Halos

After cursing out the Boston offense at the end of my last post, I have to say that they brought the bats out of hibernation for the last game of the Mariner series and the entire Angels series. I know a lot of that had to do with the seriously lackluster pitching they were facing, but good teams take advantage of their favorable matchups, and that's precisely what the Sox did. John Lackey did a good job shutting down the lineup for most of game 1, but after Darren Oliver's fiasco (how is he still pitching, by the way?), the game was definitely out of hand. I've gotta say, I'm loving how Fran-coma is using Papelbon so far...why wouldn't you bring your best pitcher out of the pen to put out the biggest threat, even if it isn't the 9th inning? Of course, it could backfire if the other team puts together a rally against an inferior pitcher and you've already used your closer, but it's a risk that you definitely take.

Saw this in Rob Neyer's blog on ESPN.com (it's for ESPN insiders, so I can't link to his blog itself) and it's an interesting, if kind of superficial read. In my opnion, the game really needs more characters like Manny around; it's funny, I absolutely hated him and thought he was worthless when he was in Cleveland, but I love him as a Boston player. Now, I know that Manny always starts very very slowly, but I have to wonder if last year's shutdown and his drastically slow start this year are connected. The guy obviously loves to play too much to be purposefully stinking, but what if he's been watching the Celtics intentionally tank games for the last 2 months and is getting ideas? Quick, call up the CHB, we need to start a controversy for no good reason!!! (Yes, I know that's not his blog, but as they say, why would you want to read his stuff?)