Anyone care to guess what the Red Sox record for the last 30 days is? If you guessed .500, well take your prize, Jaspar. The eerie similarities to 2004 continue, and I tell myself that’s a good thing ’cause we won it all last year. Right?
Bronson Arroyo looked once again like the guy who went a stretch of nine months without losing a decision. Six solid innings and you turn the keys over to the bullpen. As long as the bullpen doesn’t include Alan Embree and Matt Mantei, that is. Embree didn’t look like he was going to get out of the seventh. I think OC took pity on him and grounded out as a gesture of goodwill towards Boston. And Mantie, well, let’s just skip that part.
Here’s the big story. Second inning, Sox trailing by a run, Nixon on second. Millar, at the plate with one out, works the count to 3-0. In the minute or so I had to think about all the possibilities of Millar actually swinging on the 3-0 pitch, this is what I came up with:
grounds into inning-ending double play
pops up
lines out to first, Nixon doubled off
hits a broken-bat screaming line drive that hits Nixon in the elbow, ending his season, while the shattered bat flies into the Sox dugout impaling Manny, also ending his season and any hopes of fathering any more children
But when Kevie Green Light swung and that ball was in the air, I was willing it to go out. It didn’t, but it went high off the wall and scored Nixon. And in doing so it may have put Millar’s swing back on track. He homered in two of his next three at-bats. Whether it was the Olerud factor (last year he seemed to heat up with the threat of Minty) or something he found in his mechanics, or that he’s just getting hot, we don’t care. Just keep it going. Like last year.
Another rubber game today with Wade Miller on the hill in what will be a steamy Fenway park. Then we get the abomination of inter-league play and face off against the Cardinals. Remember those guys from last year? Me either.
