Monday, April 14, 2008

A Boston Marathon, One Week Early

It was a nine-inning, four hour marathon at Fenway Park last night, as the Red Sox won 8-5, in one of those games that was just torture to watch. I got to Thom's to watch it with the score at 3-1 in the third. (I played softball last night, and drove in the winning run in the final inning.)

The Red Sox pounded Phil Hughes for six runs in three innings, and took a 7-1 lead. But Daisuke Matsuzaka seemed determined to give it back, as he slogged through 5 innings, walking six and allowing four runs. The bullpen did a decent job, but Mike Timlin got torched by Jason Giambi again, as The Giambalco took him deep into the bullpen for the second time in three nights. Timlin left the game without retiring a batter.

Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon were not available, after the heavy workload they had this weekend. So Javier Lopez and Manny Delcarmen stepped up, with MDC getting the final two outs as the Red Sox got the victory.

It was also a night that David Ortiz got the night off, with Manny Ramirez at DH and Jacoby Ellsbury in left. Papi needed a rest to clear out the cobwebs and recharge the batteries after the worst start to his career.

But the events of yesterday made me wonder one thing. Since the Yankees unearthed that Red Sox jersey from the new stadium yesterday, and it was a David Ortiz jersey, does Big Papi go on a roll now? (And I have to give the Yankees credit. They are donating the jersey to the Jimmy Fund, so it can be auctioned off. A nice way to end a really silly incident.)

And one final observation on this jersey nonsense, before we finally move on to more relevant stuff. I noticed that the New York Post had blaring headlines for the entire weekend on this whole fiasco, while the Daily News barely mentioned it, and had a story about the unearthing on page 19 today, with just a couple of throwaway paragraphs.

I guess the News had a hard time dealing with this Post "exclusive."

No comments: