Me and my Sox: Back in the swing

If only I knew how to play chess I would have bought this set just so miniature Tek could face wash tiny A-Rod

After spending the weekend in New York, most of yesterday flying home and recovering, and the rest of the evening catching up on Sox news and watching my first game in four days (yay!) last night, I finally feel like I'm ready to re-enter the blogosphere.

By sifting through "a weeks worth of Globe stories" I found out that I missed quite a bit of action while I was gone, including Barry Bonds' first Fenway homer, the Sox sweeping the Giants out of town, and Coco Crisp's first career two-homer game. Whew.

Not to mention Manny's twin bombs over the weekend, another 1-0 Sox win in Dice-K's Saturday masterpiece and Schilling's second consecutive meltdown following his 1-hitter. Whew!
Not wanting to cheat my faithful readers out of my always insightful commentary, I'm going to recap some of the past before I get to the future (i.e. tonight's game) regarding our team.

Thank you for your patience.

• Beckett notches win #10 in 4-0 Sox win-- last night's rain-interrupted affair with Atlanta lasted long enough for Josh to pick up his 10th victory in his second attempt, and though he wasn't dominant (6IP, 4H, 0R, 2BB, 3K) he pitched well enough to secure the win. His night ended after a 48 minute rain delay before the seventh, but by then Papi had hit his 12th homer, Coco had made another spectacular catch, and Becks even helped his own cause with an RBI double. Nice.



• Schill shelled again, then sent home for MRI-- according to Braves 3B Chipper Jones, Curt did not have his usual 92+ velocity in Monday's 9-4 loss, and he surmised that the leather-tough vet had to be hurt. Turns out the king of bastard children and annoying DL stints was right, as the team announced yesterday that Schilling flew home to have an MRI on his shoulder. Although the results didn't show any damage, the Globe reported today that Curt says he most likely will miss his next scheduled start and will have a cortisone shot to boot. Gulp. But hey, a Schill that allows 19 hits and 11 earned runs in 9.1 innings is no good to the team anyway.



• Dice & Manny combine for 1-0 gem-- Matsuzaka bounced back from a trio of consecutive losses to throw a 3-hit masterpiece, fanning eight in his seven innings, the highlight coming when he induced Bonds to ground out with two on and no out in the sixth. Manny's 4th inning Monster shot accounted for the only run of the game, Oki struck out Bonds with two on to end the 8th, and Paps finished it with a 1-2-3 ninth. Man I wish I DVR'd this one-IDIOT!



• Coco goes cuckoo at the plate-- he's hit safely in six straight games including his 4-4, 2-HR outburst Monday, and over his last 11 games he's batted .350 (14-40) to raise his average 21 points (.226-.247). Plus he had another great catch. Awesome.



• Bonds hits #748 against his old mate-- in Sunday's victory former Pittsburgh teammate Tim Wakefield allowed career homer #748 to Bonds on a solo shot in the 6th that made the score 8-4 Boston. Of the shot Bonds said "I believe I had two, but we'll leave it at one," referring to his Pesky pole non-call on Friday. Boo hoo.



• Relief cored-- Romero cleared waivers-so long, J.C. we hardly knew ya. We knew you allowed a lot of baserunners, but that's about it...Timlin was torched again in his appearance Monday, allowing 4 hits and 2 runs in an inning and a third to run his ERA to 6.23...Donnelly was DL'd for a small forearm strain, and MattapanManny was recalled and has



• Lugo disappearing off the face of the earth-- already dropped to last in the order the $36 million dollar man has managed to sink even lower, lugging a .205 average into last night's game in which he got the night off in favor of Cora. Lugo's slump has reached Drew-like proportions (0-9, 1-17 and 4-39), and Tito has no choice but to use a platoon system until (if) Lugo breaks out of this infuriating funk

Those are just a few of the notable occurrences that have transpired in my absence, and I could go on but tonight's game (broadcast in ESPN HD-yay!) is getting ready to start soon.

It's good to be home again.

It'll be even better if the Sox win tonight's game while I get to relax on my big comfy couch and watch the game in stunning HD for the first time in a while.

Then again, Julie is pitching, so I could be in for a disappointing night.