I love the spring. Birds chirping, flowers blooming, Training in full swing. So it must also be time for the Red Sox to get under the skin of some team we have no business feuding with. Something about the Scarlet ‘B’ rubs other teams the wrong way and it happens every year. The Yankees may be the charter member, but the Sox can find a way to piss any team off. Devil Rays, Phillies, Marlins, Oakland… whoever… we manage to ruffle feathers.This year it was with Detroit. Beckett, not having the greatest command on his curveball on Saturday (was wild as hell), managed to tag Sheffield and Magglio with some less than precise pitches. None of this was intentional (as far as I can tell) but it was a little ugly (he looked freaking awful).
The bean ball barrage did not go unnoticed and Jim “Nails” Leyland made sure that someone on the Sox team paid. Well he tried to make sure. J.D. Drew was the supposed target of Todd Jones… but Jones couldn’t hit him! Dodge, parry, dodge and finally the one that flew behind Drew was noticed by the umpire who unceremoniously tossed Jones and Leyland for orchestrating the whole thing. Well this caused ‘ol Jimmy to go a little B-A-N-A-N-A-S as he made his way on to the field. This is where it got rough.
DeMarlo Hale vs Jim Leyland!!! It’s the battle of the old school shouters!
They jawed and got into it until the benches cleared and… well… nothing. That was it. It petered out without a punch or shove. Awww. Maybe next time you frisky Tigers.
The second awful showing came from our OTHER supposed ACE on Sunday vs the Orioles. This time the foreign wonder, the gyro dynamo, the tsunami mami, DICE-K… looked like Chan Ho-Park on a bad day. He got taken deep by Knott (1 run) and Dubois (3 run) and managed to throw away a double play ball into center field. Yeah… bad sushi.
On the bright side, Joel Pineiro did manage to have a good 2 innings and is slowly pitching his way back into the bullpen. But other than that… not a great weekend.
It’s still early in Spring Training so whatever happens, the good or the bad, has a big chance of changing before the season starts. But I hope these pitching problems can iron themselves out sooner rather than later… or it is going to be a long season.
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