That's Better

Mariano Rivera has got a big problem. He has lost his confidence against us, and Bill Mueller in particular. I know yesterday I wrote that I didn’t think his problem was mental, but after what I witnessed yesterday, I have changed my mind.

I’m now convinced that HE is convinced that he cannot get this man out. We have the game winning blast into the Sox pen on July 24th last year, the single up the middle in game 4 of the ALCS to drive in Dave Roberts and tie the game, and Tuesday’s single after he gave up the game-tying home run to Varitek.

Then yesterday, he’s got a 3-2 lead, with Mueller leading off the inning. He walks him on 5 pitches and the 4 balls were nowhere near the plate. That to me is a sign of a man who has absolutely zero confidence that he can get a hitter out.

And of course, it goes beyond Mueller. It’s the entire team; and there is more to it than just a loss of confidence. He has also lost some velocity on his cutter and seems to be having trouble locating it. Add all of this to the fact that we’ve seen him so much that we are able to make adjustments, and it’s going to be a scary 9th for the Yanks when they have the lead against us.

Wakefield looked good, that was nice to see, and although Moose only gave up 2 runs to us, he DID give up 9 hits in 6 innings and was lucky to get away with only giving up the 2 runs. Once Schilling comes back, they may still have a slight advantage over us in the starting pitching department, but that’s the only place they have an advantage.

All right, enough about the Yankees, at least until next week.

On to Toronto.

It looks like Francona is going to be all right, which is good news. Hopefully he’ll be back in the dugout for Opening Day on Monday.

Not The Start We Wanted

So we’ve had a couple of frustrating days here, but it’s no reason to panic or be very concerned about.

Let’s take Opening Night for what it was. A beating, they put the hurtin’ on us, it wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. Such is the way it goes. We’ll have our share of being on the other end of those as well.

It was a little annoying to watch this team come out and play the way they did, but this is a good team and they’ll get it together soon. Hell, it took them 3 months to put it all together last year.

Yesterday’s game was a tough one. I had complete confidence, with Rivera coming in, that we still had a chance to win the game. Varitek’s home run, Mueller with yet another hit off him, Damon’s shot that almost made it out, we almost had him again.

I think I heard somewhere that this guy has blown 5 of his last 10 save opportunities against us. This is good, no matter what is happening when Rivera comes into the game against us, it’s not automatic anymore. We have a chance.

People are wondering if we’ve gotten into his head. I don’t believe that. This guy is still the best closer in the game and he has the mental makeup to put all that stuff out of his mind when he’s out there. I think the big difference is that we’ve seen him a lot, and we’ve got a lot more confidence going up against him now.

Clement did not pitch as badly as the numbers indicate. He actually pitched a decent game but was victimized by a little bad luck. He needs to cut down the walks but they didn’t hurt him yesterday, although they did result in him throwing a lot more pitches, forcing him out of the game in the fifth.

Clement throws inside a lot. Because of it, he hits a lot of batters. That pitch against Jeter wasn’t that far inside, but because Jeter likes to lean in, it hit him, which happens a lot to him.

But Clement came right back and got A-Fraud to hit the DP ball that Renteria botched. And even though it was botched, we still should have had A-Fraud at 2nd but Bellhorn missed the tag. He then got Sheffield to ground out, which should have been the third out of the inning, but instead Jeter scored from 3rd, and then he gave up the 2 run shot to Matsui, which was really the only mistake he made the entire game. Matsui is hot and up to his old ways again. He’s going to be one of the league’s top hitters this year.

I’m not concerned about Renteria either. He’s still one of the top defensive shortstops in the league, as well as one of the top clutch hitters, and we’ll see that.

I don’t worry about the Yankees. They’ve got a 200 million dollar pay roll. They’re going to win a lot of games and they’re supposed to. But so are we, and we will.

So things didn’t start off quite the way we wanted them too. It’s 2 games, we’ve still got 160 left to play. This team is built for the long haul, just like it was last year. It may not be quite the same team as last year, but it should still be just as good.

There’s still a lot of baseball left to play.

Here We Go Again

Let’s not put too much emphasis on what happens in this game tonight. This is one game out of 162 for the season, and one game out of 19 against NY.

Randy Johnson is one of the most dominant pitchers to ever play the game and probably the greatest lefty ever. As much as I would like to think he’s on the decline, he’s hasn’t shown any signs of that being the case, and it’s probably not likely.

David Wells is capable of going out there tonight and pitching 6 innings of shutout baseball, or giving up 6 runs and being gone by the 3rd inning, or anywhere in between. The thing is, we didn’t acquire Boomer to pitch this one game. We signed him to help us win another championship by being the pitcher he has always been known to be, consistent, and coming up big down the stretch and into the playoffs.

We need to look at tonight’s game for what it is. It’s the first game of the season. The Boston Red Sox go into “The House that Ruth Built” as World Champions. What happens after that is just one game. No season in any sport has ever been won or lost because of the first game of the season. This one will be no different.

Tonight is just the start of what promises to be another wild ride, another exciting season of Boston Red Sox baseball. Sox/Yanks, Boomer/Big Unit, it would seem they’ve got the edge there, but like I always say (and so does everyone else), anything can happen, that’s why they play the games.

Let’s get in on already. GO SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Almost Time

It all starts again in 2 days. The 2005 baseball season, Sox/Yanks, Opening Night, Yankee Stadium, I think I just peed my pants.

I haven’t been this excited about a season since, well, uh, since LAST season, and the season before that. Okay, so I get excited like this every year, and this year is no different, except for one thing, THE BOSTON RED SOX ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS!

For the first time in my lifetime, and other people twice my age and even older, we go into a season as defending World Champs. WE have something everyone else wants.

I know the players aren’t looking at it that way. As far as they’re concerned, last year is history, the slate is clean, and they are going to go out and try to win a World Championship just like every other team.

That’s fine, they can think of it like that, in fact, I like it, and prefer that they think that way. But that’s the players. The fans don’t have to think that way. We’re the World Champs, and it will be that way until October when we either do it again, or someone takes it away from us.

They say it’s tough to repeat and they’re right. It’s not done very often and history is against them. But not 6 months ago this team had history against them and they changed it, so you can just forget about trying to use that argument on me.

I’ve already posted my opinions of this team, and how they match up against the Yankees. Not much has changed, so I won’t get into it again.

I will say this though, yes, there is no question that the Yankees look like the better team on paper, and should be favored to win the A.L. East again, but paper doesn’t win anything and that’s why we play the games.

This rivalry has reached new heights. As everyone knows, I hate the Yankees as much as I love the Sox. But I love having the Yankees around; it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without them.

This promises to be another exciting season and I am looking forward to it. Two more days, I can’t wait. Let’s get it on.