Fate comes a-knockin’

Best of luck to Alan Embree who drew the short straw with Daisuke's return and will be designated for assignment today. Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission.

So here’s my theory:  The Red Sox don’t want to take the attention away from the Celtics and the Bruins in their quests for world championships so they figure if they don’t play well, folks will pay more attention to their brothers who are in the playoffs right now.

That’s all I have.  There’s no other excuse I can come up with short of “they all got Mono from Jed Lowrie” that could explain how they let all those opportunities against Baltimore’s pitching go to waste last night.

In-season, is there anything worse for a baseball fan than the entire, day-long wait to the next game after a particularly bothersome loss?  I don’t think there is.  Fortunately today in New England should be a beautiful day weather-wise so folks here can go out and enjoy some fresh air and sunshine without thinking about the Sox for a few hours.  At least that’s my plan.

If you aren’t into fresh air and sunshine, the Bruins start the second round of the playoffs this afternoon at 12:30pm and the Kentucky Derby is being run at 6:30pm.   Fox has the Mets/Phillies game on at 3pm if you want to torture  yourself with McCarver and Buck (and watch the Mets possibly stretch their winning streak to 9 games).  And then you could always NOT watch the Red Sox tonight and instead watch the Celtics begin their second round of the playoffs at 8pm.

Losing with a walk-off is painful no matter what the situation of the team.  So as soon as Miggy hit that ball, I turned off the tv.  Then I remembered that Cliff Lee was off the DL and starting for the Mariners and I wanted to watch him so I put the Mariners game on.  I think I turned it on in the fourth.  The game went 12 innings with Lee pitching seven of them, giving up only three hits, walking no one and striking out eight.  While they didn’t lose in a walk-off, they still lost at home after a 12-inning game (pitching on both sides was great last night – they only lost 2-0 with Brandon League giving up the two runs in the 12th – one on a wild pitch, the other on a sacrifice).  Knowing that Mariners fans left that game with that pit in their stomach didn’t make me feel any better about the Red Sox finishing April under .500 but it did make me forget about it for a couple of hours.

So tonight I’ll be watching the Red Sox and switching over to check out how the Celtics are doing.  I can’t help it, even with two teams in the playoffs, and as much as they frustrate me, the Sox are the team that has my heart.  So win or lose (but they’re going to win!) I’m in front of the tv with NESN tonight.  Besides, Daisuke Matsuzaka is pitching his first game of the season tonight which could mean many things, not the least would be that we might get to see Tim Wakefield coming out of the bullpen for the first time this year.

The mad winning streak begins May 1st!