Redsoxchickie: Just This Side of Stalking

First of all, I have absolutely no excuse for not writing anything here the last half of last season other than I was busy moving, always a joyful experience, then I signed my life away on a mortgage and it was clear that the 32 injured players the Sox had in the last few months of last season was going to make it extremely difficult to get into the post season.

The good news is that I got laid off from my job and I which means A) I no longer have to deal with the inappropriately dressed beast of a boss I had and B) I have plenty of time to obsess/stalk the Red Sox/assorted players while I enjoy my “Summer on the State”…god bless unemployment checks.

The reason why I haven’t written anything about this season yet? We’re 10 games in front of the entire AL East after the All-Star break…we’re 10 games in front of the Yankees…10 games. I had convinced myself that I had suffered major head trauma for this to be true, or at the very least it had been a part of the best and most improbable dream I’ve ever had, so why would I want to take the chance of waking up and be faced with the reality of the Sox being 3 games in back of the Yankees and about to start their annual mid-summer decline? Fortunately for me I’m wide awake and we’re still 10 games ahead so I’m going to rant away much more frequently until ESPN decides to hire me and pay me for my stunning intellectual insights…or I find another job so I can resume deposits into my bail money fund.

Short thoughts on the season thus far…

Dice-K and Okajima: They make me want to learn Japanese and practice my crane kick. I won’t be able to tell how Dice-K is going to fare until ext year. He’s a newbie right now to the whole league, when the batters get to know him and vice versa, it’ll be much more telling. I did appreciate how he gutted it out through 5 innings with the stomach flu when you could clearly tell he wanted to curl up into the fetal position and pray for death by the 6 shades of white he had turned. Okajima on the other hand was supposed to be the Mike Lowell of the Dice-K deal and it turns out he’s our Papelbon alternate and a new set-up guy, AND an all-star, sweet!

Big Papi and Manny: Slow starts for both of them home run wise…I keep hearing Jerry Remy say “I think he’s going to hit his grove now” but all they hit is a pothole. One can only hope that they’ll be en fuego for the second half.

Lowell: He’s committed a boatload of errors so far this season but he’s cool with me for no discernable reason except he gets timely hitting and he always looks like he’s killing himself out there, plus I now live in the city of his last name :D

Papelbon: Sweet mother of Jesus, thank god he’s closing.

Drew: Yeah, my feeling on him is a whole separate 1000 words.

As far as everyone else I really can’t complain about anyone. Beckett, Coco, and Tavares (did anyone tell him ‘Candlepin Bowling’ was cancelled about a decade or so ago?) are all doing much better than last year. The newbies Lugo, Pedroia etc. are all doing well and the mainstays of the team, Varitek, Youkilis, et. al have all been doing well. So barring a monumental collapse of epic proportions that will rival our complete collapse in the 70s or the collapse of the Yankees in the ALDS in 2004 (I like to bring that up whenever I can, hehehe) we should be able to coast through the rest of the season…..but seeing what I’ve seen in the past I know it could all go to hell an a handbasket any second. So until October, I’ll continue to invoke my borderline OCD good luck mojo….