Red Sox Dye trying

Coming into the 3rd game against the Chicago White Sox, having won the first two of the series, your Uncle Buck was thinking how great it would be to sweep the defending World Champions going into the all star break...Instead he got an over 6 hour, 19 inning game that was nearly as boring as the World Cup at times.

By the 19th inning the big plays of Curt Schilling and Mike Lowell, Manny Delcarmen and Julian Tavarez (yes, Julian Tavarez 4 shutout innings) were well forgotten, while several big plays, and some not called plays, of Jermaine Dye stood out. Instead of recapping the whole thing, here are a few observations that UB thinks combined to beat the Red Sox yesterday:

1. In the 4th inning the Red Sox were able to put two runs on the board to take a 3-0 lead against Jose Contreras, who hasn't lost since he was with the Yankoffs (where he never won), and loaded up the bases with two outs. Up to the plate comes Big Papi David Ortiz. Papi gets the count to 3-0 against a struggling Contreras and is naturally given the green light. The pitch appears to be a ball but Ortiz swings and hits a weak fly to left that ends the inning. Now UB should really never question giving Ortiz the green light (the guy leads MLB with 31 home runs), but in a game where you have to pitchers that don't give up a lot of runs maybe it would have been better to be more conservative and try and take the 4-0 lead rather than go for the 7-0 lead. Again it is hard to blame the move, but maybe Papi should have held up.

2. Whomever keeps an eye on opposing base runners from the Red Sox dugout should be fired. If they had noticed Dye miss tagging up on 3rd in the bottom of the 11th, the Red Sox win the game.

3. Not really sure where this came from or how it happened but AJ Pierzynski is an annoying sh*t. He does play hard but he also plays dirty. Taking out Alex Gonzalez to prevent the double play in the 11th cost the Red Sox the game.

4. Anyone who thinks Dye and Jim Thome are going to keep up their current place (30 and 26 HR at the break) and take the White Sox to their 2nd strait championship are crazy.

5. Anyone who thinks the young bullpen of Jonathan Papelbon, Manny Delcarmen, Craig Hansen and Javier Lopez will keep up their pace (although it was quite impressive over the weekend) and lead the Sox to a title as rookies are crazy too. Mike Timlin will have to return to form and has anyone seen Keith Foulke?

6. And finally Trot Nixon is playing for a new contract, as he becomes a free agent at the end of the season. 0-for-9 and a batting average of .230 against lefties aint gonna cut it Trot.

Over all UB has to be very happy with the first half for the Red Sox. 20 games over .500 with 53 wins and 33 losses is pretty damn good. The biggest thing to watch for the 2nd half is that the Sox are 27-10 at home so far and they've played way more games on the road so far. The thing that scares UB the most is that they went 16-2 against the National League. That means against the American League they were an underwhelming 6 games over .500.