I still hate Bobby Jones

Record: 3-3 (Yay! .500! Take that Yankees!)


Yesterday's game bears very little mentioning. I mean, seriously, a 13 inning marathon, followed by a 4 hour delay at the airport because the charter plane had a landing gear gnome infestation, followed by most everyone on the team getting 1-3 hours of sleep? That was just one weird catastrophe on top of another. You can't do anything well on an hour of sleep, just look at Mike's posts. Bronson Arroyo, the one Sox player who DID get to bed at a decent hour due to coming home to Boston the day before, looked, well, decent. Kid has a passable cut fastball but difficulty getting his breaking ball called for a strike. Also, he has not shook his minor league track record of giving up about 10 million hits a game. Consider him a lite lite lite version of Andy Pettite. The loss of that game by a score of 10-5 was pretty discouraging, made worse by a Mets friend and a Cubs friend watching THEIR worthless ~80 win teams persevere in extra innings, but I didn't put too much stock in it.

Before I tackle today's game, I'd just like ask in a public forum "What the fuck is up with NESN?" First of all, I know money has to come in from somewhere, but I really have to disagree with their "50-20-20-10" advertisement ratio. By that I mean

50% Foxwoods commercials, complete with the jingle that makes me want to saw off my genitals with rusty dental tools that are also on fire. If you've never heard what I'm talking about, you're lucky. If you have, you know what I'm talking about.

20% semi-retarded Dunkin Donuts commercial with Curt Schilling learning how to say phrases like "wicked hahd" and "pitching in the pahk" from a tape, until a janitor who looks like the type to cheerfully molest children from time to time says "Nah, Curt, you can't do it like dat"

20% exceptionally retarded Ford commercials, where Curt Schilling is trying to hitchhike from Arizona to Fenway Park. A Dodge and a Chevy offer to pick him up and Curt politely refuses. A Ford truck stops and Curt grabs a ride, commenting that he needs a ride to go "break an 86 year old curse"

10% local businesses, whose commercials are so bad that they are vaguely enjoyable. I don't think anything can beat the "Who knew?" Mason's commercial from last year, but who knows? The year is young

NESN's got some other problems, including a horrible, horrible red color scheme, a new studio desk with a giant glowing blue, I dunno, disk thing on their desk, and Jim Rice opening his mouth on several different occasions. And where the hell is Bob Rodgers?

But enough about that, how about talking about today's awesome game?. I must admit that I came into this game feeling about as confident as Mike would asking out a human female. Look at this friggin' lineup:

C Crespo CF
B Mueller 3B
D Ortiz DH
M Ramirez LF
K Millar 1B
J Varitek C
G Kapler RF
M Bellhorn 2B
P Reese SS

Goddamn. That's the worst lineup I've seen us Trot out since 2002. (Get it? Trot Out? Let's see you write better, assclown) However, to my shock, the game went tremendously. Crespo can play center field and even got on base three times (due more to running down the line to beat out grounders more than any real skill). Gabe Kapler can't hit for crap, but he did make a GREAT play in right field. Pedro looked good, his offspeed stuff was very good, including a curve ball that fooled quite a few hitters. His velocity was even worse this time though, he never topped 90. That doesn't really matter when you can go 7.2 innings and strike out 7 guys, though.

The offense scored 4 runs, but still worries the heck out of me. All the runs came from homers. The 2002 Sox hit some homers too, the problem is that when you can't hit anything but them you get a very inconsistent offense. I don't want the same "score 10 runs in 2 games, score 4 for the next 5" crap we had a few years ago. Mueller, Reese, Varitek, et al are all hitting below the batting average I'd like to see. But, it's still early. We won, the Yankees lost. We just have to limp through May and hope Nomar and Nixon come back hitting well.