Get Well Soon

It's all bad news: Wily Mo Pena, David Ortiz, and Manny Ramirez are all back in Boston to undergo tests and examinations to figure out what's wrong with them. Ortiz' irregular heartbeat is kind of freaking me out - Wilbon and Kornheiser talked about athletes dying from heart problems yesterday and it definitely shook me. The Globe has a couple articles that are saying he should be fine, but there's a chance it could be something bigger. Doctors said, "Some irregular heartbeats have zero risk, that it wouldn't make any difference [if he played]. But other certain patterns, there would be risk involved. I think the most important question to ask him is whether he passed out or was close to passing out. If no, then he's in a far lower risk group," and, "In terms of heart arrhythmias, we usually break them into life-threatening ones, and more benign ones like atrial fibrillation. While atrial fibrillation isn't usually life-threatening, it can be a nuisance. For a professional athlete, it would definitely impair performance." I say keep Big Papi out of the lineup until he is 100% better, playoffs or no playoffs. If anything happens to him...okay, I so don't want to think about that.

The game: Apparently, Coco Crisp totally robbed Jay Payton of a hit, but MLB.TV decided to suck last night and it kept going in and out and I missed it. Gameday was even worse - it said injury delay for 15 minutes, then all of a sudden the inning was over and Oakland was up 1-0. I still don't even know who got hurt or how.

Another great play - Youkilis to Cora to Mirabelli and Kotsay was out at the plate. It was really pretty.

But even the best defense can't make up for a poor offense. And Boston only mustered up one run to Oakland's two. Beckett pitched well, but without Manny and Ortiz, the offense was pretty sad.

Another loss.

But it looks like Varitek, Nixon, and the Gonz should all be coming back this weekend! At least there's some good news here!

QotD
Ortiz, referring to the team's fantasy football league: "They put me in charge of the Dominican operations. There's no football players in the Dominican."