Playing Catch-Up

Man, oh man, oh man. You spend all winter designing a web site in hopes of creating an interesting Red Sox and baseball-related pitstop along this information superhighway of ours, you piece after piece after piece explaining your position on varied hot-button issues facing the game today, you get mail and submissions from people in places your thought only existed in stereotypical jokes about the South and Midwest, and then finally, after months of waiting, the season begins.

You get so wrapped up in watching the games themselves you forget all about it.

So maybe this isn't going to be the daily updated heaven I envisioned, but that's ok. Keep coming back for the occasional piece, and, if you'd like to submit, just shoot off an email with your contact info and a sample piece (or the one you want put up). Considering that my last update was nothing more than a photo posted during my lunch break the day after Josh Beckett's first win and Jonathan Papelbon's first save, the more help we can get, the merrier. But that's enough spouting off. What about those crazy Red Sox?

Idiots, they're not.

If you haven't been watching or have only seen the W's starting to pile up in the standings, the Red Sox of 2006 are a far cry from those that frollicked 'round the grass at the Fens from 2003-2005. This team has so far indicated that it will not hit the cover off the ball for every win, in fact it has indicated quite the opposite. The '06 Red Sox have up until this point been built on pitching and defense, with an offense that has yet to find it's *ahem* swing.

I was in the bleachers last week when Matt Clement toed up against junkballer Ted Lilly, and 8-6 loss which was far more painful than the finaly score indicated. Thirteen, count 'em, thirteen Sox batters went down by way of the K, making my scoring light years easier but my stomach perform acrobatics befitting only the most nimble of gymnasts. Still, the Sox didn't beat themselves in the field, in fact they had several solid defensive displays from a certain Mike Lowell to take some of the onus off the sputtering offense.

With the exception of a couple pitching stinkers, we've seen a different style of ball being played on Yawkey Way. Beckett and Schilling, two of the three lone 3-0 pitchers in the major leagues this year, have apparently become best friends with 2-1 ballgames, and Jonathan Papelbon, our heralded seventh starter coming out of Spring Training, has turned himself into a bona fide closer, melodramatic entrance music and all. Mark Loretta has demonstrated the amazing bat control we so rarely see, and Alex Gonzalez, for all his offensive pitfalls, has made everyone forget the overpaid, injured Renteria with jaw-dropping acrobatics.

At 9-4, the Sox are seem to be surprisingly capable of staying in most ballgames, and though they have yet to prove it there is still the potential for a very potent offense when Coco Crisp and Trot Nixon finally get back into the lineup full time. Everyone from Theo to Tito has expressed reserved optimism for the season so far, because Lord knows we've still got 149 games left to play. These Red Sox won't make you cringe with embarassment or turn off the TV to avoid watching one of those error-ridden nights that seem to crop up as the summer wears on. They'll make you sick, to be sure, like they always do. But it will be accompanied by a deep-seeded knowledge that these Sox can go with the best of them.