Looks like Tim Wakefield and Josh Bard ironed out whatever problems cropped up last time in Texas. Wake had an excellent outing, going six innings and allowing only one run (unearned) in the first. Wake ended his night by striking out three straight to get out of a 1st and 3rd jam with no outs. Bard had no passed balls today, a welcome change from the 3 PB last time. Adam Stern got the start (probably his last before getting sent down to Pawtucket when his Rule 5 time is up on the 19th) and delivered two hits and two RBI. Foulke had an excellent 8th inning, retiring the side in order on two K’s and a popout. Personally, I would’ve have brough him back for the 9th and the save, but I can understand Francona not wanting to push it too much. Papelbon had a shaky night (which is fine, he is a rookie after all) but no runners crossed the plate, and he picked up his third save. Sox win the game 4 runs to 1, and start the season 5-1. Fenway is going to blow up on Tuesday.

I unfortunately haven’t had a chance to watch much of the last two games (it being campus preview weekend around here), but you’ve gotta like what we’ve seen of Schilling so far. I think he will have a great year, and it’s looking like Paps will do the same. When (not if) Foulke gets back to where we need to be, we should have a pretty killer bullpen. With, or without, Rudy Seanez. ;-) Hopefully the Yankees keep losing too. Gotta love the current AL East standings. 8-)

Whew… a lot to talk about, and I only saw the first and last inning! (Blasted lab…) Let”s get right to it.

• The thing everyone is buzzing about is the choice of Papelbon to close out the game, but first let’s talk about Beckett. At the start the of the game, he really struggled. He basically didn’t have his curveball at all, and had to rely on his heater. While I was away, he did what good pitchers do and figured out how to win without his full arsenal. Watching the post-game show, it was clear that even with just his fastball, he can be deadly. Got some really nice K’s and was clearly pumped. (Also pumped was an amusingly animated Curt Schilling in the dugout. ;-)) If he can get his blisters down and his innings up, he could win 20+ games and contend for a Cy. If we’re at the end of the season and both Schilling and Beckett are sitting on 20 wins, I for one won’t be too surprised.
• So Paps. First off, he was on fire out there. He looked much better than his outing on Monday, and the results showed: he got 3 batters out on 11 pitches (8 for strikes) with two strikeouts. You could tell from the look on his face that he was out there to kill some batters and get Beckett his first win, and that’s exactly what he did. As for the “closer controversy,” I think it won’t even be one. It was fairly clear on Monday that Foulke still doesn’t have his best stuff–or stuff as good as Paps–right now, and throwing him in a one-run game was probably not best for him or the game. I think he knows that, and clearly Francona knows that, and I think he’ll bust his butt and be a rock-solid closer again by June. In the meantime he’ll get some lower-leverage innings, maybe a few 3-run saves, and Paps will deal with the high-lev situations, until it’s clear that he’s ready to go in all situations. And everyone wins! Especially the Sox. ;-)
• Good to see Trot getting a big hit in. I expect him to have a good year.
• Manny needs to start hitting. Pronto.

Just for good measure, the Yankees lost the final game of their series with Oakland. Putting them at 1-2. Welcome back, baseball! (Hopefully I can get some work done on tomorrow’s off-day…)

I unfortunately didn’t get to catch most of today’s game, but I just wanted to point out that Coco went 3-for-5, stole a base, and scored 2 runs today.  I think this guy’s going to be very well recieved by Red Sox Nation, and make a real name for himself.  Loretta also looks like he’ll do good things for us.  The jury’s still out on Josh Bard and David Riske, the other aquisitions in the Coco trade.  I wouldn’t worry too much about Wake’s perfomance being indicative of bad things to come, though.

The 5-game opening day losing streak is officially over! The Sox hit the ground running today in a 7-3 victory over the Texas Rangers. Unfortunately, I only got to see the last 3 innings thanks to class. Some obvervations from those innings.

• Schilling looked pretty good, but not nearly as intense as I’ve seen him in the past. He wasn’t really “dominating,” at least in the 7th, but he still managed a 1-2-3 inning. Granted, it’s only the first game of the season. He’s only going to get better as the season goes on and that fire burns hotter.
• Papelbon had a solid 1-2-3 8th. Expect good things when he comes out of the pen.
• Foulke allowed one run in the 9th, but got hit pretty hard even on the outs (the run scored on a sac fly to deep center). You could argue that it would have been a scoreless inning if Stern plays the hit to left better, but it was a hard hit ball; I’ll attribute that one to Foulke. That being said, I’m still not worried about him getting back to form. As I said before, it’s just the first game of the season. Sure, the adrenaline is pumping and these games actually count, but you can’t expect some magical switch to turn on that wasn’t there this past weekend.
• I didn’t get to see much of his bat, but Coco made a heck of a catch in the 9th to turn what would have been a double into the aforementioned sac fly. (See here.)
• Lowell got his first homer over and done with. It’s still to early to tell if we have the ’04 Lowell or the ’05 one, but at least he doesn’t have that hanging over his head.

All-in-all a very solid start to the season. Here’s to a 3-game sweep and the death of my classes!

Manny Ramirez will produce at least 50 HR & 150 RBI this year.  So let it be written.

ESPN is reporting that the Sox have signed Alex Gonzalez to a 1-year/$3 million contract. Count me among the people who were hoping that they’d take Cora to spring training and be done with it. That being said, I think we can live with him for a year. He won’t be blocking any better options (Pedroia if he shows he’s got it or a free agent next off-season) and, by all accounts, his defense should be pretty good. If he totally sucks, we can probably just cut him and eat his $3 mil. I think now we’re finally done. At least until spring training rolls around…

After much hemming and hawing, the dust has finally settled and 6 players have swapped teams. The Sox traded third base prospect Ande Marte, reliever Guillermo Mota, and catching prospect Kelly Shoppach + some $/PTBNL to the Indians in exchange for center fielder Covelli “Coco” Crisp, relief pitcher David Riske, and catcher Josh Bard. The most talked about of the new guys is, of course, Coco. As much as I’d like to have kept Marte, I think this is a good trade. His 0-for-15 stint in the majors aside, Shoppach is a good prospect who wasn’t going anywhere soon with Varitek holdin’ down the fort. Bard, meanwhile, should be a useful backup for us. Mota has some health concerns. Riske has been a consistently good reliever for years now, and should be a nice addition to our much-improved bullpen. (Blaine Neal says “Hi.”) Marte projects to be a good to awesome 3B, but that’s just speculation and Crisp is a pretty good CF right now. All told, I think it’s been a pretty good off-season. I’m in favor of starting the season with Alex Cora at short-stop and letting the chips fall. Spring Training is on our doorstep!