Tamara Klink Safe

 

Tamara Klink is safe - she successfully made it out of the Chukchi Sea ice field to Nome, Alaska, although it wasn't easy and for a day or two, I wasn't sure that the Sardinha 2 hadn't sunk.

After sailing west into the Northwest Passage, finding an open route through an ice field in the Chukchi Sea and making it almost as far as Wrangell Island, Russia's Northern Sea Route Administration told her she was in violation of their closure decision and ordered her to turn around back to the Bering Sea. The way to Wrangell and the East Siberian Sea beyond was free of ice but the way back to the Bering was now choked with heavy ice, even worse than when she had first crossed it. But despite the fact that she was exhausted and desperately needed sleep after her first crossing, she was nonetheless ordered by the Russian authorities to turn back and cross the ice field a second time under penalty of arrest and prison.  

She complied, sailing as close to the coast as possible, where the currents push ice away from the shore. As she proceeded, the ice concentrations got worse and worse but she had to keep sailing on because the wind was forecast to start pushing more ice against the coast, making things even tougher. Her boat hit some ice in the dead on an Arctic night, and she found seawater in the bilge but couldn't tell where it was coming from. "I’m getting less and less sure we’ll make it out alive," she wrote in her ship log.

"With this fog, ice, and 25kt of wind, I’m not even sure they could see my life raft. And would anyone bother to mount a rescue? Why would they spend energy trying to save a recreational foreigner when they have so many other things going on? 

"I feel very naive and stupid for having come here. I wish I had stayed at home, with my family. I wish my dreams were more ordinary — like finding love and having a house. I wish I had someone else onboard to share shifts and allow me to sleep."

As she advanced through the labyrinth of ice, the clock was ticking. With worsening weather in the Bering Strait, the longer it took her to get through the ice, the worse the conditions would be crossing the Bering. But there was nowhere for her to stop, even with her boat taking on water. The potential lagoons were far behind and trapped in ice, and in any event, the charts were too poor for her to feel safe there when the wind picked up. "Besides that," she noted, "I cannot stay here, I NEED to leave this land" even if it meant crossing the Bering  in a storm while bailing water out with buckets.

Sleep deprived and trying to navigate between 20-minute naps, she hugged the coast trying to distinguish hallucinations from reality. "I see more and more pieces of ice with human faces and shapes. They seem to be dancing, changing expressions, drifting toward the boat." Despite her exhausted condition, she had to climb the mast twice in the middle of the ice fields, and managed to find open paths even in the densest areas. She kept pushing on until she was finally far enough from the coast for ice to become rare. That night, as she made it into open water, she wrote, "I pushed myself and the boat to our limits. We overcame every obstacle we met on our way." 

"But," she added, "I still have the feeling of defeat."

Unfortunately, the challenges weren't over. The seas were building in the Bering Strait and while she would have been intimidated by the forecast three das earlier, after all she had been through in the Chukchi ice field, she was starving for open water, no matter the size of the waves. "I am thankful I am still alive and sailing by myself in a floating boat," she said, "instead of drifting on a piece of ice like Shackleton and his crew." 

The Bering Strait has a bad reputation but as she crossed amid 30- to 40-knot wind gusts, she couldn’t care less. "What’s the worst thing that can happen?," she wrote. "Capsizing?" The waves got bigger and washed over the deck as she crossed, with one eventually hitting her boat from the side so violently the boat heeled and everything on the shelves fell over her "as if it were raining books." 

She finally made is across the Strait to Alaska's Bering Peninsula but for some reason, the Sardinha's online tracker stopped updating when she was only a few miles outside of Nome. Day after day, the tracker kept showing the boat in open water just off the coast, when there was no conceivable reason that she wouldn't pull into harbor to repair leaks and get some rest. What's more, fellow Arctic sailor Ella Hibbert was there aboard the Yeva, and if there's anyone who would understand what she had been through and provide assistance or just moral support, it would have been Hibbert. I feared the worst: after first crossing the Chukchi ice field and then the Bering Strait, her leaky boat had sank just before she finally made it to Nome. 

