How many batters in tonight's Red Sox lineup will be part of their next playoff series victory? This is a day-game-after-extra-innings-night-game-on-getaway-day kind of lineup.

The analytics revolution focuses on tunnels and launch angles and induced vertical break, but sometimes it's as simple as who catches the ball. For the last two nights, that team has been the Yankees.

As Red Sox players poured into the clubhouse, goggles on their heads and beer cans in their hands, the plastic was still being hung on lockers with little care. It was time to party. Inside the Red Sox playoff clinching celebration: www.nytimes.com/athletic/666...

This is insane. What Tom Shales was to Larry Sanders, Alan Sepinwall is to The Simpsons--a critic worthy of a name drop. If he's not the greatest TV writer of all-time, he's top three. On the bright side, I suspect he's about to discover just how big his (paying) audience is. I'll be signing up.

Jesus. Now the audio is ahead of the action. Annoying.

Remember the Rafael Devers trade the Red Sox won so soundly? After Patrick Bailey's walkoff grand slam last night, the Giants are only a half game out of the playoffs. Since Aug. 23, they're 14-4.

Pop Douglas in WEEI booth, says he quit baseball in middle school after getting hit by a pitch. @lennydinardo.bsky.social asked Patriots receiver if a ball hits harder than a human. Douglas: "I can dodge a human." Good stuff.

If you got a contract extension from the previous regime, Mike Vrabel has you in his crosshairs. The latest player told to hit the bricks is safety Jabril Peppers. www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2025/08/29/g...

It was always incredibly stupid to think Bill Chisholm would drop $6B on the Celtics and then leave Wyc in charge. Wishful thinking. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/12/s...

The Red Sox have won 10 straight and now seven straight just a few weeks apart, they just signed one of the best young players in baseball long-term, and they have as good a shot as anybody to come out of the American League. Maybe the trade deadline didn't kill them after all.

Federal funding is gone. But we're not going anywhere.

AI features might be distracting, inaccurate and annoying but at least they make everything slower

OPINION: ICE deported my husband. Our everything is gone, and we are unraveling. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/30/o...

“I need to own that I could have done better.” Twenty months into his tenure, Craig Breslow takes stock of the culture of the Red Sox front office: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/26/s...

Caught with NBC Sports Boston’s Trenni Casey, who is running a long, long way next month for a great and personal cause. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/21/s...

just stop here and let me out

My advice to Craig Breslow as the Red Sox address organizational communication issues: talk like a normal person. We all know how smart he is, but he's obsessed with sounding the part. Learn from Theo Epstein, who's brilliant but conversational. Breslow was engaging as a player, so it's in there.

Amazingly, Raffy said he will play anywhere in San Francisco. Just a slight attitude change!

Don't underestimate the impact of Devers' continued recalcitrance *after* John Henry's visit. When the owner puts himself out there and your behavior doesn't change, suddenly Breslow doesn't have to sell the idea of a trade so vigorously.

There's little doubt the plan is to redistribute Devers' money to Anthony, Mayer, et al... Devers had proven beyond a doubt that he wasn't a franchise player in any way except with the bat. (which isn't nothing, but still) He was never going to be Big Papi. Too introverted and immature.

If I had a Substack, my headline would be, "Why I love the Devers trade," just to get you to click, followed by a more balanced take that I love getting out from under the contract and ridding the clubhouse of a selfish player, but wish the return wasn't so meager. Whatever. Still a fan of the deal.

A reminder on Walker Buehler's "great" postseason: it consisted of 3 starts and 1 save. In the first, he got shelled for 6 runs. Then he threw 4 shutout innings in blowout of Mets, 5 shutout innings vs. Yankees in WS, and then clinching save. Why did that outweigh his 5.38 ERA during season?

Other Red Sox I can think of to hit their first career homers against the Yankees: David Murphy (2006) and of course Xander Bogaerts (2013).

And they didn't even get to play the Celtics.

