Game 2

I'm not going to disect every game, but I thought it was important to followup on last nights fiasco after the great start we had on Monday.

Tim Wakefield is one of the few none question marks we have on this team. We know what we're going to get from him every season, maybe not every game, but every season. Nine times out of ten he's going to go out there and give this offense a chance to win the game. Every once in a while he's going to go out there and have a game like he did last night. No big deal. It sucks that it had to happen in the second game of the season on the heals of that great start by Schilling, it definitely gets magnified this early, but at the same time, it's a little easier to take, because of the great start by Schilling.

For everyone who's getting all over Josh Bard, I'd like to remind you that Mirabelli started out the same way. He didn't just become Wakefield's personal catcher and start handling the knuckleball smoothly overnight. In fact, he wasn't even his personal catcher right away, and when it was decided that's what he would do, it took him some time and a lot of hard work and practice (with different gloves) before he was able to do it. I'm not saying Bard is going to be great at it, but we can't start worrying about not having Mirabelli after one game.

Every once in a while Manny has a night where he looks completely clueless at the plate, and last night seemed to be one of them. I know he saw about 30 pitches for the night, fouling off a ton of them, including that 10-12 pitch at bat, and most people will say those were good at bats, and that may be true for a lot of hitters, but that's not Manny. When Manny's on he hits the ball, he doesn't foul them off like that. That wasn't a case of him fouling off tough pitches, it was a case of him not getting good wood on the ball.

Another big game tonight as we get our first look at Beckett and find out what he's got for us.