But fortunately that was not the case, and when the tracker finally came back on line, it showed she not only had reached harbor in Nome, but she had already left, sailing south to points as yet undisclosed. 

Diamondbacks 7, Red Sox 6 (10)

 

A home loss and Arizona avoids the sweep, but I'm okay with the loss because the Sox at least tried. On the very first Arizona pitch of the game, Nick Sogard got his first MLB home run, so the Sox came out of the gates with guns blazing. Jarren Duran homered in the third, but the Diamondbacks jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the sixth inning. However, not conceding defeat, Mickey Gasper responded with a three-run homer in the bottom of the inning to tie up the game. 

In the tenth inning,  Jovani Morán basically shit the bed, first by allowing an RBI single and then loading up the baes with walks and then walking in a second run before a double play finally got him out of the inning. But the Red Sox still didn't give up, and scored one run in the bottom of the tenth to split Arizona's lead in half, but wasn't able to score that second run they needed. 

But at least they tried.

Starter Payton Tolle went five inning with six K's and three runs on six hits. However, reliever Greg Weissert gave up two runs in the bottom of the sixth, and let's not talk any further about Morán's tenth inning performance. 

The Red Sox (68-59) are 8½ back from Tampa Bay and 3½ back from New York. However, their path to the World Series doesn't run through the division title but through the Wild Card, where that have a  comfortable 5½-game cushion. 

They're off today, and start a weekend series against the woeful San Francisco Giants (52-74). However, if we're seen anything from the Red Sox this season, especially since the All-Star break, it's that they thrive against division-leading teams and struggle against the basement dwellers. However, ace pitcher and 20-win candidate Sonny Gray (15-3, 2.65) will start Friday night's game, so we have at least a chance of not getting swept at home by the Giants.      

Red Sox 9, Diamondbacks 4

 

The mighty Boston Red Sox have won back-to-back home games, finally reaching .500 at Fenway, and threaten to sweep the Diamondbacks. 

Last night was the Adley Rutschman show. He opened the scoring in the first inning with a two-RBI single, and then after Ranger Suarez gave up a grand slam to Arizona in the third, tied the game up with a solo home run in the bottom of that inning.  He finished the game two of four at the plate with a homer, three RBIS, and a walk. 

What Rutschman did early in the game, Mickey Glasper did late, hitting a solo homer in the sixth and an RBI single in the seventh. All but one player in the Boston lineup had at least one hit, and five had two. 

Ranger Suarez had a rough third inning, what with the grand slam and all, but still went 5⅓ innings with only those four runs, four hits, and three strikeouts. The bullpen of Guerrero, Miller, and Olds went 3⅔ innings without any runs, and both Miller and Olds are still rocking their 0.00 ERAs after a combined 8⅓ innings in Boston. 

The Rays lost last night, so the Red Sox (68-58) sneak up to 7½ back from first in the AL East.

They go for the sweep of Arizona this afternoon (4:10 pm) with Payton Tolle (8-6, 2.97). Tolle got roughed up in Arizona last year, giving up five runs, including two homers, but that was only his second MLB game and he's a much better pitcher now.   

The D-backs will start Brandon Pfaadt, the scourge of spellcheck, who's 7-1 with a 3.11 ERA. On September 6 last year, the day after Tolle's loss, Pfaadt had seven strikeouts against one run in six innings versus the Sox. The Sox went 1-2 in that series last year, but this year they're looking to sweep.

We're No. 3!

 

Only 18 more days until college football, eleven if you're USC. The Dawgs host Oklahoma this year and have road games at Alabama and Ole Miss, and QB Gunner Stockton is expected to come into his own this season. 

Finally, something new to talk about other than baseball and stranded Arctic sailors.  

