This entry is all over the place

He's coming back soon!!!! (Photo taken by Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net on Monday in Pawtucket and used with permission)

(Feeling a little bit rambly today!)

So a week ago who would have thought two of our starting pitchers would go into the ninth inning?  This week we had two of them do it and Lester got himself a complete game in the process.  The sun shines a little brighter after a game like that.

You know what’s nice?  I have, a bit unconsciously, stopped reading the sports sections at boston.com and bostonherald.com.  Every so often something sneaks through when either someone sends me a link to a story or I happen upon one while glancing at a paper, but for the most part I really haven’t been reading them.  It gives a whole new feeling to the fandom.  Unfortunately, with Twitter and Facebook it’s impossible to totally ignore all of it (and it IS good to keep on top of the current events of the team).  I don’t need the media to tell me Papi was struggling or that fans weren’t happy – I saw the games and heard the boos, but I did find Papi’s comments on “The Big Show” encouraging in that he seems to get those boos came from a cranky minority:

After all that you’ve done for the fans since 2003, how do you react to fans who abandoned you during your slumps this year and last year?

It’s not the fans. It’s not the fans that come out with that. It’s the media. It’s the media that’s the one that thinks they’ve got everything figured out. You’ve got guys sitting down out there that have never played the game ever before, talking about how they think I’m supposed to leave, that you are done, that you can’t hit any more, that you can do this or you can do that. You never hit before in your life ever. You know nothing about that. … I’m right here, working hard, doing my thing. I’m not paying attention to any of their crap anymore.

There were plenty of boo birds at the park this year when Papi was struggling.  His quote here, though, tells me that he gets it. That he knows there are more people behind him, supporting him, than there were idiots at the ballpark.

On a side note, Papi mentions “The Laser Show” as well.  Click the link.  It’s worth checking out.  🙂

In 2005, I took a road trip with a friend to Philadelphia to catch a weekend series between the Sox and the Phillies.  I remember our being heckled by Phillies fans at the hotel, telling us we were going to get swept.  I also remember thinking, after the Sox won the first game, “Okay, they won one.  At least we got one out of it.” and then after they won the second game my friend said “Okay, they won two…it doesn’t matter what happens on Sunday as long as we get an exciting game”.  The Sox swept.  There was no better way to spend a weekend in an opposing park.  (And we got our exciting Sunday game.  The scores, up to that point, were 8-0 and 7-1, Sunday’s score was 12-8!)  That weekend the pitching matchups were Tim Wakefield/Jon Leiber, Matt Clement/Vicente Padilla and David Wells/Brett Myers.

Any time the Sox play in Philly, the weekend trip comes back to me and I hope that this weekend will be as fabulous as that one was – even though I won’t be in Philadelphia to enjoy it.

Pitching matchups this weekend are John Lackey/Cole Hamels, Daisuke Matsuzaka/Kyle Kendrick and (dun dun DUN!) Tim Wakefield/Roy Halladay.  The Sox are riding high right now but the Phillies…well the Phillies are damn good.  But the Sox just took 3 out of 4 against two damn good teams so, really, I have a good feeling here even if the pitching matchups make me a little twitchy.

For those interested, there is a message board up here.  You sign up, get approval and voila, you’re in.  There are some guidelines and trolling is strictly prohibited but come and join us if you’re up for it.  I keep saying this is an experiment and I’m not sure how long it will last (I think it depends on you all and how much we all like doing it) but given the responses I received, I thought it was worth a shot.

7:05pm it starts…interleague play.  Whoopee.  Seriously, my biggest hope for the weekend is that our pitchers all come out of it uninjured.