Hey, I wrote something! If you caught any Wemby highlights this year, you heard silky smooth Spurs broadcaster Jacob Tobey, a Suffolk grad and Sandwich native who's a self-made success story if ever there was one. Read his story in the spring edition of Suffolk Mag. www.suffolk.edu/news-feature...

The Red Sox are the definition of feast or famine. Only the Cubs (12) and Yankees (10) have scored 10 runs more often the Red Sox (7), but the Sox are in danger of being held below three runs for the 19th time, eighth-most in baseball.

I am begging for a Hollywood movie or TV writer to make something that features realistic 'artificial intelligence'

Goddammit. I surrender.

Watching the Pacers push the tempo highlights one of the aspects of the Celtics offense I low-key hate: how they barely beat the 8-second call walking the ball upcourt on half their possessions.

Braves started 0-7 and 5-13. If they close this one out, they'll be 24-23. This is how winning organizations respond to adversity. Red Sox have talent to make a similar run, but do they have the makeup?

This is excellent, illuminating, and pretty damn sobering.

In addition to being craven, there's something kind of sadistic about MLB's Pete Rose ruling. It's like, "If you want to be eligible for immortality, hurry up and die."

One obvious change the Knicks made was they stopped going sideways offensively. When they saw a lane in the second half, they attacked the rim with force. It started with Brunson and put the Celtics on their heels, particularly Porzingis, who's just not the menace he was last postseason.

Durant was 30 when he blew out his Achilles in the 2019 Finals. He missed the following season and and played only 35 games in 2020-21. Tatum is still just 27, but if that was as bad as it looked, Celtics should prepare for a lengthy absence. 10 months is the average.

Two frustrations: 1. Hack-a-Robinson served no purpose except to put Knicks in bonus. Pointless. 2. How many possessions did C's give away trying to forcefeed an ineffective Porzingis? Bonus: missed bunnies. Tatum had multiple, White, Porzingis, Kornet, awful 2 on 1 with Tatum/Brown. So sloppy.

Porzingis has got to be, what, minus-20?

Thanks so much to everyone who has asked how I'm doing after my breast cancer surgery. Here's a little update at my Saturday Matinee newsletter. Subscribe to make sure you don't miss a thing! ⬇️ christylemire.beehiiv.com/p/a-mid-week...

We have officially reached the "wasn't 2004 awesome?" portion of the NESN broadcast with Millar. Can't blame them. Red Sox have not been a compelling product.

This is great. Read it.

The oral history of Nomo-mania, 30 years after Hideo Nomo's MLB debut, May 2, 1995. Were it not for a failed physical, it might have all happened in Seattle instead of Los Angeles. www.nytimes.com/athletic/632...

Turned off Red Sox with one out in third to clean up kitchen, bring out trash, etc. I came back 40 minutes later and there were ... two outs in the third.

25 years ago tonight, Richie Aprile sat down to enjoy a home cooked meal with his fiancée, Janice Soprano. It did not end well.

One thing I've always appreciated about Bertucci's is the uniformity of their pizzas. Each slice is calibrated to the ounce. These two slices, for instance, are indistinguishable.

Bob Thomas, the AP writer of Richard Chamberlain's obituary, predeceased his subject by 11 years. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/30/n...

NEW COLUMN: Joe Buck returned to the baseball booth for a day ... sometimes you don't know what you had until it's going, going, gone. www.nytimes.com/athletic/623...

The cover of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, 35 years ago today:

Walker Buehler joked with Roman Anthony that he needed to get coffee for the whole team––plus coaches and staff. 76 coffees, a declined credit card, one messed up order and a VERY slow drive to the ballpark later, the Red Sox had their caffeine. How it all went down www.nytimes.com/athletic/619...

A subtle but very cool thing. Chris Sale did a Luis Tiant windup impersonation on his first pitch of today's game to Jarren Duran.

Steph Curry made his 4,000th career 3-pointer tonight. Larry Bird attempted 1,700 in his career. I'd still take prime Larry over anyone except Jordan, but Curry is the greatest shooter of all time.