Red Sox 11, Diamondbacks 1

 

The team that can't seem to beat teams with losing records - the A's, the Jays, the Pirates - apparently has no problems with teams with winning records - the Rays, the Dodgers, and now the Diamondbacks. The team that once couldn't win in their home park now seems unbeatable in Fenway. Go figure.

Last night, the mighty Boston Red Sox (67-58) walloped the Arizona D'backs, 11-1. Gasper was in at DH in place of the ailing Yoshida and hit a solo homer in the seventh. Contreras homered, too, and every Boston batter had at least one RBI - Abreu and Gasper each had two. Bello went 4⅔ innings with three K's and one run, and the bullpen - Weissert, Moran, and Wyatt Olds in his major-league debut - gave up only one hit in three shutout innings. Olds went three up and three down, including two strikeouts in an impressive first appearence. 

See? That's how you do it. Feels good to win, doesn't it?

To add a touch of intrigue to the proceedings, D'back All-Star second baseman Ketel Marte was a no show for the game. No one knows why. 

Ranger Suarez (4-3, 3.25) is going to try to make it two straight tonight. Suarez, a former Cardinals National Leaguer, has struggled with Arizona over the years, with a career 1-4 record against them and a 6.91 ERA, the highest of any team he's faced more than twice. He'll be opposed by Arizona's Merrill Kelly (8-10, 5.11), who has a 2-1 record over the Red Sox and a 2.66 ERA. Back in August 2024, Kelly gave up two home runs in Fenway, but those were to Casas and Devers and, well, they're not going to help us now.

Pirates 8, Red Sox 3

 

Of, for fuck's sake. It's the Pirates, the 61-65 Pirates. You can't win a series against them?

Part of the problem with this year's mercurial Red Sox season is no one can explain exactly what went right to cause them to go on their epic 27-3 run, so no one knows what to fix now that they're 2-7 since their last nine-game win streak ended. We don't know what's wrong now if we don't know what was right then.

But I'll tell you one thing that's not right: Patrick Sandoval. He gave up seven runs in the first three innings of yesterday's game In the third inning, he gave up three singles and one double for two runs before getting his first out. Then he gave up two more singles and a walk for two more runs, before getting a batter to hit into a sac fly for the second out, but also allowing a fifth run.   

Before returning to active duty on July 9, Sandoval was out since June 2024 with an injury. He returned to the game a little rusty and two years older, and maybe - I'm just tossing out ideas here - maybe he's not the pitcher he was before his injury and shouldn't be starting for the Red Sox down the final stretch of the season. Let him work on his pitches and timing for the rest of this season somewhere in the minors, and then call him up nest year if and when he's back in the groove. 

And the offense! What offense? The first six batters in the order has only one hit in 22 at bats (.045), and the only scoring yesterday came from the bottom third of the order - Duran, Seigler, and Wong. And Wong, the last batter, hit a three-run homer, accounting for 100% of Boston's scoring yesterday.

Absolutely pathetic.

The Red Sox (66-58) limp home from last week's road trip with a 2-5 record against two teams currently in last place in their divisions. They start a six-game home stand tonight, but their record at Fenway this season, despite the success of The Streak, is only 29-31.

They'll have their hands full in the first series against the Arizona Diamondbacks (66-59). Tonight, Boston will start rookie reliever Alec Gamboa (0-0. 1.59), but that's probably just a decoy to get Brayan Bello (4-6, 4.84) into the game without melting down in the first inning, as he's prone to do. Bello pitched against Arizona in a September 7 game last year, with three runs on four hits and two Ks in six innings.  The D-backs will start rookie Mitch Bratt (1-1, 3.74) for his first game against the Sox.

It's Over

 

The Yeva has been docked in Nome, Alaska since the 13th of August, and Ella Hibbert finally announced today that Russia's Northern Sea Route Administration had told her to end her attempt at crossing the Northeast Passage this year due to an unusually heavy amount of ice blocking the entrance to the Chuhchi Sea. She is therefore abandoning her plan to complete her Arctic circumnavigation this year, but vows to try again next year. 

