Although it unfortunately did no permanent damage, seeing Hideki Matsui's bullet relay to Alex Rodriguez carom directly into his vastly overpaid face was still quite exciting. It apparently left a big ugly bruise but his vision seems fine, so I guess the Sox don't really benefit from the incident other than the fact that it was really funny. What's funnier about the play, however, is that it shows just how horrible A-Rod still is at third base. A-Rod was reaching down to grab the ball without checking to see where the runner was, which you can usually get away with at 2nd base on the occasions you're covering it, but people slide into third pretty often, buddy. A great way to get hurt is to play the hot corner with no idea of what you're doing.
Speaking of new faces on the 3B scene, Gabe Kapler has recently been showing off some more than competent work there. Seeing as how we've lost Lou Merloni, it's a good thing that we've got him doing that, considering I can't think of anyone other than Mueller who's proficient at third. Kapler's a big athletic guy, which seems to work in his favor, but he also played quite a bit of third in college ball, so at least he has some slight clue as to what he's doing. His hitting's not too shabby either, so the more positions he can play, the better.
Pedro Martinez needs to stop gibbering about his ability to throw 100 MPH and start throwing at least 90 today against the Twins. Pedro, seen in this file photo attempting to cram a baseball up into his nose, has not topped 90 MPH in any of his exhibition starts thus far, despite claiming he feels he could easily throw the 98 he hurled easily in his prime. There's been several theories why, most of them kicked around by SOSH members at 3 AM, which would almost certainly anger their girlfriends if they existed.
I certainly understand and agree with the logic behind the theory that he's talking up his arm to help his contract talks. However the people who are saying that he's deliberately holding back on his velocity because the Sox management has not signed his long term contract are frankly frightening me, either because they are much much smarter or much much stupider than I am. That would be like Sammy Sosa walking around Cubs camp claiming he can hit 60 homers again any time he wants, but is deliberately only hitting singles and pop ups until he gets a contract. Maybe Pedro can still throw at his old velocity, but I very much doubt it. I hope I can have enough faith in Theo Epstein to rest assured that he won't fall for Pedro's obvious trap.
On to injury news, Nomar's looking better and better for being ready for the season opener. Trot, however, has been experiencing horrible pain in his back and had only these calming words to say about his condition
I'm just hoping I'll wake up tomorrow and feel a lot better," Nixon said. "I was told there might be days like these. I just hope it's the fact my body is a little bit worn down because of what I've gone through. I think the big thing for me is to make sure there isn't any numbness going down my leg because that wouldn't be good."I'm not going to start confidently predicting surgery on his back happening this season, but I can't really say I'd be surprised if it happened either.
I, like every other true Sox fan, hate Dan Shaughnessy. His latest article has so many snide comments and doomsday predictions that it made me want to retch far worse than his usual "Okay Sox fans, please commit suicide in an orderly fashion but only after you've bought my book, please" printings that he writes after a bad loss. I don't even have anything funny to say about it, this is just a terrible article and he's a terrible writer.
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