Those Pesky Blue Jays

Taking 3 of 4 fromt he Oakland A's was a nice way to start the year for the Red Sox. They were having a tough time scoring but they had two good pitching performances from Daisuke and Lester, but that momentum is gone south now that the team is north of the border. Marcum pitched well, but not that well last night to top Tim Wakefield, who for 5 innings looked like he was going to have the Cy Young sewn up by June. Even with Drew belting an improbable 3 run game tying homer, the Sox couldn't overcome the magic of Blue Jays opening night. Today was strange, but I felt the Sox were in trouble from the first pitch of "flat brimmed Opie Taylor"(Jesse Litsch).

Buchholz was good in my unhumble opinion. He attacked hitters, his curve ball had hitters off balance, his fast ball had life and when he kept his change up down it was down right unhittable, just ask Matt Stairs who whiffed on it 3 times. The turning point was Casey's error in the 4th directly after the Red Sox had taken a 2-1 lead. It opened up for a quasi big inning and the Sox just never recovered. As none of the "Question Marks" of the bullpen supplied any answers as to who is going to get sent down when Beckett is activated fromt he DL for tomorrow's start or who's going away when Mike Timlin comes back in a couple more days.

While we're here my picks for this: David Aardsma threw 11 pitches to David Eckstein last night and ended up giving him a free pass to start the 7th inning and was promptly removed. He gets my vote and my mom's too, because well, they have a history, check out my Grading the Champs piece for the reason's behind that.

I think Snyder has more upside as a long reliever, though he did walk two today. I just don't know how much faith I would have in Julian Tavarez, plus Tavarez might have some value in a trade if you throw him in with Coco. Which I guess is a forgone conclusion, as any fantasy owner with Jacoby Ellsbury hopes because the mean time is worse than tandem running backs.

Tomorrow's a new day and Beckett is hurling against Doc Halladay. It'll be a classic, if the Sox can score and keep Eckstein and some Dude named Lyle (Seinfeld Reference, look up The Dude) off the bases.

Sterling Pingree