Papelbon Was on the Mound, but His Mind Was Somewhere Else
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Closer Jonathan Papelbon was not needed Saturday, and the day off should have helped him forget about a deflating defeat Friday night.
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Curtis Granderson of the Detroit Tigers has written the words âDonât think. Have Funâ on his cap as a reminder to play baseball loosely and not scrutinize every situation.
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RANDY Johnson was not at Yankee Stadium yesterday. He was not in the Stadium Club being introduced to the news media; that was Carl Pavano.
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This was where the turnaround was supposed to happen, where whose rules you went by was going to make a difference. After playing with a designated hitter in their Fenway playpen, the Red Sox were going to have to play baseball the way that Abner Doubleday imagined it.
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Maybe it&#39;s the memory of Curt Schilling sprinting off the mound during an 8-2 game, pulling down a high chopper, awkwardly throwing the ball into right field, then pulling up lame as my buddy Hench screamed &quot;He&#39;s grabbing his ankle, I think he hurt his
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There's much frustration in David Ortiz's eyes and voice these days. He's been forced to contend with the shift teams constantly deploy against him (though the Devil Rays used a conventional alignment last night in the first inning), the ball-and-strike calls he hasn't agreed with, and his sore hamstrings. There's the fact that he sees only one or two pitches ...
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Bostonâs victory in Game 2 of the World Series turned, in part, because of one of those understated, blink-and-itâs-gone moments.
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Fresh faces on the mound signal a changing of the guard this MLB postseason.
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Joe Torre may not have slept well on Sunday night after watching his team lose Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, but it wasn&#39;t because he was up second
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Itâs possible to perceive that money was at least a part of the lack of commitment that Joe Torre felt the Yankees demonstrated.
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He was sitting on the bench in the Red Sox dugout about 45 minutes prior to game time against the Oakland A's on a brilliant, late-summer day, staring off and probably going over a million things in his head.
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Giddiness. Paranoia. Arrogance. Caution.  All were on display on Wednesday in Boston as the supposedly  cursed Red Sox moved within one victory of a baseball  championship that has eluded them for 86 years.
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Maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Maybe Jonathan Papelbon would have struck out cleanup man Todd Helton, as he did to lead off the ninth, and Matt Holliday would have been stranded, as he had been all night.
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Jonathan Papelbon's best pitch of the night didn't go into Jason Varitek's catcher's mitt, but rather into Kevin Youkilis's elongated - and in this case, humiliating - first baseman's glove.
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Not that the Astros were tight heading home down 0-2 to the Cardinals, but knowing Roger Clemens would be taking the mound for Saturday&#39;s Game 3 of the National League Championship Series had to be a comforting thought.
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Sometime during the last several weeks, pitcher Jarrod Washburn began to sense a change in the mood surrounding the Anaheim Angels. Losing was no longer an option.
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Jonathan Papelbon's outstanding rookie season probably is over &#151; and his days as Boston's closer could be, too.