Hangover Cafe

Well, sorry to say that between driving from Somerville to Boston and back and watching 24 that I really didn't see too much of the game yesterday. I saw us up briefly 2-1, and then suddenly we were behind again. In the first inning I heard on the radio that Mirabelli had thrown one into left field and kinda had a feeling it wasn't going to be our night... guess I was right. I think the following quote sums up the night perfectly.

From Boston.com:

"It was a lethargic day," said a very frank Doug Mirabelli, who went 2 for 3. "It didn't feel like we had the energy we had against New York. It didn't seem like we had anything going. Sometimes you don't have it every single day. A little blah today."

Minor observations: Timlin gave up a 2 run homer in the ninth, I'm really hoping he's got something left in the tank this season. Apparently Coco sat out again because of a strain in a leg muscle, unrelated to the diving attempted catch. Okijima and Papelbon should be good to go tonight after getting the day off yesterday.

Anyway, here's the recap, hopefully tonight will be an improvement...

4/23 (7-3, Sox lose)

Oh yeah, and here's a preview of tonight's game... can Tavarez possibly beat Halliday in two consecutive starts??

Three More Wins

Since I only got to listen to our last two games against the Jays, here's a recap.

4/18 (4-1, Sox win)
4/19 (5-3, Sox win)

Quick thoughts:

Wed: Only 5 hits for the Jays... Mirabelli goes deep... Wakefield gets some love... That knuckleball's working well this year... I might've been a little hard on Lugo in that last game, that runner was damn close to being completely in his way.

Thur: Coco's waking up... Tavarez did a great job keeping us in the game... Manny picked a nice time for his first home run... Another save for Papelbon... Until Friday's game it was easily the most important, confidence-building win of the season.

Friday was an outstanding come from behind win against the Yankees, with Mariano Rivera blowing yet another lead against the Red Sox. It started with Schilling vs. Pettitte. Schilling gave up two homers to A-Rod, who became the fastest to 12 home runs, in 15 games. Aside from Tek's 2-run blast the bats were pretty quiet against Pettitte. Coco almost killed himself slamming into the bullpen wall going after one of A-Rod's home runs. The eighth inning started off 6-2 Yankees and ended 7-6 Red Sox. Okijima came in to close it out and picked up the save since Paps was unavailable.

From ESPN, here's how it all went down:

"J.D. Drew had three hits for Boston, which trailed 5-2 before David Ortiz led off the eighth with a double and Manny Ramirez walked. Drew moved the runners up, then Mike Lowell singled to make it 6-3 and bring in Rivera. Jason Varitek, who hit a two-run homer in the fourth, singled to make it 6-4, then Crisp tripled down the right-field line to tie it. With the infield in, Cora fisted a blooper over Jeter's head to the back of the infield dirt, driving in the go-ahead run."

The Sox wore their green St. Patrick's Day uniforms and apparently it was the first time in team history that the players have had their names on the back of their uniforms while playing @ home. My roommate walked in the door, took one look at the TV, and asked "What, are the Sox celebrating 4/20?". In a way, I guess they were :)

Dice-K's the new Wakefield

You can't help but feel bad for Daisuke after yesterday's game. He was throwing beautifully until it all came unravelled in the 4th. Between the call at the plate that got him rattled (sorry all, that was a ball...), the screw up by Lugo (knew it would happen eventually), and getting robbed on Lowell's throw to first it was a mess. But to his credit he got out of the inning and came back to own the Jays for the next two innings. Hideki pitched an awesome inning too, striking out the side, and even Pinero looked good. But, once again, the Sox bats failed to come to life and give this kid some support. Hell, he's done all we can really ask of any pitcher in his first three starts, and has a record of 1-2 to show for it.

This brings us to the offense... props to WMP for that monster of a homerun up on top of the old restaurant. I don't think I've ever seen a ball hit that far in Toronto. But man, 1 run on 7 hits when the Jays only had three 3 hits the whole game. Manny needs to shave his head or something, the dude needs to wake up already cuz .205 with no homers just ain't his style. Youk, Ortiz, and Lugo all went 0 for 4. Then there's Tek... give up hitting lefty and focus on just one side of the plate, please!!! I really think he'd be way better off spending his time in the cage focused on hitting from one side, but we probably won't see that happen. Ahh yes, and Coco... nice game yesterday going 2-4, got the average back up to .150. Let's hope he can keep it up. Anyway, Wakefield goes tonight, let's hope we can turn it around against Ohka who's 0-1 with a 7.84 ERA. Then maybe we'll have a chance of improving on last year's record of 7-12 against the Jays.

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?