Her permit for the NSR states that she must remain in “ice free waters” during her passage, unlike Canada's Northwest Passage, where one is allowed to find paths through the ice fields. Presumably, the permits for Matt Rutherford and Tamara Klink (if she had one) had the same or similar stipulation.

Tamara made it about halfway to Wrangell Island (the olive-colored blob at the very top of the map north of the red-colored ice field) before being ordered to turn back. Unfortunately, that means she had to pass through the thickest portion of the ice field again although open water was accessible just a little further to the west. She's been having an absolutely harrowing experience returning, fighting sleep deprivation and worsening weather conditions, and has complained of hallucinations and ice damage to the boat, the Sardinha. Her updates have become confused and garbled, often self-contradictory from one sentence to the next. To be honest, I'm worried about her, but take some comfort that she's currently rounding Cape Dezhnev, entering the Bering Strait and out of the Chukchi ice field. It gets better, Tamara. Hang in there.

I'm also suspicious of Russia's motives. Sure, there's ice in the Chukchi and no one wants to have to make a rescue in easternmost Siberia even in August, but I wonder if they have other reasons for closing the Northern Sea Route. They're at war against Ukraine, which has been using unconventional strategies including drone warfare to overcome Russia's conventional military superiority, and who needs some random sailboats along your northern coast doing god knows what under those conditions? Also, with Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and Yemen taking hostile actions in the Red Sea, I wouldn't be surprised that Russia wants to assert it's sovereignty and control over passage over the NSR and not show the world that young women can sail right through in solo sailboats. Better to allow only large, corporate cargo ships accompanied by nuclear-powered Russian icebreaking vessels to show the world that they're in charge up there.

Red Sox 4, Pirates 0

 

Relief! Not the pitching, but the comforting sensation that, yes, this team is capable of beating a last-place team, at least some of the time. 

Last night, Wilyer Abreu homered 432 feet into deep right center in the second inning. Then, after seven suspenseful innings of holding onto that 1-0 lead, Andruw Monasterio finally hit a two-RBI double in the ninth for some insurance and Jahmai Jones brought Monasterio home on a single.

Sonny Gray pitched like the professional that he is, going a full seven shutout innings  with six Ks and only five hits. Erik Miller took care of the Pirates in the eighth, three up and three down, and Aroldis Chapman even managed to make it through the ninth without any unnecessary drama, three up, three down, including two strikeouts. 

The biggest news from the game may be that Masataka Yoshida apparently hurt himself while running to second base on a double in the third. He was taken out of the game with a noticeable limp, and it was announced that he was dealing with left hamstring tightness. The Red Sox will likely put him on the IL and make some changes to their roster.

Meanwhile, the baseball gods appear to regret some of the misfortune they sent the Red Sox way, as they caused Tampa Bay to lose two straight to the last place Orioles, and the Yankees to lose three in a row, the last two to those pesky Jays. So Boston, although 4-6 in their last ten, is now 8½ back from the Rays and two back from New York. The Sox have a 5½-game cushion in the Wild Card standings with 39 games left to play.

The first of those games starts this afternoon when smokin' Patrick Sandoval (1-1, 3.30) takes the mound in the rubber game against Pittsburgh. Catcher Adley Rutschman (.071) is in the game as the DH in place of Yoshida. The Pirates will give reliever Lake Bachar, recently acquired from Miami, his first start as a Pirate - he started four games for the Marlins this season against 34 relief appearances, and has pitched in relief three times for Pittsburgh this season. 

In case you're interested, Boston has a long history of defeating pirates. Boston crews who were captured and forced into service by pirates often waited for an opportunity to rebel, occasionally managing to overpower their captors and sail the ships directly into Boston Harbor to face justice. Captured pirates were typically taken to sites like Bird Island for execution and their bodies placed on display as a warning to other mariners. In 1726, three hundred years ago, the minister Cotton Mather attempted to save the soul of the captured pirate William Fly, although Fly remained defiant right up to the gallows. In other words, Boston doesn't take any shit from pirates.

