'Cats and 'Dogs

First, we have to mention the amazing accomplishment last night of Manny Ramirez, who hit his 500th home run as the Boston Red Sox took on the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yard. If you missed it, here's a link to the video and related coverage. (And props from DITR go to friends B.P., P.P. and J.P., who were there in person to root on Manny and the Sox.) Manny has a reputation for being daffy (or for "Manny being Manny"), but one shouldn't forget that he is all business when it comes to hitting. Running the bases, well, that can be another story. But at the plate, there are only a few in history who can say they were any better.

As for our own slugfest this weekend, we followed the Portland Sea Dogs today to Merchantsauto.com Stadium (seriously, that's the name of the ballpark) in Manchester, N.H., where the team took on the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

The game -- which started at 1:05 and stretched out to 4:30 p.m. on a warm and sunny afternoon -- finally ended with a score of 17-11. The Sea Dogs won by six runs, but were actually up 11 runs going into the ninth when the wheels started coming off of Portland's pitching and the Fisher Cats' bats heated up. Check out the game recap here. Everyone on the Sea Dogs scored a run today, Andrew Pinckney hit two homers and Ryan Khoury hit one. We got our first look at Sea Dogs pitcher Dustin Richardson, who got the win today with some solid stuff, going into the sixth inning.

In addition to the crazy hitting, we witnessed two unusual events at this game: Sea Dogs pitcher Daniel Bard, a recent call-up from Single-A, fired off a few pitches topping 100 m.p.h. when he came in late in the game. The other was not so positive -- Fisher Cat Travis Snider was hit in the head by hard foul off the bat of teammate Aaron Mathews. Snider was on deck when Mathews hit the foul back, striking Snider hard enough that we could hear the ball crack the helmet from our seats, which were nine rows behind the on-deck circle. Snider hit the ground, and Fisher Cat staffers immediately swarmed him. Fortunately, he did not seem to lose consciousness and was able to get up and walk back to the dugout under his own power. However, Snider came out of the game in what seemed like a precautionary measure (no information on his condition was available as of this evening). It was a scary moment and we are glad that Snider seemed OK. And it certainly proves the point about why batters wear helmets.

As is our custom at this park, we checked out the autograph table where there's usually a Fisher Cat doing the honors before the game. We were pleased to see that today's player was relief pitcher Jean Machi. At a previous Sea Dogs/Fisher Cats tilt last season, we had the pleasure of sitting near Machi's family and host family in the stands. When they saw that we were Sea Dogs fans, they gave us plenty of good-natured ribbing throughout the game. Lots of fun! While he was signing autographs for us, we mentioned to Machi that we had met his family and how nice they were, which got a big smile out of him. A great example of the accessibility of players in the minors!

In other news, the Boston Red Sox optioned Clay Buchholz to the Pawtucket Red Sox yesterday. Buchholz, the former Sea Dog who made a name for himself last season with his rookie no-hitter, had been on the DL with a minor injury. Buchholz, who'd already made some rehab starts with the Paw Sox, will be staying there to work on elements of his pitching away from the pressure of pitching in the majors, according to the Red Sox. It's probably not a coincidence that Bartolo Colon just came off the DL and already had two wins for the Sox in as many starts (and won again today).

We're disappointed that the Sox aren't bringing Clay right back into the rotation, particularly with Daisuke Matsuzaka now on the DL, but hopeful that he will be back in the majors soon. And in the meantime, we hope to see him pitch in person for the Paw Sox. The silver lining is that Justin Masterson, who is now with the Paw Sox, is scheduled to start for the Red Sox on Tuesday against the first-place Tampa Bay Rays, who are just one game ahead of Boston.