To be perfectly honest, I didn’t watch this game. But according to the box score, the Sox won thanks to Wakefield going 8 shutout innings, and Papi and Manny going back-to-back for hopefully the first of many times this season. Not even Mike Timlin could blow a 5-0 lead in the 9th. Yay win.

In Toronto for a conference, Kim managed to get to the Bad Sox-Jays game last night. Here are her thoughts:

It’s crazy weird watching baseball under a roof, especially with a tiny crowd that doesn’t get warmed up till the 6th.

The Jays have “the world’s fastest grounds crew” who come out and rake the carpet for about 30 seconds. (Matt: is this something to be proud of?)

Eckstein’s OBP is higher than his SLG, shocker.

The Blue Jays have their own weird song for the seventh inning stretch complete with choreography.

Saw the Hard Rock Cafe, home of Manny Ramirez home runs.

There are pigeons nesting in the scaffolding, don’t let Randy Johnson pitch here.

BJ Ryan, this is the strike zone, have you met?

Note to Nick Swisher: when you’re hitting .200, lean into it, don’t dive away. (Matt: I have to apologize to Swisher for this. I drafted him on my fantasy team which is now looking like the 1962 Mets.)

After loading the bases on walks, BJ ends it with a 1-2-3 DP.

5 innings, 2 runs, 1 ER and the win. I think I’m forgetting something. Oh, that’s right, EIGHT WALKS. Steve Phillips described Dice-K as “effectively wild.” I think he was closer to being as wild as a 21 year old college coed on Spring Break in Vegas.

With a new offensive hero each night, it’s truly exciting to watch this team play right now…except for Julio Lugo who has basically turned the 9 spot in the order into the pitcher’s spot. The Tiggers even intentionally walked Tek in the 6th inning to pitch to Julio. He obliged by striking out.

I’m still a little confused by Tito’s use of Hansen though. Almost two years ago, I said:

Hansen = ONE inning. Let’s look to the numbers again, shall we? First inning, 1.74 ERA. Second inning, 16.88 ERA. Need I say more?

Tonight? A 1-2-3 first inning. The second inning? Hit, hit, GIDP, walk, and a walk to bring the tying run to the plate. Hopefully Tito will learn from his mistakes this time around…

While most of the East Coast went to sleep last night, I stayed up (with the benefit of the West Coast timezone) and watched the Sharks-Stars game 6, which is far and away the best hockey game I’ve ever seen. By the 2nd overtime it looked like these guys could barely walk, let alone skate, but somehow they ended up playing into a FOURTH OT period before the Stars finally won the game on a powerplay.

Now, the obvious question here is “what does this have to do with the Sox?” Well, the Sharks fell behind in this playoff series 0-3 and clawed their way back to make it 3-2. If they could have scored a goal in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd OT period, they would have forced a game 7, which is a pretty amazing feat, but they fell short. And it made me realize, yet again, how amazing the 2004 playoffs were for the Sox. Plus, I’m going to use any excuse possible to discuss The Comeback.

Let’s just say I wasn’t excited when the Sportscenter bottom line said that Scott Kazmir’s first start back from the DL would be May 4th, at Fenway Park. Somehow he has the ability to make our hitters turn from full grown men into scared little children. Plus, you never know if you’re going to get the good Jon Lester, or the evil Jon Lester. Well, we got the good Jon Lester along with the good Kevin Youkilis and his friends properly welcoming Kazmir back to the majors by only letting him go 4 innings. Although it would be nice to see the good MDC show up once this season. He now has given up 10 ER in 12.1 innings this season. Those are Rudy Seanez numbers.

Sadly, the Sox have to leave the confines of Friendly Fenway, but at least they gave the the Rays a taste of their own medicine on the way out with the sweep.

These are the “Rays” I remember. That whole name change confused the Sox for the first three games down in Tampa, but you can only fool them for so long. The offense was so good last night (12 runs) that even Julio Lugo got into the box score. Julio Lugo! When Beckett faced James Shields last weekend in the Trop, he only needed 99 pitches to for a complete game shutout. What a difference a week makes. Last night he used 98 pitches for 3.2 innings giving up 7 runs in the process. I like this week’s Shields better.

OK, I’ll admit it. I was more than a little surprised to see the Sox not only score, but score in bunches (that’s what four runs in 51 1/3 innings will do). After a 2.5 hour rain delay I wanted the Sox to postpone the game until the Rays weren’t so hot, and the Sox bats weren’t so cold. Shows what I know.

Let’s hope that bottom of the 4th is exactly what the Sox need to get the offense back on track. Scoring five runs after the bases were empty with two down is what was missing the past week. Not only did it really help their confidence, but it was the first time this week the really put together a good string of ABs.

Buchholz pitched OK, but he owes his defense a few beers. Brandon Moss threw out Evan Longoria at home to end the 2nd and after the big bottom of the 4th the defense got a 5-3-2 double play to end the 5th. But a win that’s not a walkoff is exactly what the Sox needed.

Ladies and gentleman, in tonight’s performance the the role of Jon Lester will be played Daisuke Matsuzaka. Also, playing the role of Kevin Youkilis is Jason Varitek. Please enjoy the show.

Sure, the players in tonight’s performance were slightly different than last night, but about everything else was the same. Great starting pitching from Dice-K, but he was matched pitch-for-pitch by Dustin McGowan. And in the bottom of the 9th, the Sox AGAIN had runners on 1st and 2nd in a tie game with two outs. (Sure, Manny could have gone first-to-third on Brandon Moss’ single with one out, but we wouldn’t have this nice symmetry in that case.) Then, just like last night, Tek singled up the middle to score the winning run from 2nd.

Even the understudies got a standing ovation.

Holy hell, how have the Sox only scored two runs in 31 2/3 innings? TWO RUNS??? Honestly, I know we’re on a five game losing streak, but how the fuck are you supposed to win games with an offense like that. Plus, we’ve got Lester going against Halladay, so you know you’ve got to score more than that…wait, what? The second of those two runs was a walk-off single by Youks? Uhhh, never mind, who needs an offense!?

On a less sarcastic note, the win wouldn’t have been possible without the amazing play of Dustin to end the top of the 9th and keep the game scoreless (to that point Lester and Paps had pitched 8 2/3 innings allowing only two hits). As Vernon Wells put it, “I saw it get by the mound and I saw Superman at second base.” I never realized that Superman was 5′5″.

Every time Pedroia makes a great defensive play or gets a clutch hit you can read his lips as he claps his hands and says “fuck yeah!” Well, this was certainly a “fuck yeah” play. So I figure, let’s keep a tally of Pedey’s FY plays this season. So far we’re at two (see April 20th). I’ll keep the running tally in the sidebar.

Let me get this straight. The Sox pitchers on Saturday and Sunday put up the following lines:

Buchholz (Sat): 8IP, 3H, 2R (both earned), 2 BB, 9 K
Beckett (Sun): 7IP, 4H, 2R (1ER), 1 BB, 13!!! K

and they both get the loss because the Sox could only muster one run in 23 innings. So far the Sox have now surpassed the longest winning AND losing streak from the 07 team. This is not what we want boys. Consistency is the name of the game over 162+ games.

Oh, and I’d like to thank the geniuses at MLB who thought that since a trip to Japan to start the season wasn’t tough enough, they also gave the Sox a stretch of 21 straight games to end April. Effing brilliant.