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.

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.

Varitek > Victor > Kutcher > Ortiz

Let me preface this by saying that I love David Ortiz. I think he's one of the players I'll most remember playing and rooting for as a Sox fan...

David Ortiz needs to go! It's getting very close to that time. I want him to hit. I want each random double that he smokes to really be the sign that Papi is back. Castiglione and Francona and Remy all insist that these two-base hits portend a hot streak that is going to prove all of us naysayers wrong. But there has been no hot streak! If we want to continue giving David Ortiz a chance to swing himself out of another season-opening slump, that's fine. Go for it. Bat him ninth, though. Pinch hit for him when the game is on the line and Mike Lowell is sitting on the bench. Treat him just like you would the ninth batter in an NL lineup until he starts hitting like he's designated to do. The brutal failure of Saturday evening's Friday game's eleventh inning is too much to bear. I don't like seeing Ortiz as the goat in a situation where the only thing he has to do is hit a flyball to end the game and he can't even be counted on to make a productive out. Since it seems like Ortiz is sticking around for now, I guess my only hope is that the courts award the 5-hole in the Red Sox lineup to Jay-Z as part of the damages awarded in the pending "40-40" lawsuit (And shouldn't Ortiz have named his club "50-1"? Because even at his best "40-40" and Papi never resided in the same sentence.). Sigh. At least I was able to get in a Randy Kutcher reference here. I would rather have him at DH than Ortiz right now.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox suck either way. The season's pretty much over.

4/6/10 Marco Bootaro: Yankees beat Sox 6-4 in Boston

A tough loss for Boston tonight. Perhaps a game the Red Sox should have won, but they probably shouldn't have taken Sunday's contest, so it's hard to feel too bad about it. Two games into the season and things are already evening out.

At 7 I started following the game in the library at SMCC, "watching" the game on MLB.com's Gameday while I read a novel about hermaphrodites and incest. Then I drove over to pick Breanne up from the hospital, catching the game on XM radio to-and-from Portland. When I got back to OOB I turned Gameday back on and listened to the Spanish radio signal. My Spanish is not great, but I did pickup some infinitives and several last names. I finished my media buffet at the gym, watching the last 2 1/2 inning on NESN while I rode a stationary bike. The game rolled to a sweaty and unfortunate finish, soiled with a Marco Scutaro error that would have gotten the Sox out of a sticky situation in the 7th, and culminating with a Robinson Cano bomb to right field. Mariano wasn't about to blow a 2-run lead to the bottom of the order, and other than a Scutaro double to left center that probably should have been caught, the Sox went quietly in the ninth.

In the bottom of the 8th, with Marte on the mound and Youk at second with no outs, I would have pinch hit Mike Lowell. Ortiz put a shabby swing on a fastball, popping it up to shallow center, before Joba came in to strike out Drew and Beltre. Ortiz can't handle lefties anymore, and Francona has a perfectly good right-handed hitter just sitting there on the bench getting grayer. Might as well use the guy.