Larry Brown Sports

The Boston Red Sox demolished the Texas Rangers on Tuesday night in one of those rare 17-run games that we only see a few of each season. Boston managed to score runs in each of the first seven innings before being kept off the board in the ninth by none other than outfielder David Murphy, who actually recorded a must-see strikeout of Mike Carp.

At the conclusion of the 17-5 Boston victory, Red Sox announcers Don Orsillo and Dennis Eckersley — who was filling in for Jerry Remy because of an illness — barely knew where to start. Recapping a game that saw 22 total runs on 28 hits can’t be easy, which is why Eckersley was overwhelmed by the task ahead. Having said that, it probably would have been best if he waited a few more seconds before dropping an S-bomb and complaining about it. Check out this video, which includes some NSFW language:

Eck, who typically works as a Red Sox analyst for NESN, should be used to recapping games. But on a night where eight different players drove in at least one run and seven balls left the park, it’s tough to get to everything. I feel your pain, Eck. I probably wouldn’t want to do it either. At least he didn’t go full Warren Sapp with the cursing. That’s always a plus.

Video via The Big Lead

Jonathan Papelbon may be overpaid, but so are most closers. He has pitched well since signing a four-year, $50 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies after the 2011 season and has converted all nine of his save opportunities this year.

Papelbon has eight teams on his no-trade list as a part of the deal he signed with the Phillies. According to WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford, one of those teams is the Boston Red Sox. That doesn’t mean Papelbon can never see himself returning to the place where he began his career.

“Yeah, I could see myself in Boston,” he told WEEI.com on Monday. “I could see myself pitching in New York. You know me. I’ve always been the kind of guy who … I don’t really just settle, or accept things. Whatever happens in my future is going to happen. I’m not blind to that fact.”

The right-hander also mentioned that he is perfectly happy in Philadelphia, so the point is simply that he wants to keep pitching for a competitive team in a big market. It should also be noted that his comments came in advance of the Phillies’ game in Boston on Monday, where Pap said he was hoping to get a warm welcome.

“Hopefully I’ll be received well, but I will also accept the fact that I might not,” he said. “But hopefully the fans understand that what I did here was come here and help win. That’s the only thing I really wanted to do here and hopefully they’ll understand when I was here that’s all I really wanted to do was help the ballclub win. And we won, and hopefully they’ll recognize that. If they don’t, I understand and I get it and I’ll welcome them with open arms.”

Red Sox fans understand Papelbon helped them win, but they also may remember the comment he made about Phillies fans being smarter. Pap kind of wore out his welcome toward the end of his career in Boston. The chances of him returning are slim to none at this point.

The Boston Red Sox caught a break on Tuesday night at Fenway Park when the skies opened up and their game was rained out in the 7th inning. Considering they were already trailing the Oakland Athletics 13-0, the Sox were likely happy to call it an official game and move on with their lives.

Boston stood little chance in the game after starting pitcher Alfredo Aceves was racked for seven earned runs by the fourth inning. However, Aceves felt that there was no reason to pin the blame on his horrendous start.

“It’s hard to explain to you guys,” he said after the game, via the Boston Herald. “You guys just see the errors, the runs, the hits, whatever. It’s really hard to — how can I explain? — to get through that plate. For whatever reason, the strike zone got small. Obviously you guys don’t see it that way. You see the runs. As a pitcher, man, it’s not easy.”

Man I hate this guy. Aceves has value in that he can pitch out of the bullpen or fill in for injured starters, but his personality is incredibly difficult to deal with. Manager John Farrell got a first-hand look at that when Aceves was reportedly acting like a baby during spring training. The right-hander also made sure to note that the Red Sox managed only three hits on the night.

“Maybe his strike zone is not that small, for whatever reason,” Aceves said. “Also, we got our hacks. Why don’t we hit?”

John Lackey has been recovering nicely from a strained bicep, so Aceves’ starting role will likely be taken from him in the near future. It should be noted that his English is not all that great, so some stuff Aceves is trying to say could get lost in translation. That being said, he doesn’t have to have a strong grasp of the English language for people to understand that he’s a jackass.

The Boston Red Sox are notorious for having some of the most outrageous prices in baseball, whether it’s for tickets, parking or concessions. When a team is winning, it can get away with charging just about anything it wants. When you treat fans to the worst September collapse in MLB history, have Bobby Valentine come in and make things worse and then trade three of your biggest superstars to the west coast, that luxury is lost.

