GAME TWO: And now back to...spring training. Right.

And he's healthy. (In March, anyway.)

Rich Harden was very hard to hit, no one has ever swept one of these two-game series in Japan (in three tries), Manny Ramirez still has his hitting shoes on, J.D. Drew did too but apparently came to Japan to play the two games that didn't count instead of the two that did, and we're a long way from Boston. (Three that don't count in the Colosseum with the Dodgers, three that do at Oakland, and then April 8th comes at last.)

Anyway, that was a diversion, if not a real opening. Konichiwa, bitches.

GAME ONE, TAKE TWO: Our winning percentage jumps 500 points!

That's more like it. Josh Beckett threw too many pitches in too few innings and was wild (4 walks, or as many as he threw in all of spring training), Mike Lowell committed his year's allotment of errors in one game, and Coco Crisp's bat is co-co-cold, but the Sox got hits when they needed them, and then got some more after that. Beckett gave up all of two hits, overcoming the weird moment where Mike Lowell briefly became Alex Rodriguez (back-to-back errors) with cool and calm; as a commenter noted, this was a HR-free game for the 2003 World Series MVP, and after last year, no HR-free Beckett game will go unwelcome. I feel like we're going to come out of extended spring training...I mean, Kansas City...okay. And following up an awful 7-1 loss with a 7-1 win just gives a nice sense of balance to it all, like we just wiped lame-ass Tad Ghostal off the stage and replaced him with Swingin' Chad.



Pesky Pedroia got on base a bunch, as did the 3-4-5 hitters (9 times!), and if J.D. Drew keeps playing this way, perhaps he'll no longer be called, cough, Nancy. (Although as I told a friend when the signing was something I was still very much against, the nickname seems unfair to the "real" Nancy Drew to me. I'd like to see him try to solve The Curse Of Maiden Hollows without straining an oblique.)



This picture is the only bit of hype I'll give for what we all await with baited breath. (Those are sunglass-replacement contacts, by the way; freaky, no?) Now let us celebrate our first victory of the year with popping, locking, and bad special effects. Wikki, wikki, wikki.