Live Game Notes: August 26th, M's v Red Sox

Wow. That was a great game. Couple o' notes:

• The crowd was electric. Red Sox nation tried many times to get a "Lets ! Go! Red! Sox!" chant going but the Mariner faithful countered-cheered them into submission every time. Even accounting for all the Red Sox fans, that was the loudest M's crowd all year.
• Who was that dude and what did he do with Gil Meche? Struck out 5 of the first six, including Ortiz and Man-Ram (hee!). He hit 98 on the gun a number of times and his breaking stuff was truly nasty. Maybe he should skip a start every time out. Seriously, I wonder if you could make that work. Only start him on 6 or seven days rest. You would need a sixth starter/swingman type to take up the slack, but if you get the Gil Meche we saw last night for 20 starts, would that be worth it?
• They ended up kicking Yuni's triple around in the outfield a bit, but even if they hadn't, it would have been a classic "triple out of the box." He flew up the first baseline, ran hard the whole way. Very fun to watch.
• Red Sox fan sitting next to us was just despondent in the 8th inning. Timlin gave up the homer to Beltre and two laser beam singles to Raul and Richie, then over 1000 feet of line drive outs. Broussard's sac fly in particular was a prodigous blast, only to the deepest part of the park. And Francona never moved. Never even sent the pitching coach out to talk to the guy. Just let him give up 2 runs and lose the game. Sound familiar M's fans?
• On Francona, what is it with Boston coaches and the dress code? First Belichick wins threeSuper Bowls while dressing like a homeless person, now Terry Francona is trying to popularize, what is that, a sweatshirt? Because the traditional baseball uniform is too formal for Terry? It's not close enough to pajamas for him?
• Is this Beltre for real? Since the break: 293/358/553. 8 Homers and 32 RBI in 150 at-bats. Its not MVP Beltre, but its All-star level performance, right? Is it real? Is this what we can reasonably expect next season?
  
• Wow, Putz is good. I know, he did allow the inherited runner to score and he got a little help from both Manny and the umpire on the play at third. But the ninth inning? Pure Gold.