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Hope Springs: Yanks-Sox Gamer I

Openingday-3
Tonight we'll be attending our first ever opening day (night, more accurately) game at the Fens. We grabbed our tickets and who should be staring at us but…Adrian Beltre? Seriously? He's the guy the Sox chose to represent the Olde Towne Team on this first game of a fresh, new season? Not that we aren't excited about this coming year, and we have some reasonable (if not super-high) hopes for our third-sacker, but we might have been a bit more excited had our cost of admission been emblazoned with someone with more than zero games in a Sox uniform.

In any case, welcome to the club, Adrian, and welcome back YFSF readers. 

Use this as tonight's gamer!

316 replies on “Hope Springs: Yanks-Sox Gamer I”

Seems like most “experts” are picking the Sox to win it all again this year, just like last year…
It’s very strange that not only are the “experts” giving the Champs no love, but we get to open AND close the season in BAH-sten??? What gives???

It will make it that much sweeter when the Yankees celebrate another division title on the Sox turf. As usual it’s easy to pick the $170 million “underdogs”.
The big thing no one’s talking about? The Sox catching. If Martinez struggles behind the dish, what do the Sox do? Play Varitek?
Cliff over at Bronx Banter also nicely highlights the differences in bullpens. Given the injury histories of most of the Sox starters, they’ll need to lean on their pen. But it doesn’t seem that deep. I was hoping they’d trade Lowell, but if they don’t he’ll be the DH, especially in the Fenway bandbox.
As for the Yanks, I worry about Posada but Montero is a very nice backup plan! After that, the Joba treatment still burns, and it will all season as they rely on Mitre for spot starts, but he will anchor the bullpen especially if they let him throw two innings at a time.
Question for SFs: Why the heck isn’t Drew the cleanup hitter? That seems like a huge oversight especially because they could stack Youkilis-Drew-Martinez.

holy shit it’s baseball season again!!!! not sure i’m ready to have the old pastime sucking up all of my free time, but what can we do. it’s the life we choose.
enjoy the game, sf. but be happy about those seats. in the upper deck, they’re looking at scutaro.

I am really confused as to why this game is in Fenway…really f-cking confused…
Hey, you never know Rob…whole new year! Everyone is picking the Sox to raise another banner so we’ll see!!! :)

I would have thought Yankee stadium also. Ring ceremony, good way to start the season. Is there something happening in NY this weekend preventing it?
I looked at the picks yesterday, some picked the Yanks and Sox, smattering of Rays in there and a bunch seem to think that this may be the Phillies.
Who knows, Butler in the NCAA championship, perhaps the Pirates raise up?

Pirates vs Royals WS!!!
THE GAME IS ON YES???? SOLID!!! I thought I was going to have to put up with the Boston-loving ESPN crew…whew.

Well, a fireworks-less 1st inning of the season, but pumped that baseball is underway! Go Sox!
PS Good luck krueg with the positive reinforcement, but I found your fake screaming post the most enjoyable to read

I think krueg’s extraordinary RJP (reverse-jinx percentage) last year played a huge role in the Yankees success. So a kinder gentler krueg does not bode well for the Yankees …
And yes, Terry Francona, best manager in Red Sox history!

Hey gang – another year, another Yankee championship? :o)
SF must be loving it at the game – looks like a perfect night. Nice to see Curtis get off on the good foot and Gardner start well after a rough Spring…

Drew’s career AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS:
.283 / .392 / .504 / .896
Ortiz’s:
.282 / .377 / .545 / .922
And that’s with an epically poor couple of months for Ortiz last year. SFs will know better than I, but I imagine the Sox don’t think last year is indicative of Ortiz falling of the cliff of his career. If he looks horrible for weeks maybe he no longer has the leeway he once did, but I’m not sure it’s so clear cut that Drew should be hitting in his spot.

Definitely made a difference last year that Manny was not behind Ortiz. But at times the bat looked horribly slow or that he was overmatched by pitchers he should have hit off of.
If he starts slow, the cannibals are going to circle.

Game within the game: A horsefly the size of a Volkswagon Bug has somehow gotten into the house and is buzzing around my bedroom as i watch the game. I’ve turned off all but one light and periodically take massive swipes with a rolled up t-shirt, but so far he’s got the best of me…

2009: .212/.298/.418
2008: .221/.308/.433
Something to keep in mind also is that shift that every team plays against him. I wonder what some of the other lefties who get the shift stats would look like if they did not play that?

