Thank the heavens exhibition games don't count, eh?

I've been alternately packing up my entire house in Chicago, a bridesmaid in a wedding in Kansas City, and on a cross-country trek to Boston, so I haven't been able to catch much of the action - but the box scores have spoken volumes. I just don't see this team winning more than 75 ballgames this season. I don't even think they'll finish second in the East- we'll be lucky to get third behind the Yankees and Blue Jays, if not fourth behind the Rays.

I'm also sick of Josh Beckett's bellyaching. "Waaah! My back hurts!" Get over it, wimp. And on the subject of pitchers, I'm similarly sick of Jonathan Papelbon, period. The dancing and the mugging and the horsing around and the scrabble. It's tired, Paps - no one finds you entertaining (except Yankee fans, who love you). And JESUS, Manny and Papi-- when will you two ever get with the program and start producing at the plate?

Wow, it feels good to admit all that. And I suppose it's time to reveal another thing: I stopped in Buffalo last night as the halfway point on my drive to Boston, and I adore it so much I've decided to stay.

One last confession:

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Red Sox @ Oakland Athletics 10:05 pm McAfee Coliseum - Oakland, CA SP: Daisuke Matsuzaka vs. Joe Blanton tv/radio: NESN - MLB.TV - WRKO - WROL

This is no April Fool's joke: there is actual Red Sox baseball tonight - in the U.S. of A. and not at an extraordinarily ungodly hour. HOORAY!

Use the comments to this entry as your own personal Gameday open thread. These open threads have been fun so far - so I'll keep 'em up as long as y'all are interested in having them.

I know, I know - this is days old (positively ancient in interwebs time), but I've been moving my entire life, y'all... and it is just too awesome to pass up. Manny dudded up for... Macy's?

Manny Ramirez, he of the sunglasses at night and the blue steel gazes, is one of a slew of major league baseball players who will appear in a Father's Day campaign for Macy's department store. Mariano Rivera, Albert Pujols, Curtis Granderson, Alfonso Soriano, Jeff Kent, Tom Glavine, Dan Haren & Roy Oswalt are some of the other MLB guys who will be hawking Macy's wares.

The notion that Manny will be the face of Father's Day is priceless. He's more like the wacky uncle in the family that shows up to Thanksgiving dinner with an unidentifiable liquid in a bottle (usually inside a paper bag) and keeps prodding you to have a drink-- and then falls asleep snoring under the dining room table with the dog.

Red Sox @ Toronto Blue Jays 7:15 pm Rogers Centre - Toronto, Canada SP: Tim Wakefield vs. Shaun Marcum tv/radio: NESN - MLB.TV - WRKO

Today brings the Sox to their third country in two weeks, and they still haven't made it back to Boston. All in good time... For now, we'll watch Wakey duel it out with the recently promoted starter Marcum.

Use the comments to this entry as your own personal Gameday open thread. These open threads have been fun so far - so I'll keep 'em up as long as y'all are interested in having them.

J.D. Drew easily earned Baseball Boyfriend of the Day honors earlier tonight in the Sox battle against the Blue Jays - and if you want to know why, just visit redsox.com... where you'll be greeted with this (unexpected) glorious sight:

J.D. sits atop the Sox homerun leaderboard. For real.

And in a game mired down by lackluster batting, inept fielding, and sluggish relief pitching, J.D. Drewwwwwwwwww blasted a 3-run homer in just his second outing of the year, tying the game and saving Wakefield from a nasty L. Wakefield had a couple of blips (namely, a rough and rocky 6th inning and the HBP of the first Jays batter right out of the gate- the gritty, scrappy, hustling, [insert adjective equivalent of "short" here] Eckstein), but otherwise was dropping the knuckler like it was hot. Golden child Jacoby Ellsbury had a few fielding problems - a mixup with Manny in left center, and dropping a caught ball out of his glove after crashing into the wall - and an 0-fer night. On the other side of the ball, newly-minted Jays starter Shaun Marcum looked rock solid, and the Jays' bats were clicking on all cylinders.

Another quizzical sight on redsox.com?

And that Julio Lugo, Alex Cora and Kevin Cash are 3 of the top 4 Sox in OBP. And that Papi and Jacoby Ellsbury are both sub-Mendoza, and Dustin Pedroia and Mike Lowell are riding right on the Mendoza line. And the Tigers are 0-4. And the Royals sit atop the American League.

Small sample sizes make things look mighty wonky.

Nike knows a good thing when they see it -- and, obviously, that good thing is Jason Varitek.

In the latest MLB.com shop catalog, Nike has a full page ad featuring Captain America himself. The ad is also slated to pop up in various magazines in the future as well. You can click on the smaller sized photo above to see a larger-sized version of the ad.

Red Sox @ Toronto Blue Jays 1:07 pm Rogers Centre - Toronto, Canada SP: Clay Buchholz vs. Jesse Litsch tv/radio: NESN - MLB.TV - WRKO

In the second of a three-game swing through Toronto, the Sox and Clay Buchholz will try to pick up their first win against the Jays and Jesse Litsch. Sean Casey makes his first regular season start (!), and Coco Crisp gets the nod in center over Jacoby Ellsbury.

Use the comments to this entry as your own personal Gameday open thread. These open threads have been fun so far - so I'll keep 'em up as long as y'all are interested in having them.