After the Friday night game got rained out, the Red Sox played a day/night doubleheader against the NL’s Atlanta Braves during interleague play. The Saturday afternoon game turned into a rout, sparked by a leadoff HR from Julio Lugo and 6 straight scoreless innings of overpowering pitching by Daisuke Matsusaka. At the end of the afternoon’s game the Sox had scored 13 runs off of 18 hits to win 13-3 in an all around impressive showing. The rainy weather continued throughout the weekend and Daisuke improved to 6-2 on the season. The game featured 4 Red Sox HR’s, the backbreaker being Mike Lowell’s grand slam in the 5th that made the score balloon to 7-0. After winning the game, the Sox decided to rest most of the starters and give the 1st start of the season to Devern “Ballsack” Hanasck for the night game. The Red Sox were shelled in a 14-0 rout, however, the Red Sox would be rested for the next game and the upcoming series against the Yankees (who ended up losing 2 out of 3 to the Mets to end up at 10.5 games behind the Red Sox).
The third and final game against the Braves was Sunday afternoon. We once again experienced a rain delay, but the game finally got underway and the Sox gave Kason Gabbard (pictured being victorious above) his first start of the season. Unlike Hansack, Gabbard actually had some excellent showings in Pawtucket before his call up to the big show. Once Josh Beckett comes off of the disabled list I fully expect Hansack (pictured sucking below) to get his ass shipped back to the PawSox. John Lester has been looking better and baetter in recent appearances, the Sox are bringing him along slowly but I fully expect him to be back with the team in July. As I predicted, the Brewers have stumbled onto a tough patch of schedule and are experiencing a mini tailspin. Kason Gabbard had an impressive 1st start of 2007, going 5 innings and striking out 7 while giving up 2 earned runs. Unfortunately, he was shipped back to Pawtucket right after the game as the Sox bats tore into Tim Hudson early and knocked him right out of the game. The Red Sox won 6-2 and improved to 30-13, the first team to 30 wins and they are still the possessors of the best record in Major League Baseball. This all leads to the Yankees, who will be the Sox foes starting tonight.
The Yankees (as I mentioned above) lost 2 out of 3 to their crosstowm rivals the Mets and are now 10.5 games behind the Red Sox. This 3 game series can potentially put the Yankees away for the season or give them hope that they can crawl out of their current hole. As a lifelong Red Sox fans (and Yankee hater) I can tell you that this series is all important. I have seen the Yankees right their sinking ship time and time again in past years. I don’t care how close the Blue Jays and Orioles are...the question is and always will be “Where are the Yankees?” or “How did the Yanks do last night?”. After the Red Sox play the first thing I do is to find out if the Yankees are playing or when they’re playing and if it’s on TV, I’ll watch it. I find myself watching the Yankees games in disbelief at how they’re losing these games. The pitcher getting knocked out of the game on a ground ball left me perplexed while the 3 errors by Robinson Cano left me dumbfounded. The HR popping out of Johnny Damon’s glove and over the wall took the damn cake for me. Last night they won behind a rookie pitcher’s first major league start to keep the deficit at 10.5 games. Tonight Tim Wakefield (4-4 2.41 ERA) goes against Wang in the 1st game in the series that can potentially put the Yankees in the dirt for good (if this one doesn’t do it, the Sox get another chance in June) this season. Hopefully Wake (below) will shake off his last start and continue to confound and confuse hitters. As much as I hate the Evil Empire, I’m not dumb enough to write them off or declare them dead until I see the corpse and the death certificate with my own eyes.
Tomorrow is the NBA Draft Lottery, unfortunately I care more about the lottery than either of the finals series’. Does the dark cloud over the Celtics franchise continue to hang or will the sun break through and signify the beginning of a brand new day? We’ll see soon enough. Tomorrow, I’ll do a special report on the Draft Lottery and how we Bostonians are handling it...the fallout will come shortly afterwards.
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