I’m still here homeboy…first game plus Easter equals a small crowd. I, for one, am a heathen so Easter means nothing to me so I’m here!!!!

Just like early last season…get a big lead, blow it and lose. Meh. I knew it was too good to be true. I really don’t understand why he’s kept CC in this long? Am I wrong?

Not to mention we wasted a leadoff walk and double in back to back innings…error by Gardner and here we are, about to blow a 4 run lead.

Seem like both managers mis-managed their SPs tonight.
Both took a long time to pull the hook on them, especially with the weird was that the schedule is starting off this year. They could have gone to the BP a lot earlier and still have some days off to recover.

You are talking foolish Krueg….
No Sox Yanks game ever ends in under 5 hours.
Unless it is stopped by rain and then they drag the decision out so it takes 5 hours.

Didn’t hurt much there I guess. Right back up the middle. Great to jump right back on top after the Sox tied it up. Come on Curtis – imagine he’s throwing with his right arm!

Sat: NCAA Final Four
Sun: Yanks-Sox Season opener
Mon: NCAA Championship
Tue: Yanks-Sox
Wed; Yanks-Sox
Thur-Sun: Tiger returns to Augusta
My productivity for the week should flatline around 12 noon tomorrow.
And Park let’s leadoff man on. Trouble

I saw Chan Ho SUCK…eh, eh???…come in so I went to make my lunch for tomorrow and lo and behold, tie game…glad I missed it. Heard Mrs. Krueg swearing so I figured as much…
How many leads can we blow in one game I wonder?
Great job Chan Ho SUCK…bullpen looking f-cking stellar so far. Christ.

Aerosmith is far from irrelevant Nick…come on dude. I don’t love them or anything but they’re one of the best US rock bands of all-time…

Just got done putting the girls to bed after coming back home, listening to the game on XM the whole way.
The Red Sox offense would like you to know that it is still pretty good.
The Red Sox pitching-and-defense, on the other hand, would like to keep things interesting.

Ortiz should not be batting fifth. Does even the most ardent Drew hater think he should be batting behind David Ortiz and Adrian Beltre? I mean, really, Tito.
Radio just said Youkilis’ three XBH in the opener is the first time for a Sox since Fisk in ’73. Not sure if that was only for openers against the Yankees or not.

I was afraid that Charlie Steinberg’s return to Boston signified something horrible, and these “touches” added to the game today make me think the worst has indeed happened.

My mom and I made it to the sixth inning. Such is parenthood and grandparenthood and an early morning drive to NYC.
Pics and postmortem tomorrow. One quick thing: Sunday night openers should never be allowed again.

So I hate to raise this here, but has A-Rod finally talked to the authorities? I could get an audience with the Pope faster than the Feds seem to be able to get in the room with him. And Fenway does the wave. Hip x 2.

I heard somewhere, maybe XM yesterday?, that he did. My level of caring is somewhere around the velocity of Manny Delcarmen’s fastball these days, but I did hear that in passing…

Oh, I didn’t pay enough attention to differentiate.
I fear the A-Rod/Papelbon matchup. Time for more Pedroia heroics to ease my troubled mind.

Since driving in runs in tie games in consecutive PAs against Papelbon in 2007, A-Rod has struck out three times in five PAs, walked in one, singled in a run (with the Yankees already up by three), and now grounded out.
Yet all I remember are those two plate appearances in 2007.

Every season I get excited for Opening Day, only to be reminded that the Yankees don’t start playing until June…wake me up then. NHL playoffs start in a week and a half anyway.

Mrs. Gerbil noticed that some ESPN2 chromamonkeyer spelled the vaunted Sox closer’s name “Paperbon” in the graphic when he came in.
She asked, “Isn’t his name Papelbon?”
“Perhaps, but at ESPN they are professionals,” I replied.
Paperbon.. heh.. so proud to be married to a Tigers fan that knows the name of the Boston closer, so hopeful of the portend of that mistype.

The steal of home was a delayed steal and in person it really was not much more than just an awful play by Victor Martinez (and a heads-up play by Gardner). It wasn’t really all that exciting, it felt like a bad little league play (from a Sox fan standpoint). When the play started I started saying “don’t throw it!”…
Martinez looked simply confused.
It wasn’t quite Jackie Robinson.

Great game all around, since I’m choosing to selectively ignore the horrible VMart-throwing-with-Gardner-on-third gaff. Sox in first place; here’s hoping it stays that way. It’s great to have baseball back.

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