A Breakfast With Champions

The Red Sox won the opening day game in Japan this morning by the score 6-5. Manny came up big when we needed him to and Brandon Moss hit his first major league home run to tie the game up in the 9th inning.

Good points of the game: Our bullpen kept us in the game. Lopez came in while we were down 1 and held the A's scoreless, then Corey and Okajima shut them down too. Manny came up big with 4 rbis's in the game as well and Brandon Moss tied it up with a solo shot in the ninth. Moss was a late write in and wasn't even going to play the game until JD Drew came up with a sore back and Moss was penciled in. If I had a vote, Moss would be todays MVP.

Troubling areas: Dice-K started off shaky and walked a total of 5 batters. He settled down nicely though and gave up only 2 hits in 5 innings and struck out 6. Papelbon certainly wasn't lights out this morning. In fact, if not for a baserunning mistake by the A's in the 10th, we probably would have lost the game. Veritek struck out 3 times in his 4 at bats but I am sure he will still be productive at the plate.

Other notes: Why do the other teams intentionally walk Papi to get to Manny? I love it when Manny burns them by getting a base hit and scoring Papi from first! All in all, it was a great season opener. Also, isn't it a little weird to see Alan Embree and Keith Foulke in another teams jersey?

For some reason, our Directv satellite couldn't pick up Nesn or Espn2 for much of the game. I got up around 4 am to watch some pregame on Nesn and the satellite couldn't find the signal. I thought no big deal, I will switch over the Espn2 at game time and watch the game there. At 5am, the satellite couldn't pick up Espn2 either. I then checked to see if I had paid the Directv bill. Then, my wife called them and there was trouble with the satellite so I had to watch the first 7 innings on the computer. Eventually though, by the time the sun was coming up in the 8th inning, Nesn came back and I was able to watch the end of the game. When I left to go to work, Espn2 was still out. It was a frustrating way to watch opening day, but hopefully tomorrow morning it will go a little smoother.

Red Sox are in first ...
half game up on everyone in the AL East (including the Yanks.)