Mission 161-1

What choice do we have?

The first two hours of this game were my happiest moments of 2011 and I say that with zero sarcasm. Adrian Gonzalez was whacking the ball all over, Jacoby Ellsbury was getting on base like its his job (.......), and Jonny Lester had settled down after an antsy start.

Then everything slowed down. And with this teams level of discipline at the plate that's going to happen for most games. They're going to be stretching to like 4 hours per. Should be interesting.

After Big Papi tied the game with a homer (which was fantastic to see by the way) Tito brought in Daniel Bard, the right-handed fireball hurler. He ended up throwing more pitches than he did in any appearance all of last year and gave up four 8th inning runs. Not cool.

I'm not too worried about it. Jonny Lester is notorious for starting slow, so the 3 home runs he gave up don't concern me. Carl Crawford's performance was a little more disconcerting. He struck out three times and didn't get on base. He's only known the small market atmosphere in Tampa Bay. Do they even have fans down there? He's never had to deal with fans who care enough to lambast their players when they aren't performing, especially players with huge contracts. I just hope he's ready for it. Well I shouldn't say that. I hope he performs so that he doesn't HAVE to deal with it.

We'll get em tomorrow.