Dan's starts off painting a dubious picture of doom and gloom:
Sometimes you need a stopper because you are in last place and a chunk of your fan base is already in a lather. Your DH is carrying a baby-grand on his back, your bullpen looks old and creaky, it takes four hits to push a run across the plate, and the guys are talking about REM instead of RBIs.This is a typical Shaughnessy convention--he paints a negative picture (hyperbole and all) so as to establish a backdrop of bad news against which he can spin a positive story. It is not a bad convention per se but the above attempt rings hollow.
I also found the following sequence odd:
Two hours and 11 minutes after the stoppage, Papelbon returned and fanned A-Rod on three pitches to send the game to Neil Diamond and preserve the win for Beckett. Boston's great, goofy closer got the side in order in the ninth - two more strikeouts.
He talks about the strikeout of ARod in the 8th as preserving the win and sending the game to Neil Diamond only to then recognize that Papelbon also had to pitch the 9th. Shaughnessy is trying to be cute here so he can squeeze in a pop culture reference but his timing is very bad.
From there, Shaughnessy plays it straight although he wanders between game recap and the angle on Beckett. Not sure why the Globe had to send both Edes and Shaughnessy to this one - Shaughnessy's contribution is marginal at best.
Shaughnessy is trying to be cute here so he can squeeze in a pop culture reference but his timing is very bad.
ReplyDeleteA pop culture reference... that he already used earlier in the week! That's some serious cutting-edge journalism there, Dan.
This one's for you, oh Mighty Maestro of Morrissey Boulevard:
You're so lame
You probably think this column's about you...