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It is going to be interesting to see how Josh Beckett season goes, he just didn't look as effective last year as he had in the past. It seemed as if he'd be going great, piling up the k's, and then an inning would come along, a walk here, infield hit there, then a three-run homer. I saw him as inconsistent in the final two months on the season last year. He needs to come up big this year if the Red Sox are going to have a chance. The weather looks like it's going to be good for tonight, though I still prefer the tradition that Cincinnati opens the season -- just another little part of the baseball I grew up on gone for good.

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FWIW, Beckett looked about as good as I've ever seen him in the latter half of spring training. The one thing that concerns me is that the Yankees made a big adjustment last year against him - it looked like everybody went to the plate with the plan of hacking at the first fastball they saw, and it really worked. Finally Varitek's love affair with the fastball on the first pitch bit them on the ass. I hope they are ready to make their own adjustment. On the plus side, he has had awesome command of his change up last month. I'd consider working backward from there.

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Joe Girardi's saying that Nick Johnson will start tonight--he was questionable after hitting a foul ball off himself the other day. (Oy, it's already begun!) I'm definitely gearing up to watch the game tonight, though I expect Boston to win this one--CC is generally a little weak out of the starting gate in April.

Also wondering how soon it will be before Cervelli's catching A.J. Posada's what, 38, 39? He shouldn't catch more than 110-120 games max anyway. He and A.J. still weren't clicking in spring training, and Molina's gone now.

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Dodger fan here. From my vantage point, because they made very little off season moves to improve the ball club, mainly from the ongoing divorce drama involving team ownership, they are no longer a lock for the division title for a 3'rd consecutive year. Frustating for me is that no moves were made to improve there starting pitching which I have noted over and over again is there one major weakness. Just look at the past 2 post season appearances against the Phillies and that pretty much sums it all. Billingsley and Kershaw to a lesser degree are question marks and whether Padilla can replicate the last 2 months of last season is open for debate. If they ever wish to move up to the next level, they need pitching and quality starters. The hitting up and down the lineup is pretty solid and that includes Manny since I doubt will have a down season since declaring this will be his final season with the Dodgers. It's all about pitching with the Dodgers and that will determine how far they go this year.

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CC is generally a little weak out of the starting gate in April.

If I understand correctly, the weather is unseasonably warm in Boston this weekend. Hopefully, this will have CC closer to mid-season form.

Actually, the very real concern ought to be how Sabathia performed out of the chute in 2008, the first time he went deep into the post-season.

He mostly sucked, basically.

ERs in his first four starts:

5, 4, 9, 9 which put his season ERA over 13.

After that he had a six inning shut out and eight innings of 1 run ball. His first start in May he gave up 4 ERs and his ERA was still well in excess of 7.

With the Red Sox and Rays looking pretty tough, can the Yankees survive another shitty April by their one true ace? If it happens, it might make the difference between the division and the wild card, or the wild card and missing the playoffs - though I suspect that flat out missing the playoffs would take a bad few months, or some substantial injuries.

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Anybody need somebody who is good for 25 to 30 home runs this year who is not only a butcher in field but dangerous to other players in the field, who's strike out to HR ratio is 8 to 1 and who with a runner on 3 and less than two outs will always look for the walk which will result in a strike three looking instead of trying to put the ball in play in Jack Cust?

I know its crazy to put on waivers your top home run hitter but I am glad to see him go.

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I don't think CC's slow starts have much to do with weather (even Cleveland weather), like weather might affect some Latin players. At least early in his career, it was more lack of fitness/extra weight. That may be less of a large problem now (he did hire a cook/dietician his last few years on the North Coast). Looks alright through 5.

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I had forgotten just how awful the ESPN announcers are. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill, you'd think Billy Gardner committed a felony with his errant throw in the 5th. Geesh, I can't believe how terrible they are, they have nothing to say and take the whole game to say nothing.

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I had forgotten just how awful the ESPN announcers are. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill, you'd think Billy Gardner committed a felony with his errant throw in the 5th. Geesh, I can't believe how terrible they are, they have nothing to say and take the whole game to say nothing.

Matthew, thanks for making this comment--I thought it was just me. They went on and on about Cano being a bit slow off the plate on that long single earlier, too.

Boy, CC really looking shaky in the 5th and now in the 6th...Bosox have 2nd and 3rd with no outs.

EDIT: now 5-4 and Bosox have a runner on 3rd with no outs. It's a ball game!

Matthew, how long is Cliff Lee on the DL for?

Edited by ghost of miles
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I had forgotten just how awful the ESPN announcers are. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill, you'd think Billy Gardner committed a felony with his errant throw in the 5th. Geesh, I can't believe how terrible they are, they have nothing to say and take the whole game to say nothing.

Matthew, thanks for making this comment--I thought it was just me. They went on and on about Cano being a bit slow off the plate on that long single earlier, too.

Boy, CC really looking shaky in the 5th and now in the 6th...Bosox have 2nd and 3rd with no outs.

EDIT: now 5-4 and Bosox have a runner on 3rd with no outs. It's a ball game!

Matthew, how long is Cliff Lee on the DL for?

Cliff Lee is on the 15 day DL, plus a five game suspension. I have a feeling the Mariners will be lucky to see Lee before May.

