{"id":963,"date":"2013-08-20T20:06:58","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T00:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=963"},"modified":"2013-08-20T20:06:58","modified_gmt":"2013-08-21T00:06:58","slug":"tuesday-teabag-august-20-2013-boston-red-sox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=963","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Teabag, August 20, 2013 – Boston Red Sox"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Anyone think this was an accident?<\/p><\/div>\n

Just three short weeks ago, The Machine made a bold confession<\/a>:\u00a0 we stopped becoming A-Rod apologists.\u00a0 In the face of Biogenesis, we could no longer overlook and explain away his utter-douchbagedness.\u00a0 Since then, Team A-Rod hasn\u2019t done much to change our opinion: he forced his way back in the Yankees lineup (to a chorus of boos), (allegedly) leaked info implicating Ryan Braun and Francisco Cervelli (yup, his teammate) and somehow managed to retain an attorney<\/a>\u00a0that\u2019s even more of a douchebag than he is.<\/p>\n

Yes, in the wake of all of this, the one thing The Machine was certain there was one thing that A-Rod would never become: a victim.\u00a0 However, thanks to the Boston Red Sox, A-Rod has become just that.<\/p>\n

On Sunday night, the Yankees were in Boston, where it was expected that A-Rod would be greeted with a hearty (and well-deserved) hazing from the Boston faithful.\u00a0 However, in his first at-bat against Ryan Dempster, he faced 4 pitches:\u00a0 inside, inside, behind him, plunked in the back.\u00a0 Clearly, Dempster was aiming for A-Rod, but\u00a0(surprisingly) the umpire did not eject him.\u00a0 Instead, Joe Girardi\u00a0gets ejected for arguing, and Boston (somewhat dickishly) cheers A-Rod\u2019s intentional beaning.\u00a0 But that just set the stage for this:<\/p>\n

\"Anyone<\/a>

Anyone think this was an accident?<\/p><\/div>\n

Sixth inning, Boston comfortably up 6-3, Dempster\u2019s still in the game, and A-Rod steps back up to the plate.\u00a0 BOOM!\u00a0 A-Rod drills a homer to (deep) center, and sparks a 4 run inning.\u00a0 Yanks go on to win 9-6, and the A-Rod redemption tour has officially begun.<\/p>\n

Leave it to Boston to turn A-Rod into a sympathetic figure.\u00a0 Overnight, he\u2019s gone from complete villain to someone who maybe got a raw deal from MLB\u00a0(211 game suspension for a first time offender (in the eyes of the MLB testing policy) is a lot).\u00a0 There will be stories abound about laying off A-Rod, and giving him the due process that every other player enjoys.\u00a0 In fact, there already is one<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, the League\u2019s response to the Boston beaning\u00a0is laughable.\u00a0 MLB\u00a0announced today that Dempster will be suspended for 5 games.\u00a0 Sounds pretty harsh, until you know that (a) he\u2019ll be paid and (b) he won\u2019t miss a start.\u00a0 In other words, it\u2019s a completely toothless suspension, which shows that the League is not at all concerned about protecting A-Rod from any future plunkings.\u00a0 This only further ups his sympathetic appearance in the eyes of the public.\u00a0 Sure, he\u2019ll never get back to where he used to be, but he\u2019s slowly gaining back some of the public trust.\u00a0 Thanks to Boston (oh, sweet irony).<\/p>\n

Also, the story about Dempster hitting A-Rod because Alex snubbed him<\/a>\u00a0at some public event makes Dempster look like a complete tool.\u00a0 No wonder he fits right in Boston.<\/p>\n

Enjoy your teabag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just three short weeks ago, The Machine made a bold confession:\u00a0 we stopped becoming A-Rod apologists.\u00a0 In the face of Biogenesis, we could no longer overlook and explain away his utter-douchbagedness.\u00a0 Since then, Team A-Rod hasn\u2019t done much to change … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tuesday-teabag"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-fx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":966,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions\/966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}