Clearly Championship Caliber

I won my fantasy baseball championship this week. My team looked like this on Opening Day. I put them in the batting order I'd have used if they were a real baseball team I was managing:

CF - Rajai Davis

2B - Dustin Pedroia

1B - Justin Morneau

3B - Evan Longoria

RF - J.D. Drew

LF - Jason Kubel

C - Matt Wieters

DH - Travis Snider

SS - J.J. Hardy

My lineup for the final round of our fantasy baseball playoffs:

LF - Rajai Davis

CF - Gregor Blanco

DH - Jim Thome (only had 3 AB)

RF - J.D. Drew

3B - Mike Lowell

C - Matt Wieters

1B - Chris Carter

SS - J.J. Hardy

2B - Jayson Nix

Yup, that's what a championship team looks like.

Random Game Thoughts...

Dodgers vs. Red Sox

1. Manny's first game back. It sounded like a good mix of cheers and boos for the first AB, but definitely mostly boos moving forward after that.
2. J.D. Drew today hit a home run, extending my fantasy baseball lead in that category. Then he caught a sinking liner hit by Manny (shortly after Cameron muffed a sinking line drive hit by Ethier), which excited me, because I still like Manny but I don't want him to get any hits. Of course, J.D. immediately pulled up lame after making the catch and left the game hurt. Ugh.
3. Reed Johnson has a stupid mustache.
4. I didn't think that Roger Clemens went out in public anymore, but there he was in the monster seats. He looked pretty good, much younger than he should, and seemed to be in good spirits. I'm also fairly sure that the pretty lady sitting next to him is not his wife.
5. So, I'm so F'ing tired of people talking about soccer when I'm trying to watch baseball or basketball. If I wanted to see/hear about soccer I would turn the TV to ESPN 5 or wherever.
6. Felix Doubront. Sure. He'll be serviceable for some team like the Pirates or Reds.
7. Russell Martin has a stupid mustache too. Maybe they're having some kind of stupid Andy Garcia stupid mustache-growing contest. Stupid.
8. Ooh, Rihanna is at the ballpark. Is she dating Matt Kemp? They were seen canoodling in Mexico recently. Is she the singer who got beat up all the time?
9. Dustin Pedroia just tried to go from first to third on a foul ball down the line.
10. Adrian Beltre and his dropping-to-one-knee home runs are unbelievable.
11. The Red Sox are really breaking it open this inning. This game was tied at three before the bottom of the fifth, now it looks like Doubront might notch his first career win. And as I type this, the Dodgers still haven't recorded an out in the inning.
12. The names of the three Dodgers pitchers I've seen so far: Monasterios, Troncoso (who didn't retire any of the five batters he faced) and Schlichting.
13. Scott Atchison ties a career high by going three innings. Wow.

Well, that's it.

Halos Go Through Hell in Beantown

Finally the Sox won a laugher.

Thanks to a 7 run 6th inning, punctuated a 3-run bomb by Pedroia, the Sox improved their record to 12-14 (ugh) tonight with a 17-4 victory over the Angels. It got a little ugly in the top of the 9th when the Sox bullpen allowed 4 runs, but there were many positives about tonight's game. In fact, since I'm so God damn impressionable and one lopsided victory gets me thinking the whole season is turned around, I'm going to slide right down the lineup and say something sweet about every little guy on the team.

After a tough few weeks, Marco Scutaro has cleaned up his defense. He also came into tonight hitting .346 in his last 6 games.

Dustin Pedroia has been playing Gold Glove defense (and my guess is he'll win it this year now that Polanco is in the NL) and as I said earlier, he knocked in 3 runs in the big 7th inning tonight. He's also managed multiple hits in 5 of his last 8 games.

Victor Martinez has thrown out 4 straight would-be base stealers. Pretty good considering that unmentionable game as Texas. He also went 2-for-6 with a double tonight, with no RBIs because he was the only Sox starter tonight to not have an at bat with men on base. Did you get that? 17 runs and the no.3 hitter had no RBI opportunities.

It could have been a bigger night for Kevin Youkilis, but they kept taking the bat out of his hand. He hit a massive homer in the 2nd, and in his next two at bats he was hit by a pitch and intentionally walked. I predict a big month for Youk, a career .336 hitter in the month of May.

J.D. Drew had 4 hits, picking up right where he left off after a solid weekend in Baltimore in which he whacked 3 homers. Yeah, he's still hitting under .250, but he's clearly making an effort. Whatever the impetus may be, he's swinging at a lot of first pitches and it's paying off. His batting average has jumped 143 points in 12 games. At this rate he'll be batting 1.880 by season's end.

What a bitch Mike Lowell is being. Yeah, he's handling the platoon really well but he is killing me in fantasy. Like a mime being stabbed, I could do nothing as I watched Lowell go 4-for-4 tonight with 4 RBIs, all while he sat snugly between Desmond Jennings and Eric Chavez on my fantasy bench. The man can still hit.

Finally! Adrian Beltre hit his first homer as a member of the Red Sox. It was a no-doubter into the Monster seats, and it also came in that big 6th inning. Beltre had another error tonight- his sixth- but at least he continues to deliver with the bat. The only Sox regular hitting over .300, Beltre improved his average to .333 tonight after going 2-for-4.

