Going into Friday’s home opener against the Yankees I was a little nervous. Not because I am one of those obnoxious Northeasterners, and yes I am including the good people of New York and Philly, who freaks out every game, and saw the 0-6 start to the Red Sox season as a sure sign of the impending apocalypse.
The Red Sox got beat by two teams, Texas and Cleveland, that are a combined 15-3. So 0-6 wouldn’t be that terrible if it wasn’t for the fact that they looked like a bad baseball team. For a team getting some bad breaks and few unlucky bounces, 0-6 is disheartening but you keep plugging away and eventually it turns around. I was nervous because for a bad baseball team, playing host to their most hated rivals seemed like a recipe for 0-7, 0-8, or even 0-9.
Maybe the anxious feeling also had a little something to do with John Lackey being on the mound. For the first few innings Lackey looked like a mental midget. Ok so he was getting squeezed by the umpire, but it happens and it wasn’t an excuse for the constant pissing contest he seemed to be waging with Saltilamacchia over pitch selection.
Where was the guy who barked at Mike Scioscia like he was going to take a swing at him for pulling him from a playoff game a few years ago?
Thank God for Dustin Pedroia. He showed true leadership by trying to give Lackey the office when the pitcher seemed to be on the verge of a meltdown. One has to wonder how much of a leash the Sox will give to Saltilamacchia though, who so far, seems a little lost trying to run a veteran staff. He certainly didn’t help his pitcher with the umpire, the way that I’ve seen Varitek do countless times over the years.
Pedroia went 3-5 with 3 RBI’s, carried the Sox on his back, and willed them to victory on Friday afternoon.
I didn’t get a chance to watch Saturday’s game. From what I was told, I didn’t miss much.
Sunday night, in front of a rowdy, old school Fenway crowd, Josh Beckett was filthy. He needed over 110 pitches to get through 5 innings in his first start of the year against the Indians. Last night he threw 103 pitches over eight innings, 68 for strikes, while fanning 10 Yankees. Out of the 24 batters he retired, only 2 got the ball out of the infield. The rest were ground outs or strikeouts. Considering the stakes it was an impressive showing for Beckett, who, according to experts, was on the decline. If that’s decline, I’ll take it for 25 more starts this year.
The Sox improved to 2-7, and I watched both of the wins. If I have to quit bartending so I can help my team win more games, well that’s just a sacrifice I’m just going to have to make.
This weekend showed why I love baseball. 0-6 and all of New England was calling for blood. After taking 2 out of 3 from the Yankees, I bet there will be a whole bunch of wicked happy people calling in to WEEI Monday morning. One game. One series. That’s all it takes to change your outlook.
Just look at how the New York Media is now turning on Derek Jeter for his slow start.
Bring on the 1-8 Tampa Bay Rays.
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Speaking of the Rays…
Manny Ramirez retired over the weekend. Deciding to hang it up instead of taking the 100 game suspension the league was handing down due to a positive test for banned substances.
The guy was one of the best right handed hitters of my life time. But he was also a selfish nut job who quit on his Red Sox teammates when things didn’t go his way.
I hear the person that bought his used grill off of craigslist had similar complaints.
“At first I loved it. It was perfect for cooking, it looked great, and everyone would fawn all over it when they came over. But over time it started to get, what’s the word, quirky, I guess. Sometimes, usually when I was getting ready to have a big party and had just thrown the steaks on there, it would just turn off. No warning. No sign that there was anything actually wrong with it. It would just quit.”
Now that he has quit on another team, Manny should slink off and join Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds in the disgraced star trailer park. They’ve been trying to get his old grill to work for months now and are starting to gnaw on undercooked hot dogs.
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This weekend wasn’t all good news for Boston sports fans.
The Celtics looked more fragile Sunday than Rocky trying to stare down Clubber Lang after Mickey had a heart attack. The Perkins trade was the heart attack and now the C’s are trying to come out of the dressing room and put up a fight.
But remember the look in Rocky’s eyes? They were filled with fear. They knew they couldn’t win. More importantly Clubber knew it too. Not a good sign for the C’s playoff chances.
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You know what else isn’t a good sign? When your favorite football team’s franchise quarterback starts crying about how he didn’t hear his name called until the 199th pick…11 years ago.
I’m not mentioning any names but seriously dude, get it together. You ended up getting drafted by the best franchise over the last 11 years, you won 3 super bowls, you are married to one of hottest women on the planet, and you are so beloved by a notoriously fickle fan base that they overlook you canoodling baby goats, wearing a yankees hat, growing a Bee Gees hair cut, hanging around in our rival city and yes, even crying about how hard the draft was for you and your family 11 years ago.
I’m not going to turn on my boy for growing his hair and shedding a few tears. I’m not a Yankees fan. But maybe, just maybe, he who shall not be named should think about how hard draft day was 11 years ago and use it as motivation to de-Hollywood himself. Just a bit. Just to see how it feels.
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Check back in at lunch time for the rest of the weekend recap.
——Corey Maloney
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