront.
I'm talking about the rate at which their run differential has been changing since June, which was undoubtedly their best month (run differential/game of +1.6). July saw a RD/game of +0.4 (if you split it up into early July and late July, you'll see the slide begin), and August has seen a RD/game of +0.2 so far. So they started off the year solid, had a sick June, and got progressively worse over the following month and a half. Buchholz's problems seem to be mental more than anything else.
Per weei.com the Sox have aquired Chris Woodward and called up Tazawa. Billy Traber dfa'd. Poor guy, thrown out there as a punching bag last night and cut the next day. I was looking forward to seeing Tazawa who was scheduled to pitch at the futures at fenway game tomorrow. http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/t...e-tazawa-woodward-designate-traber-assignment
Another Smoltz note...Smoltz was supposed to appear on Francesa today and then Boston just contacted WFAN and said that Smoltz was heading back to Atlanta. Mike didn't seem too happy about the last second cancellation.