The Red Sox have sold out every home game for roughly a decade, but that streak is likely going to come to an end in April. According to Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe, the team is slashing beer and concession prices for the month of April as a last-ditch effort to try to boost ticket sales. Hot dogs, which normally sell for around $5, will be buy one get one free. Kids under 14 eat free and hot chocolate will sell for just $2. But the real shocker is that beer prices will be dropped from an average of $8 to only $5 per draft brew.

Yes, only. Those who have been to Fenway Park in the last 10 years know $5 for a beer is a steal. Welcome to the real world, losers. The Red Sox are expecting to sell out their home opener against the Baltimore Orioles on April 8, but tickets remain available. As Benjamin pointed out, Boston is hosting 17 games in 21 days at Fenway during the month of April. Many of those games will be against weak competition on chilly nights, so it’s no surprise the team is struggling to sell tickets.

For those of you who like boozing, eating hot dogs and taking in a ball game, enjoy it while you can. If the Sox start winning again, the bargains won’t last very long.

Carl Crawford needs to stop complaining about his time with the Boston Red Sox. At the end of the day, he was a horrible fit with the team. Injuries made life more difficult than it had to be, but Crawford plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers now. Until he succeeds with his new team, blaming the Boston media for his struggles on the east coast is pointless.

However, Crawford continues to talk about how unbearable life on Yawkey Way was for him. On Thursday morning, he told CBSSports.com’s Danny Knobler that he was a bad fit with the Red Sox from day one.

“I think that’s the truth,” Crawford said. “It just wasn’t the right place for me at the end of my day. I didn’t do my homework. Maybe they didn’t, either. At the end of the day, it just wasn’t the place for me.”

Crawford took the blame for his poor on-field performance while with the Red Sox, but he once again essentially scolded the media for being a bunch of meanies. A few weeks ago, the former Tampa Bay Ray described the environment in boston as “toxic.”

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Bobby Valentine has taken a job as the athletic director at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, and he he is looking forward to turning the page and forgetting about the abysmal season he endured with the Boston Red Sox last year. It’s a strange decision for a strange man, but Valentine apparently wanted to add NCAA athletic director to his resume that already includes managing professionally and color commentary.

On Monday, Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald spoke with Valentine about his new gig. However, Bobby V. had no interest in entertaining questions about his 69-win season in Boston.

“I don’t want to comment on stupid things that stupid people say,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on any of that.”

When asked if he was going to miss baseball, Valentine did what he has become an expert with in pulling the sympathy card.

“I won’t miss some of the stuff I had to deal with last year, that’s for sure,” he replied. “We have a baseball team (at Sacred Heart).”

But that’s not the best stuff Valentine has said this week. On Tuesday, Sacred Heart officially introduced their new AD, and naturally there were more questions about the Red Sox. Valentine got into a bit more detail this time, even giving himself a pat on the back for the job he did managing the team.

“I thought I did a hell of a job in Boston,” he told reporters, via WEEI.com. “I thought what had to be done there was done except for winning a pennant. But Connie Mack wasn’t going to win with that team. It’s six months of a 62-year life. It’s six months of a 42-year career in baseball. It’s a blip, a little spot on the radar, as far as I’m concerned.”

What had to be done there is done? Apparently the Red Sox had to go through a 69-win season in order to move forward. Valentine may be right that no manager was going to win with the 2012 Red Sox, but I certainly would not say he did a “hell of a job.”

Unsurprisingly, Valentine still seems bitter about his and the team’s failures together in 2012. It’s unclear if David Ortiz was one of the “stupid people” he is referring to, but Big Papi did pin much of the blame for what happened last year on Bobby V. He also said his former manager has mental issues, so I doubt the two will be sending Christmas Cards to one another this December.

Carl Crawford turned out to be one of the worst Boston Red Sox signings in team history, and there are a number of reasons why. For starters, it seemed like he was never healthy after signing a whopping seven-year, $142 million contract with the team. Whether or not he could have played through more pain than he did is a matter of personal opinion, but it seems fairly obvious that Crawford was incapable of handling the pressures that went along with playing in Boston.

On Wednesday, Crawford essentially admitted that when speaking with Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times.

“I knew with the struggles I was having, it would never get better for me,” Crawford said of his nearly two awful seasons in Boston. “I just didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. It puts you in kind of a depression stage. You just don’t see a way out.”

The Los Angeles Dodgers absorbed more than $100 million of Crawford’s contract to bring him to the west coast, a place where he said he feels “a lot better” about himself. Despite having yet to play a game for the Dodgers, Crawford said he now feels like the player he once was with the Tampa Bay Rays. But here was the part of his interview with Hernandez that I got the biggest kick out of:

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