Not to be forgotten, Bill Hall hit his first homer as a Red Sock to. He went 2-for-4 tonight and hasn't done too shabby a job as the interim left field. His .250 batting average is higher than three of the Sox regulars, which isn't really a positive.

Darnell McDonald joined 6 other Sox players tonight with a multiple hit game, going 2-for-4 in the nine hole and knocking in a run on a FC in the 7th. Darnell will probably never top that first appearance in a Sox uniform, but like Hall he's doing an adequate job as a temporary replacement.

That being said, when the hell are Cameron and Ellsbury coming back?

Two Walk-Offs? Huzzah!

I love it when IBBs come back to bite teams in the ass. I wish I could find a list of all the times the Sox have made a pitcher/manager pay. It was particularly satisfying in all regards tonight, as seeing Nippert walk a 5'4" second baseman to get to the Sox cleanup hitter was pretty surreal. This was a solid win for the Red Sox. They probably should have won the game in nine innings. I mean, Beckett needs to give up less than six runs moving forward, but salvaging a victory was still very exciting. I like Mike Lowell at DH. I just see him at the dish and feel like he's ready to eat, er, hit. And it's sad because Lowell is older than Ortiz. Sigh.

Josh on Josh Action - 4/21/2010: Josh Hamilton hits his first home run of the season off of Josh Beckett. 6/2/1999: Josh Hamilton is selected first overall by the Tampa Bay Rays, while Josh Beckett is taken second by the Florida Marlins. Who did the Sox take in the '99 amateur draft? That's right, this guy:

Rick Asadoorian

Scooter-o - Credit where it's due, I've been tough on Marco so far this year, but advancing to second base on a flyout to the centerfielder was pretty awesome.

Down in the Rominors - Kevin Romine has two sons in the minor leagues, including the Yankees' #2 prospect, catcher Austin Romine. No word yet on whether Randy Kutcher's son, Buster, has been signed by any organization.

Asadoorag - I know that you're all begging for more, so: Rick Asadoorian was drafted out of Northbridge High School in Massachusetts. In 2001, he was sent to the St. Louis Cardinals for Dustin Hermanson, who sent him to the Rangers two years later for Esteban Yan and cash. Then there's this interesting tidbit that I found: "Asadoorian never forgot his New England roots, and booked a flight home to Boston to witness the 2004 World Series parade." So, yeah, he's got that going for him. Which is nice.

Opening Day 2010

I had a brutal headache and had to take a nap "before" this game. Sadly, my nap extended into the top of the third inning. Accordingly, anything that happened before then I missed (This includes an appearance by Pedro?! Heartbreaking.).

Boston Red Sox 8

New York Yankees 7

This was an immensely exciting game in about every way. The stars shone bright as they tend to do on important Sox games. We had the obligatory Steven Tyler appearance, although no James Taylor sighting, which I would have bet the farm on. The 5-1 score with an invincible-looking CC on the mound had me bumming but, ultimately, the portly pitcher ran out of gas and the game began anew in the top of the sixth. Most of you probably watched this game live, so I won't report to you what you already know. But here are some thoughts that occurred to me as I watched the game:

WWJDD? - He wouldn't have thrown the ball eight miles from home plate on Marco Scutaro's RBI single, that's for sure. Damon would have daintily hit the cutoff man with his little girly arm, which definitely would have been a better result than what actually happened. It was a total Manny Ramirez throw from Brett Gardner on that play (Does anybody else remember the exact throw I'm referring to? Manny heaved it right along the wall down the third base line for no reason at all. It was 2003-2004ish; I'll never forget how shocked I was on that play.). Meanwhile, the angle that Nick Swisher took on Youkilis's triple? Did anybody else think that was ridic? If I were the Yankees, I'd be real concerned about the corner outfield slots after watching this game. Okay, I just had to double-check, Swisher is definitely a negative defensive outfielder. Damon was seven times worse than him, though, so factoring in the Granderson upgrade in center, their outfield might be okay. But Brett Gardner could be the NYC version of Jacoby Ellsbury manning left field. It's not a compliment being compared to Jacoby 0-for-5sbury, defensively.

"You Can't Hide Bad Pitching Behind A Beard" - Chan Ho Park was apparently forced to shave. He still sucks, but I'd like to thank him for helping out both the Red Sox and my fantasy team by thinking Pedroia can't turn on a major league fastball.

NKOTB - I thought Beltre, Scutaro, Cameron and even Schoeneweis looked great tonight. Beltre had the two RBI, Scutaro and Cameron were each on base three times. I thought Cameron actually looked pretty good at the plate. Will he displace 0-for-5sbury at the top of the order like he displaced him in center? Time will tell. Overall, though, I feel a lot more confident in the new recruits than I was six hours ago.

Caballito Strikes Again - I can't quit Dustin Pedroia. He's so awesome. The crushed home run was amazing. But, I think my favorite Little Pony moment was the head first dive into first, his immediate reaction to being called out (where I thought he was going to punch the ump in the face) and his longterm reaction of infuriation for the ensuing three minutes in the dugout afterwards.

I'm planning to make these kinds of observations on 50+ games this season. Sorry.

BASEBALL IS HERE!