Friday, April 18, 2008

Game 17: Revenge!

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 7, New York Yankees 5

Revenge is a dish best served cold or (in this case) red hot and full of vitriol. Now cue the Sox bad men. That’s right… Beckett and Manny. Two guys ready to kick ass, chew gum and take names. They saw how ugly it got last night and wanted some quick and dirty justice. And boy did they provide it.

Beckett was awesome. He pitched 8 innings of great baseball… 3 runs in a rough 5th but other than that he was just what we expected from our ace. I cannot get over how much this saves the Sox as a team. I joked with my dad that after yesterday Francona took Beckett aside and said “Hey kid, you better go 9 ok? You get paid for 9, you pitch for 9.” Ok so he didn’t go the full circuit, but he came damn close and was damn good.

The other monster? Mr. Bad Man himself: Manny “Contract Year” Ramirez. 2 HR off Mussina who looked as done as Timlin looked last night (I mean really, the Yanks think they are getting 10+ wins off of him this year? Crazy talk). This sparked a interesting reaction from one Yankee relief pitcher Kyle Farnsworth… you may know him as “That Douchebag.” Yep, Kyle threw BEHIND Manny in the 7th and caused the ump to warn both benches (NESN immediately cut to Beckett nodding vigorously… file that away for payback).

This is exactly what I wanted (minus the Papelbon 2 run scare) after yesterday’s mess and is what we need from the Red Sox this year. Quick and unavoidable vengeance against all teams. You beat us? We beat you back and better. From a VERY creditable eyewitness (Matt) we got some “Let’s Go Red Sox” chants in the 9th inning. I expected better from the newly named Yankee Universe. (BTW that is a good cause but stop copying us…seriously).