Anniversary

Good-gosh-golly-geez. A year already? I remember those heady early days, when I was blogging at a Fast and Furious pace that Vin Diesel would have been proud of, before coasting into a Tokyo Drift of not posting.

Well, I ain't back up to my old pace yet, but I should be good for once a week, at least.

I haven't been able to catch many games this year (though I do thank Buffalo South on Folly Road for realizing that there weren't really that many people interested in the NHL playoffs) nor am I playing in a fantasy league this year, so I feel a little less plugged in than I usually would.

Also, that second World Series in 4 years does take some of the bite out of a guy. Yes, I know the Yankees have still out-championed the Red Sox by a margin three times the distance of a Johnny Damon throw from the outfield, but it's nice to have some of the desperation seep away.

After 2003, I had promised myself that if the Red Sox did not win the World Series by the time I turned 30, I would turn my back on baseball. Now, I don't know if I would have followed through on that (and I won't have to) but having recently turned 29, I remembed that vow, and had the Sox lived up to their historical reputation, I could be looking at my self-imposed final year as a fan. No real point there, just reflecting.

Three of four from the Tigers last week was nice - we're all still waiting for the Tigers' offense (which was supposed to be a hybrid between the '27 Yankees, Big Red Machine teams of the '70s and the Thundercats) to come together. They'll straighten out and score a bunch of runs this year, but have already missed the expectations put on them. It was nice to get those games taken care of early.

The Sox are going for a split against the Twins - another 3 out of 4 would have been nice, but Wake's flutterball apparently betrayed him last night. I mean, a home run for Adam Everett? Did the rapture happen last night and I missed it?

The Sox pitching staff is something I'm still struggling to hold in my head. Oh, Beckett and Wakefield are known quantities. And I did learn that "Matsuzaka" apparently means "Crossing Guard", in Japanese, which explains why Dice-K walks as many as he does.

Jon Lester has the same problem with racking up the free passes. Every good young lefty prospect is invariably compared to either Randy Johnson or Tom Glavine. Since Lester is not mulletted sasquatch with a howitzer for a left arm, he falls into the latter camp. He'll need to get those control numbers looking better if he wants that to stick.

Although both Dice-K and Lester are prone to One Bad Inning Syndrome (OBIS), fortunately they do not use this to go into a Derek Lowe/Aaron Selesque form of shellshock, resulting in crooked number upon crooked number flying up on the scoreboard until their manager goes all 8 Belles on them. (Too soon?)

Clay Buchholz has lost when he's pitched great, lost when he's been awful, won when he pitched great, and won when he pitched okay, and has a mess of no-decisions. It still doesn't tell me a lot about the guy.

Insurance policy Julian Tavarez was designated for assignement today. If you don't already know, Tavarez and Manny are BFFs. They go all the way back to the Indians farm system in the '90s. Without looking, I'm sure the Boston media has drawn straws so that half of them can write the "Manny pouts" story, while the other half takes the whole "If nobody tells him, will Manny even notice? Will they just tell him that Mike Timlin is Tavarez? Oh, that Manny being Manny on Planet Manny - that's so Manny" angle.

I think what will happen is that the Yankees will sign Tavarez, so that along with Farnsworth and Hawkins they will have the Holy Trinity of erratic right-handed setup men. Then, when the Yankees next play in Boston, Manny can sit out the game with "the flu" and then meet up with Tavarez for drinks after the game.

What I'm waiting for is the 300-style cavalry - and yes, I just referenced my least-favorite movie in the entirety of space and time, but it's apt - by which I mean, the elephantine cavalry.

Yes, there are Curt Schilling jokes to be mined there, and I am including him in the cavalry - but I don't know if he'll even pitch this year. No, what I'm waiting for is...

(gulp)

I can't believe I'm about to type this...

Bartolo Colon

I may not have dispensed any vitriol on the man in this space before, but Teddy can certainly attest that I have long been not a Bartolo Colon fan. By which I mean that I actively went out of way to hate on the man. I used a lot of "over" words. Overpaid, overweight, and (most especially) overrated.

When I first heard that he'd been signed, I figured they were going to stencil Goodyear on his side and use him to get aerial shots of Fenway.

Theo Epstein characterized this as a low-risk, high-reward investment. The risk in dollars is certainly low, as for the reward...

Shockingly, he's looked really good in his minor league rehab starts. So suddenly I am faced with the prospect of having to actively root for Bartolo Colon. I've been trying to find another comparable shifting of loyalties and come up blank. Any suggestions?