Let’s do that again!

Mike Timlin Photo by Kelly O'Connor

Last night’s win was amazing.  Not only did Daisuke shut down the Rays (even though it took 345 pitches in 5 innings to do so) but the offense raked like it hasn’t raked in a while.  Scott Kazmir needed to come up big for the Rays…and he failed miserably.  The Sox know what they want and they want first place.  I say the Rays let them have it all to themselves tonight, eh?

And, hey, my man Mike Timlin hit another milestone when he set the all-time record for relief appearances by a right-hander,  passing Kent Tekulve with his 1,051st appearance last night!

“It’s a blessing from God,” Timlin said. “I’m 42 years old; I’m still throwing in the low 90s. He’s given me the ability to go out there and do what I do every day, and I’m just trying to honor that.”

Mike also had something to say about winning the division rather than winning the wild card:

“There’s times when we could just sit back and say, OK, we’ve got a chance to just sew up the wild card. But you want to win your division. If you can do that, it means a lot more.

They’re cooler hats, anyway.”

We want the cool hats, fellas.  We really do.

Edited to add a few more links to some cool pieces about Timlin.  Tony Massarotti, Rob Bradford and Adam Kilgore all have some great stuff today.  It’s about time Mike got the respect he truly deserves!

Kilgore is slowly becoming one of my favorite writers on the Sox beat.  He needs to be given more to do.  And a suggestion when you hit Bradford’s blog, skip the video.  It seems to be of fairly crappy quality (tried watching it on two different computers and could barely hear it on either one).  NESN has a better vid up on their site.
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