September is almost upon us, which means the best month of baseball season is about to begin.
Before the pennant races really heat up, a couple of controversies involving players on playoff contenders attracted attention away from the field. Yasiel Puig, who never seems to be far away from a headline, was benched by Dodgers manager Don Mattingly on Wednesday, just a few hours after Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips barged into his manager’s office to dress down a beat writer who tweeted something Phillips took exception to.
It’s been a wild couple of days, and that’s not even including the Red Sox’ exciting win over the Orioles, thanks to Mike Carp‘s clutch eighth-inning single.
Through it all, the Red Sox keep chugging along. Shane Victorino is having his best month as a member of the Red Sox and Jacoby Ellsbury is giving Boston a nice going-away present, if this indeed turns out to be the center fielder’s final season before heading elsewhere in free agency. Mike Napoli‘s re-emergence has also renewed talks about whether the Red Sox should re-sign the first baseman this winter.
NESN.com Red Sox editor Ricky Doyle joined Ben Watanabe to talk about these an other burning topics in this week’s podcast. Listen to or download the latest episode below.
