Rubber game cancelled

Well, so much for getting to watch Wakefield yesterday... the weather here was absolute poop and it's not much better today aside from a lack of rain. So instead of pitching against the Mariners we get to see him go against the Angels' ace, John Lackey, who's 2-0 with a 0.75 ERA. Doesn't look to good for getting Wake some run support tonight unless Lackey falls apart against our lineup, but with the way things have been going that's looking pretty unlikely. Either way, it's a Sox game and I'll be watching :)

Can't win 'em all...

Wow, aside from the major news outlets there's been surprisingly little written about last night's game - even dirt dogs hasn't been updated yet. Having been there I figured I'd give you all a first hand account of the game (I'll try to post the pics I took sometime later on in the day).

The atmosphere was electric, everyone there knew they were about to witness history. The park had a genuinely international feel with so many Japanese fans in attendance, all holding their signs and counting Dice's strikeouts. There was even one kid who had on the jersey from his team in Japan.

We were sitting about 10 rows back from Pesky's Pole and out trotted Dice-K for his stretching routine and warm-up tosses. The fans started to gather around us to take pictures and everyone was standing and cheering his name. Eventually he moved to the pen for a few more tosses and then shortly after the team took the field and he headed out to the mound.

The first pitch to Ichiro was insanity, I've never seen so many flashbulbs going off at the same time. He ended up getting the out and everyone stayed on their feet for the second batter and then finally settled into their seats with the third. Then the Sox got to bat for all of 3 minutes before heading back out on defense.

I won't go into all the minute details of the game, but it suffices to say that Matsuzaka had an OK game but wasn't as on point at Hernandez was. The Sox could barely keep up with his fastball, not to mention his slider and curve. Everything they hit looked weak with the exception of a fly out to left field. Even JD Drew's hit was nothing special, aside from continuing his hitting streak. As the game wore on the crowd become noticeably disappointed, as we were all hoping for a Dice-K win in his first start, but as it became clear that wasn't going to happen people started to root for a no-hitter by Hernandez. It seemed like the loss would be OK with everyone if we got to see a no-hitter in person, even if it was thrown by the opposing team. As it turned out even that wasn't meant to be, but I guess that's why baseball is so much fun, you never know what's going to happen... And now, after pitching two scoreless games, Hernandez is the one being called a phenom. I wonder how Dice is feeling today...

All that aside, here's hoping we can get today's game in and get Wakefield some runs!!

The time has come (almost)!

Wow, talk about a hell of a home opener... hard for things to go any better than they did yesterday (Box Score). Beckett went seven innings, threw 83 pitches, struck Ichiro out three times, had 8Ks overall on the day, and let up only two hits, bringing his WHIP down to 0.67 for this ever so young season.

What else... Drew had his first homer, Tek did well towards pulling himself out of his slump, there was an almost brawl that will hopefully continue into today, and the starters were getting pulled by the 5th inning to give the bench players a change to play. All in all a shalacking that I'm sure the Mariners will be looking to reverse tonight.

Today's game is between Dice-K and the "ace" of the Mariners, Felix Hernandez, who struck out 12 in his last start against the A's. Of course that was back on April 2nd, so hopefully things have changed since then... I'm expecting a pitchers duel all the way around tonight, between Matsuzaka will be on point for his first home start and the Sox bats are going to be fairly quiet after all the work they got yesterday. Sometimes a team can use up all of it's offense for a few days in one game, and I have an odd feeling that's what we'll see today.

Welcome Home!!

It's been a few days since my last post, so let me jot down a few observations from the past few games before getting to today's game...

Daisuke obviously pitched a great game last week, as did his opponent Zack Greinke. It was little annoying how big a deal the announcers (at least on WEEI) kept making about Greinke's anxiety issues, but what can you do? One run (a home run), 10K's, 7IP, not a bad day for a guy who's never pitched in the US before.

The 2-0 loss to Texas in Wake's first start was a tough one to take. The team picked up right where it left off with the lack of run support for this guy. Let's hope they can turn that around in the next couple of starts he has.

Then there was the 8-4 loss the next day in Tavarez's first start... pretty much a messy game and I gave up on the boys a bit too early to even comment much on that one.

