I want to preface this blog by saying I think John Farrell is a great pitching coach, and could easily be a successful manager, but…..

Sunday night, Sox are winning big.  Lester seems to be struggling through the 5th inning, especially after giving up a soft chopper down the third base line to Derek Jeter.  Bases now loaded with Bobby Abreau coming up.  But wait, John Farrell steps out of the dugout to talk to his left hander.  It must have been a great pep talk, because Lester went ahead and walked in a run with 5 pitches.  What could he have possibly said to mess up his control that bad?  Hold that thought…

Monday night, Sox are down one, looking to escape a big inning.  The Halos have men on first and third, I believe, and Dice-K is starting to get rocked.  The righty Justin Masterson is warming in the pen, but instead of Tito making his way out to replace the Dice Man, its Farrell again.  Pacing towards the mound to ’settle his pitcher down’… Three pitches later, Torii Hunter cracks a back breaking three run bomb that landed somewhere near the Boulevard in Lowell.

2 nights.  2 failed mound visits.  Luckily, Lester was able to calm himself down and get out of the inning, securing the win for the Lansdowne 9.  Dice K, on the other hand, was not so lucky.  He picked up the loss after getting pulled in favor of Masterson once Torii Hunter did his trademark bat flip and crossed home.

Here’s my question to you… What could Farrell possibly be saying to make matters worse on the mound for an already struggling pitcher?!!  Please leave your comments below….

Last night wasn’t the Red Sox team that we’ve seen in the past. Brawls occurred with the opposition and most surprisingly, with each other. For one reason or another Manny Ramirez got into a scuffle with Kevin Youkilis in between innings. This isn’t the Manny Ramirez that Sox fans have come to know and love. Manny is probably one of the most laid back players in the game today. So watching the action in the dugout that NESN showed last night left many viewers speechless.

All in all, suspensions were handed out to eight players, with Crisp serving the most, a total of 7 games. Jonny “Cheap Shots” Gomes received 5 games and James Shields, 6. Carl Crawford got 4 and Akinori Iwamura, 3. Sean Casey also got a 3-game suspension for what the MLB called, “fighting” (did Sean Casey do anything wrong by protecting his teammate?).

Speaking of fighting, I was engaged in a talk with a much older, wiser man about how he believes the Red Sox have no fight in them, or to put it bluntly, how the Sox are gutless chickens. He managed to convice me the same. Although I didn’t agree with Crisp charging the mound, the Red Sox just stood there and watch 4 Rays players pound on Coco Crisp….4! Ellsbury looked terrified, Lugo tried to grab anyone who wasn’t even remotely near Crisp, and no other Red Sox player threw a punch. I think Carl Crawford said it best when he stated, “More of our guys participated. Or our guys got caught on tape.” Last night proved that the Rays do have bigger ca hones than the Red Sox. I didn’t even see Manny Ramirez out there when the benches cleared. Where was Manny’s hostility during the brawl? His actions later in the rhe dugout was very un-Manny like.

The biggest surprise suspension was that of Jon Lesters. He received a 5 game suspension for “throwing” at Carl Crawford later in the game. Granted a 5-game suspension just pushes Lester’s start back an extra day, but what was the MLB Front Office thinking when they decided on this?

First of all, you have a lefty-lefty matchup. Second, and most importantly, the pitch that hit Crawford was a CURVEBALL! Are we seriously handing out 5-game suspensions for “throwing” at somebody with a curveball? If Lester wanted to send a message to Crawford in retaliation to his cheap shots, then he would of at least thrown a fastball to hit him.

Did I mention that all 8 players who were suspended were also fined an undisclosed amount? Once again, MLB, are we serious?! We’re not only suspending Lester but we’re throwing a fine on top of it. This is absolutely ridiculous. It was a curveball, people. Somebody needs to go to MLB disciplinarian Bob Watson and let him know how much of a bold move it was to punish Jon Lester the way he did.

I’m interested to see how the rest of this year’s series between the Red Sox and Rays will pan out.