Pirates 8, Red Sox 4

 

It's not just the losing, although the losing is plenty bad in and of itself, but it's losing to last-place teams like the A's and the Blue Jays and now the Pirates.

The first week of August, the Red Sox went 6-0 against the first-place Dodgers and White Sox, and then the second week they went 1-5 against those aforementioned last-place teams. During the first week of August, the Sox scored 54 runs. During the second week, they scored 25.  

Last night, big Jake Bennett have up four runs on five hits, including one HR, in four innings.  The usually reliable Boston bullpen gave up four more runs, including another homer. Offensively, Nick Sogard got a pair of RBIs and Yoshida made things look kind of interesting with a two-run single in the top of the ninth, but other than that, the offense continues to look lifeless.

So here's the deal, this shit's gotta stop and gotta stop now. Tonight, the Red Sox are playing their ace and starting Sonny Gray (14-3, 2.79). Gray was let down by the lack of Boston scoring in his last start, a 2-1 loss to the Jays, but struck out eight White Sox batters on August 5  On the other side, the Pirates are starting Jared Jones (2-4, 5.03). In his last two starts, Jones gave up eight hits, three runs and two homers against the Brewers and then a career-high eight runs against the Mets, not lasting more than four innings in either game. 

But as we've seen this second week of August, it doesn't matter who's on the mound if the Red Sox aren't hitting. We need some hits and some run production and we need it now. So by the power invested in me by Caesar Augustus, patron saint of this hothouse month, I hereby command the Boston batters to launch baseballs out of PNC Park and into the Allegheny starting tonight. Hit them out of the park and over the Roberto Clemente Bridge, even all the way to the Andy Warhol and Rachel Carson Bridges. Just hit, baby. 

Danger in the Arctic

In a recent update, Tamara Klink announced that after eight days of cruising around the Chukchi Sea trying to find a passage among the floes of sea ice, she was told to turn back due to the ice conditions in the Russian Arctic. 

The sea-ice map above shows that the polar ice cap has shifted away from Scandinavia and the Kara Sea and toward the north coasts of Alaska and easternmost Siberia. Matt Rutherford had managed to cross over Scandinavia and practically tapped on the ice cap north of Svalbard, and has gotten across the Kara Sea as far as the choke point surrounding the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. The map above shows a large body of ice south (i.e., to the right) of the islands, which is probably why Rutherford tried to sail north around the islands before being told by the Russians to turn back. 

Klink is stymied by the ice north of easternmost Siberia (i.e., the top of the icefield shown above). She is returning to the Bering Strait but temperatures are dropping and strong winds are approaching and she currently finds herself trapped by the ice. There are no harbors or anchorages in that part of Siberia and as she gets closer to the coast, the pieces of ice get tighter as she tries her best to leave the area. To make matters even worse, the other night, as she tied her boat off against some ice in order to get a little sleep, she saw a bear on the iceberg and had to quickly retreat. 

Klink is a savvy and experienced Arctic explorer, and we send her our best wishes as she figures out a way to escape the trap she's in quickly and safely.

Red Sox 7, Blue Jays 0

 

We're back, baby! We're back, we're going to the World Series, and we're winning the motherfucker!

Yesterday afternoon, the mighty Boston Red Sox shook off their five-game losing streak and defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-0, behind eight masterful innings by Payton Tolle and a grand-slam home run by Caleb Durbin. (Side note: despite the Georgia heat and humidity yesterday, I went out for a 6½-mile walk, and as soon as I got back into the house, all hot and dripping with sweat, I tuned into the Red Sox game on the radio just in time to catch Durbin's hit on the first play I heard. Great timing, but this isn't about me.) Willson Contreras hit an RBI double in the first inning, and after Tolle's eighth inning grand salami, Masataka Yoshida scored a one-run RBI and Durbin singled for his fifth RBI of the day. 

