This morning, I know two things.
First, Ray Parker, Jr. is the whitest black guy in the world. Look no further than the “Ghostbusters” video for proof of this.
Second, in the immortal words of Walpole Joe Morgan, “this team isn’t as good as you all think it is.”
Talking about last night’s loss sickens me. It truly eats me up inside because as I watched the game, I saw a team that was hungry, that pulled out every last stop and went every last inch of a mile to ensure a victory. And that team was the Orioles. Those dudes came to play, and for whatever reason, they seem to particularly enjoy whipping our asses.
I won’t give up all hope. Not just yet. But, man, last night was just a kick to the ass in convenient video format. Pedro looked brilliant for the first few innings, but was eventually outpitched by Erik Bedard(?!). Dude, Erik Bedard is the guy you buy a beer from in the stands. He’s the guy who tosses you a bag of peanuts. He’s the guy who hands you a parking ticket. He’s not the guy who shuts down a $130 million team. But, outside of a couple homers — a three-run job by the suddenly belted-by-gamma-rays Gabe Kapler and, holy crap, Kevin Millar (3-for-4) — he did just that. Eight strike outs to Petey’s seven, and please shut off the lights on your way out.
Equally frustrating was the the fielding of Johnny Damon, whose ineptitude on a couple fly balls was made that much more glaring when his Baltimore counterpart, Luis Matos, made a posalutely incredible snare that sent him reeling into the monster score board.
Damon was also the first stop in a bizarre defensive play that went something like this: David Newhan smacks a ball to the wall. Damon fields the ball and throws toward the infield, but the ball is intercepted by Manny, who then throws to Bellhorn, who then throws to the plate. By the time this lackadaisical game of grab-ass was over, Newhan had snagged an inside-the-park job, and the rest of us were comfortable in the knowledge that we’d just witnessed perhaps the most lackluster play in the history of Fenway Park.
Yes, there’s always another game. Today, in fact, there are two. Rumor has it that Frank Castillo might be starting one of those games. Excellent.
We’re eight games behind the Yankees. And the wild card ain’t coming easy this year. Suddenly, this is the most important homestand of the season. And we’ve already lost the first game.
