Ron Burgundy: Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast!

Champ Kind: It jumped up a notch.

Ron Burgundy: [surprised] It did, didn’t it?

Nobody was stabbed in the heart with a trident, but that’s about the only thing the Rangers didn’t do to the Red Sox. That was a good, old-fashioned ass-whooping. Every starter in the Texas line-up had at least one hit, and it seemed like most of them were of the “left the yard” variety.

Lackey was every bit the mouth-breathing pile of suck that I expected him to be. If Adrian Beltre makes the Home Run Derby, he should ask Lackey to be his pitcher. That middle-in meatball that Beltre hit for a grand slam may be the worst pitch in baseball history, made uglier by the fact that they intentionally walked Hamilton to get to Beltre.

In my alcohol-fueled post-game psychosis, I contemplated Lackey-based titles for this post. “Shel-Lackey-ed” came up of course, “Still Lack-ing” was another. But the unstable mind wanders and I was soon on to “things I’d rather do than watch Lackey pitch in a Red Sox uniform.” Shave my nuts with a cheese grater made the list, followed by the more painful entry: watch a Rob Schneider movie marathon.

Then it got ugly as I settled on creative ways to inflict pain on Lackey. I went around the block a few times on this and came up with nothing I could print without sparking some kind of investigation. But it did help me come up with the title.

There were some bright spots in this one, and my team of therapists wants me to focus on the positive, so here we go:

  • Adrian Gonzalez is a beast and he will be in the MVP race this season.
  • Ortiz wasted no time in proving Friday’s home run was no fluke by depositing another baseball over the fence.
  • Ellsbury showed some of his spring training power with a home run as well.
  • Jed Lowrie (who will be the Red Sox starting SS by Memorial Day) had his first hit.
  • Salty even got to touch the first base bag after getting drilled in the ass.
  • Heidi looked stunning in red.

It’s up to Clay Buchholz to right the ship, otherwise Monday will be a very long off-day. I’m feeling good about this one, I think it’s going to be a big year for Buchholz.

I leave you with a question: does Mike Maddux dye his beard to look like a cartoon-Satan or is that natural?