Baseball's Back!

Opening weekend of the 2011 baseball season is drawing to a close and you know its early in the season because games are postponed due to snow!  


As a Red Sox fan, I am not exactly thrilled with the way this season has begun.  With all the hype surrounding the Red Sox offense throughout the offseason and spring training, I was not expecting my team to get swept by the defending American League Champion Texas Rangers.  However, run production was not the obstacle facing the Red Sox in their first series of 2011.  The Sox scored 11 runs in their first three games, but gave up 26 runs, including 11 home runs, to the Rangers.  Ian Kinsler, the Rangers' starting second baseman, and professional James Franco look-a-like, hit a home run in each game of the series, including one in his first at-bat of the season.       

Not James Franco

                                                        
The Red Sox pitchers need to step up, hit their spots, and not throw the ball right down the middle of the plate.  Also, if you ask me (and no one is, but when has that ever stopped me from voicing my opinion) the Red Sox rotation should be as follows: Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, Josh Beckett, John Lackey, and Daisuke Matsuzaka.  I don't care that Beckett and Lackey have more experience than Lester and Buccholz, at this point the veterans are not pitching well, and that needs to be reflected in the rotation.  Also, I am sick of Jonathan Papelbon.  I'm sorry, but I am.  At first I put up with his ridiculous stare down to home plate and the five hours (literally) he takes between pitches because he got the job done and ended the game.  Now, however, Papelbon seems incapable of ending a game without making it exciting.  Today, he gave up a run and loaded the bases before striking out the side and he does not seem to be as effective as he used to be.  Maybe this will correct itself as the season goes on, but if not, the Red Sox seriously need to consider using the hard-throwing Daniel Bard as their every day closer.  Lastly, Carl Crawford has been off to a not quite abysmal, but also not so great start, in his first year with the Sox.  This season he is 2-9 with one RBI, and went 0-7 in his first two games.  Crawford will not go through the entire season with a .200 batting average, and will no doubt step up to the plate (as usual, pun intended) and live up to everyone's expectations.  All in all, I am not too worried about the Red Sox, and have confidence that they will make the playoffs this season.  After all, its a long season and there are still 159 undoubtedly exciting games left to be played.


In other opening weekend news, I found the following three extremely different stories to be equally and incredibly intriguing.  


First, after the Dodgers home opener against the Giants, a Giants fan was beaten by two Dodgers fans and is now in a medically induced coma.  The man, a father of two, is said to be in critical condition.  Stories like this are incredibly disheartening.  While rivalries are fun (and the Dodgers and Giants have a great one) baseball is just a game and there is no reason for the violence that took place last Thursday.


Changing gears, while reading the sports section of the New York Times today, I spotted a story that caught my eye.  Everyone who knows me knows that I love mountain climbing, so when I saw that R.A. Dickey is planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro this offseason, my first thought was "COOL!" and my second thought was, "is he contractually allowed to do that?"  Well, Dickey scoured his contract and found that mountain climbing is a-okay, so he is going to climb the highest peak in Africa this January.  Part of me thinks this is awesome, but the other part thinks, if I work in the Mets' front office or root for the team, I don't want the man who is emerging as the Mets best pitcher to climb an almost 20,000 foot mountain just a month before pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.  It seems, however, that Dickey is going to climb the mountain, so one can only hope that he is accompanied by a team of people who can keep him free of the many illnesses that can plague a Kilimanjaro hiker.  


While we are on the topic of the New York Mets, an SportsNet New York (SNY) employee played this Family Guy clip over Gary Cohen on the Mets postgame show after the team lost on opening day.  Apparently SNY executives were not very happy, and you can see why:

All in all it has been an eventful start to the 2011 season and I cannot wait to see how it all unfolds.