Durbin went eight, two-hit, scoreless innings on only 91 pitches. He threw 61 strikes, even if he only recorded four K's in the game. He was one inning away from throwing a Maddux and I'm frankly a little surprised that Chad Tracy didn't keep him in the game for the ninth to give the bullpen another day's rest and let Durbin earn his reward.

But most importantly, the Sox ended that ugly five-game skid they've been riding. They're now 28-8 (.778) in their last 36 games, and 33-10 since the start of last June's four-game sweep of the Yankees (.767).    

However, due to their historically bad start to the season, Boston is still only 65-56 (.537) on the year and in third place in the AL East, 9½ back from Tampa Bay, who at 74-46, currently hold the best record in MLB. Fortunately for the Red Sox, their path to the World Series doesn't go through winning the division but through the Wild Card standings, where that have a comfortable five-game cushion for the second playoff spot.   

Their path to the World Series doesn't go through winning the division, but every night before bed I get down on my knees and pray to Cthulu and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that they at least beat the Yankees in the final standings (but this isn't about me). New York lost last night and as of this morning, the Sox are three games behind the Yankees in the standings. 

It's on to Pittsburgh, the crown jewel of the Allegheny Valley, to play the Pirates (59-64), the last-place team in the NL Central. FWIW, I had season tickets to the Pirates back in 1993, but whatever (long story, and this isn't about me). Although Boston has six more wins and eight fewer losses than Pittsburgh, the Pirates actually lead the Red Sox in every major offensive statistic (team batting average, runs scored, home runs, on-base percentage, slugging, and stolen bases). However, the Red Sox enjoy a team ERA advantage (3.48 vs. 4.32) as well as fewer walks, home runs allowed, WHIP, and BAA. Defensively, the Pirates lead only in number of strikeouts (1,137 versus 1,034).

Tonight, Big Jake Bennett (7-5, 3.17) starts the first game of the series for his debut against the Pirates, while Pitt will put Bubba Chandler (5-8, 4.26), the pride of Lawrenceville, Georgia, on the mound to face the Red Sox for his first time. 

The Red Sox are hungry to atone for their losing streak and to regain some of the ground they lost during that stretch, while the last-place Pirates know that once again there's no post-season for them this year, so Boston has the edge on the intangibles like momentum, enthusiasm, and motivation.

Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 4

 

Again? A fifth straight loss? Imma gonna be honest with you - watching the 27-3 run through July and early August was more fun that watching this five-game losing skid. I mean, technically, they're now 27-8, which doesn't sound too bad, but it doesn't feel the way it sounds. It feels like two separate streaks - 27-3 and 0-5. 

 

The game was tied, 1-1, until Boston reliever Tyron Guerrero allowed five runs in the bottom of the eighth. But there for a minute, it looked like some of that old 27-3 magic might have come back when the Red Sox scored three runs in the top of the ninth, had the speedy Jarren Duran on third, and the potential tying run, Nick Sogard, at the plate. But Soggy hit into a groundout, and that was that for the comeback.  Better luck tomorrow, boyos. 

The Blue Jays currently enjoy a 9-3 season record over the Red Sox (64-56) this season. Disgusting. However, Boston is still six games ahead of the fourth-place Jays, six back from the Yankees, and ten back from first place Tampa Bay. But the Red Sox' path to the playoffs doesn't go through the division championship, and they still enjoy a 4½-game cushion in the Wild Card standings.

This afternoon (3:07 pm), Payton Tolle (7-6, 3.20) starts against veteran journeyman Max Scherzer (1-4, 7.25). The Red Sox, who've been making every Toronto pitcher look like the second coming of Cy Young in this series, are 3-1 against Scherzer, and back on September 24 of last year, rocked him for ten hits, including a Yoshida home run, to win 7-1. 

C'mon guys, you've beat Scherzer before and you can beat him again. I mean, you can't spell "Beantown" without a W.