The 3-2 win in the last game of the series was, for me at least, the best game of the trip. Schilling looked SO much better than he did in his first start which was a relief. Papi's bat came back to life with 2 home runs and 3 RBIs, and after the pen almost blew the game Paps came in to save the day with 5 straight outs. Hell of a game guys!

I expect Beckett to have a decent game today and pick up the win. Seattle hasn't played in ages with all of their games in Cleveland getting snowed out, so they'll probably need a game or two to get warmed up again. There was a really nice ceremony before the game for the '67 team, kind of wish I could've seen that but maybe NESN will be replaying it tonight. Ahh, one more day until my first trip to Fenway since I was 8 years old... I can't wait!!

Beckett and Dice-K's debuts

Well, we're roughly 10 minutes from Dice-K's debut... Don't know who decided this game should be at 2pm, but I've got my brand new radio ready to go to listen from work. Gotta say I'm pretty excited given last night's game. I don't have much time to write about it but Beckett looked good despite not having much control. He didn't get rattled while Lowell was making 2 errors behind him and in several cases he hung in there and got the outs he needed (going from 3-0 to striking that guy out was pretty sweet). I've got high hopes for him this season.

Quick thoughts:

• Lowell's errors were a one time thing, they'll be a little less than half of his total for the season if he puts them out of his mind.
• I'm liking this Ortiz, Ramirez, Drew combo already and Drew's catch in the outfield was NICELY done!
• The pen did a hell of a job last night, let's hope they can keep it up.
• The Pirates swept their opening series?!? Congrats!

Opening Day

Well, it's been a pretty disappointing game so far... Meche just came out of the game and ironically enough the only person to manage an RBI so far for the Sox has been Papi. Lugo just got his first hit of the game but looked silly facing Meche and striking out three times. Schilling had a rough game too, 30 pitches to get out of the first while walking in a run. Honestly it looks like we're still playing spring training ball today. I guess I got my answer about Meche, since he was more than able to shutdown an offense like ours for 7+ innings. Maybe the Royals' pen will blow another game and we'll come up with 6 runs in an inning or so, but I'm not getting that vibe. Anyway, congrats thusfar to the Royals, they've played a much better game than we have...

PS: Kauffman Stadium looked great today with the fountains turned on full blast and the 80 degree weather. It was nice seeing that place packed for a change.

24-ish hours to go

The Boston Globe has an excellent story today about Scott Boras, the man we all love to hate. It's definitely worth a read as you sit drinking your coffee on a Sunday afternoon.

I literally can't wait for tomorrow's game. Despite being against KC, arguably the most boring team in the majors over the past few seasons, it has the potential to be quite interesting. We all get our first real glance at Gil Meche, the high-profile, 5 year, $55 million free agent signing that the Royals made this winter. While the reason they spent so much for the unimpressive stats this man possesses is still beyond me, I'm hoping to at least get some insight when he faces off against Schilling tomorrow.

New Season, New Blog

Hello Red Sox Nation! This being my first post on my brand-spanking-new blog I thought I'd start by slightly bragging about the fact that my girlfriend and I will be attending the 7:05pm game on April 11th @ Fenway between the Red Sox and the Mariners to watch Dice-K's first start at Fenway where the first batter he faces will be Ichiro!! Talk about history in the making (we hope). I promise to flood these pages with as many photos from the game as I possibly can. With that out of the way, I'd like to make an observation that I haven't heard anyone in the local media even dare to mention. Here's an excerpt from the official spring training stats for the Sox from MLB.com (sorted by batting average descending):

Player       
G   AB  R  H   BB  HR  SO  SB  CS  OBP   SLG   AVG 

23. C Crisp
15  43  4  10  4   0   3   2   0   .292  .326  .233

25. D Ortiz
19  49  3  11  6   1   15  0   0   .293  .347  .224

Is anyone else concerned about Big Papi? FIFTEEN strikeouts?!? I mean, I have the utmost faith that he'll turn things around when the season starts, but these spring training numbers are pretty rough. His stats are almost identical to Coco's, and everyone and their grandmother is worried about he's going to perform. I guess to be fair he doesn't quite have the track record that Papi does, but I'm still surprised no one's at least mentioned Papi's performance thus far... thoughts?