I guess Gary Thorne didn't like the prospect of yet another losing season for the team he announces for, or perhaps his cupboard of stories was getting a bit bare, but honestly Gary? You couldn't do better than that?To deliberately twist Doug Mirabelli's words into a "scoop" backfired a bit, and now he's there with egg on his face, trying to get out of a hole he dug when claiming that Schilling faked the blood on the famous sock in the 2004 play-offs.Tish, tish Gary. As David Schoenfield wrote on ESPN's Page 2: This is a more ridiculous urban myth than the stories about people waking up in bathrooms with their kidneys sliced out. Gary Thorne should be sentenced to broadcasting Orioles games for the rest of the year for further promoting this notion (oh, wait ...).
Bill Simmons also has some interesting views on the decline of the Yankees, including Torre's losing touch and the demise of the once-untouchable Mighty Mo Rivera - there's a new sherriff in town, and his name is Papelbon...So, after a mini slump at the Blue Jays, The Sox took two against the Orioles who clearly must be suffering from vertigo in the standings - but don't worry, you'll be down in your normal seas level position soon. Then again, with the Yankees in free fall, the AL East could be (note the word could, I know this is still April!) a one horse race.Ah, the joys of a 162 game season. All to play for still, unless you're the Devil Rays and Royals...
Honestly.
Single smartest move of the pre-season.
Bringing Pap back to the closer role.
Did you SEE that 95 mph fastball he struck out Jeter with? Amazing poise, I shudder to think he's several years younger than my baby sister... Three game sweep against the Yanks at Fenway, first since 1961, and the first in most likely a gazillion year where the Yankees led all three game and the Red Sox came back to will all of them.
The other thing we've seen in the first few weeks of the 2007 season is that the Yankees rotation is in ruins, which of course came completely out of the blue...NOT! Also, Josh Beckett seems to be on a mission to make us forget we traded away a guy who pitched a no-hitter and the NL Rookie of the Year last year for him. At 4-0, and back in his Yankees killing days of 2003, he's looking despite Schilling and the asian wunder kid as the star of the Red Sox rotation so far. Even on opening day at Fenway, on a very frigid day did he have absolutely no problems with controlling even his curve ball. He really seems to have found what he was missing last year.
The ever eloquent Iain muses about on his blog about the madness of european based baseball fans, and I must admit these early season late night games are killing me. I only caught the last of the three game series against the Yankees, as I was visiting friends without an uncapped broadband connection, and they are "normal" people who might look at me strangely when I wish them goodnight only to go up and watch baseball until 5am. Then again, there are another 16 games to come against the Yankees, and although I'm not keeping up with Ian's count, I'm not too disappointed with 5 full Red Sox games so far, and about 7-8 other games.
Yep, I need another sport to follow like I need a hole in my head.
And on that note - time to take the laptop to bed and catch a few innings of Red Sox - Blue Jays on MLB.tv.
'Til next time (which will be much sooner, and much more thought out than this rubbish post).
NH
Bikkuri, Yankee fans. Bikkuri.
From the always entertaining Bill Simmons, a.k.a the Sports Guy on ESPN, when writing a column on Dice-K's first start.
I admit readily I was caught up in the hype. Here's the Great Asian Hope! kinda thing.
Even so, when watching him pitch on a cold April day in Kansas, I find myself thinking - This kid has the STUFF!.
I lost count how many batters where frozen on a breaking pitch thrown for a strike on a 0-0 count. 10 strike-outs in his first 7 major league innings, 1 hit, 1 walk. Wow.
Now let's see what he's like when he faces anyone who's not the Royals...