Typical Joe Morgan comment always starts with: "When I played the game..." What I really hate is when he and Miller go off about these small, picayune things, like Gardner throw or Cano's being slow off the plate, and go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, about it, just so they can let you know they understand inside baseball.

If I'm Boston, I'd start getting worried about Beckett, he just doesn't look the same.

Edited by Matthew
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Baseball fans are junkies, and their heroin is the statistic.

Well...not exactly.

Statistics are an opiate, this is true.

But any real baseball junkie cares more about the game on the field not the numbers crunching which must [sadly] follow.

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I had forgotten just how awful the ESPN announcers are. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill, you'd think Billy Gardner committed a felony with his errant throw in the 5th. Geesh, I can't believe how terrible they are, they have nothing to say and take the whole game to say nothing.

Matthew, thanks for making this comment--I thought it was just me. They went on and on about Cano being a bit slow off the plate on that long single earlier, too.

Boy, CC really looking shaky in the 5th and now in the 6th...Bosox have 2nd and 3rd with no outs.

EDIT: now 5-4 and Bosox have a runner on 3rd with no outs. It's a ball game!

Matthew, how long is Cliff Lee on the DL for?

Cliff Lee is on the 15 day DL, plus a five game suspension. I have a feeling the Mariners will be lucky to see Lee before May.

Typical Joe Morgan comment always starts with: "When I played the game..." What I really hate is when he and Miller go off about these small, picayune things, like Gardner throw or Cano's being slow off the plate, and go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, about it, just so they can let you know they understand inside baseball.

If I'm Boston, I'd start getting worried about Beckett, he just doesn't look the same.

I didn't realize it, but they mentioned that Beckett had a pretty bad April last year as well (in addition to CC).

CC actually looked pretty good tonight, I thought, until the last part of the 5th, when the wheels started to come off.

Speaking of the wheels coming off... the NY bullpen is doing about as good of a job as Boston's tonight. :rolleyes: (Or at least Chan Ho Park=Ramirez.) Making for a very competitive game, anyway.

Edited by ghost of miles
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um... I'd rather have Morgan blabbing his pedantic nonsense over Neil f-ing Diamond. This is making me want to hurl, as if I need another reason to hate the Red Sox.

I was thinking when that came on: God bless the man who invented the mute button.

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Well, it's only one game--but as I just said in a PM to a board member, one worry at the back of my mind, "Who will be this year's Phil Hughes?", now that Hughes is back in the starting rotation, is already being borne out a bit. Hopefully Robertson can step into that role (and hopefully Chan Ho Park's outing tonight was an aberration). I'm afraid that Joba will be too much of an up-and-down headcase to be consistently effective out of the pen. Other notes: the Yankees' lineup certainly does have impressive depth. Everybody, Gardner included, is a threat in one way or another. Granderson, for all his work on batting against lefties, looked pretty bad against them tonight. And for a team allegedly having to make its way on pitching and defense this year, Boston sure smacked the ball around a lot.

Edited by ghost of miles
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Someone needs to explain to me why Girardi left Sabbathia in the game when he'd clearly started to lose it in the 5th. That's why you have a bullpen. I'm still not comfortable having that guy behind the wheel even if the Yanks did win the World Series win last year.

Edited by Dave James
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What I really hate is when he and Miller go off about these small, picayune things, like Gardner throw or Cano's being slow off the plate, and go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, about it, just so they can let you know they understand inside baseball.

During the winter I watch all or part of one All-Star Game I have on VHS. The past few years it's one that's 10 years old as it's easier to remember. For a few years Costas & Morgan were teamed up and they did the same blasted thing. An unassisted triple play involving Morganna and exploding pink elephants could be happening on the field and yet Costas would be moaning about oh, how about the '94 strike and Joe is still replaying a phantom tag at 2nd that took place 1/2 an hour ago. Argh. Joe Buck can drone on derailed like that too. Will someone give Vin Scully the book of all possible baseball player names now, have him read it and digitize it all so we can replace these idiots? Okay give the gig to Harry Shearer as Vin has better things to do with his time.

I was following the game on the iPod, and the radio was delayed by I dunno, probably 3 minutes or so. The various visual options were always at least 1 batter ahead. It'll be good when they get the kinks worked out, as it's just too hard not to look into the future to see what happens before you can hear what happens. :rsmile:

um... I'd rather have Morgan blabbing his pedantic nonsense over Neil f-ing Diamond. This is making me want to hurl, as if I need another reason to hate the Red Sox.

Between that and Grandma Steve Tyler, they may have set the record for worst music in a home opener ever.

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If I'm Boston, I'd start getting worried about Beckett, he just doesn't look the same.

You in the general business of making predictions based on one game? :rolleyes::wacko:

Beckett had no command on the fastball and no feel for his curve or his change. You expect him to get hammered, and he was. That doesn't mean he's falling apart. His ERA+ last year was one of the best of his career, and he set a personal high in innings pitched. And I don't think the Red Sox are terribly worried because they've just signed him to a four year / 64 million dollar extension.

No word on whether there is injury protection language but I like that they stuck to a four year deal - the deals that were considered his "comps" were Lackey and Burnett getting 5/82 million give or take and obviously the Red Sox did not want to go five years beyond this, his last year of the current contract. So right there, four years minimizes their exposure a bit. And he didn't require some big per-year premium to forgo a fifth year. 4/64 is 17 million a year; Burnett and Lackey are about 16.5.

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