After the Red Sox lit up Jose Contreras for 10 runs on 10 hits (and if you watched the game, you know that the J.D. Drew so-called double should’ve made it 12 runs), pitching coach Don Cooper had this to say to reporters:

“Long story short. The scoreboard says 10 runs, and I don’t say stuff for myself to believe or just to feel better about it, but that’s an encouraging start for me. Jose’s stuff was crisper, regardless of the radar gun. He was facing a good lineup, and he threw the ball much, much better.”

Now, I am not a major league pitching coach. I am not a major league manager, and the last time I even threw a baseball competitively it was trying to hit 70 mph on a pitching cage radar gun at a Queens of the Stone Age concert to win free beer. But even I know that if, in the space of 7-1/3 innings, a guy gives up 10 hits, 3 walks, 10 earned runs, and a grand slam to Julio Lugo of all people, that’s not a good outing.

The Sun-Times is reporting “at least three teams” were scouting Contreras, so the logical question is whether or not even the mighty Coop has given up on El Conte and is just talking him up to the press in an attempt to keep whatever trade value he had left intact.

Call-up Ehren Wassermann, who this writer so expertly predicted would be next up, was perfect in his two-thirds of an inning of mop-up duty.

For you out-of-towners, the Sox-on-Sox violence continues on national television today, live from Fenway at 2:55 CST. And for anyone wondering, I hit 68 mph and was rewarded with a Bud Light keychain. It’s not an exact conversion, but I think that translates to roughly a 10-3 shellacking at the hands of the BoSox.