I had a chance to take in a bit of a game at Nationals Park last night. It’s a very impressive stadium and I’m looking forward to getting back later during the summer.

Attendance was fairly sparse, but we chalked it up to the combination of the cold weather and the championship game scheduled for that evening.

After a rough start to the game, Daisuke Matsuzaka settled down to pitch 5 innings, setting down the final 7 hitters in order. Hideki Okajima get into the game as well, pitching a scoreless 9th and getting the win after the Sox took the lead in the 10th. Jonathan Papelbon struggled a bit in the 10th, giving up a run on 3 hits and a walk. He was bailed out when Emil Brown tried to take third after doubling. Instead, he was cut down on a nice 9-4-3-5-6-3 play by the Sox (yes, I had to rewind the TiVo to get all of that).

Oh yeah, 2004 hero Keith Foulke made his return to major league baseball during today’s game, pitching a scoreless 8th inning and striking out Manny.

And with that, the 2008 major league baseball season has begun.

Frankly, the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet and the brain isn’t functioning, so I’ll let the starting lineup for the 2008 Boston Red Sox do most of the talking.

Dustin Pedroia 2B
Kevin Youkilis 1B
David Ortiz DH
Manny Ramirez LF
Mike Lowell 3B
Brandon Moss RF
Jason Varitek C
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Julio Lugo SS

Daisuke Matsuzaka P

After last fall’s heroics, it might seem odd to see Ellsbury at the bottom of the lineup. It sounds like Terry Francona is going to give Ellsbury the opportunity to earn his way to the top of the lineup, just as he did last year with Pedroia. Until that happens, I have to say I like the idea of the two speedsters (Ellsbury and Lugo) running in front of two big OBP guys. This could give the Sox a little more freedom to run without worrying about opening a base for teams can pitch around Ortiz and Ramirez.

The A’s lineup has also been posted.

Update: …and J.D. Drew’s back acts up in the pre-game, so he’s replaced by Moss. Not the most auspicious of beginnings.

Alright, when do pitchers and catchers report?

Umm, Vegas anyone? You know, the Bellagio is the site of next year’s Winter Meetings.

As of right now, it seems like any Johan Santana trade is on hold and may not be completed by the end of the GM Meetings in Nashville. As Will points out, next year’s meeting in in Las Vegas.

I give it a 17% chance that The Sands will end up owning an All-Star caliber player after one baseball’s more mediocre GMs uses him as collateral at the roulette table.

After a slow April, Pedroia showed why the Red Sox front office considered Mark Loretta expendable following the 2006 season. From May through the end of the season, his monthly batting average dropped below .300 only once (.299 in July). It was the month of May where Pedroia’s batting skills really shown — perhaps more impressive than .415 batting average was his bat control. During the month of May, Pedroia swung and missed at a grand total of 4 pitches.¹

Not to gush excessively, but the end of his year was also quite impressive in light of the fact that he was playing with a broken hamate bone since at least September 10th.

Beyond the statistics, Pedroia quickly became one of these players who’s generally considered a pain in the ass… unless plays for your favorite team, in which case he’s a gritty ballplayer. From all appearances, his teammates and coaches at least found humor in his attitude towards the game and his play.²

In addition to winning over his teammates, Pedroia’s play and outspoken attitude (and, to some degree, his short stature) won over the fans in Boston. By the end of the year, you’d be hard pressed to find anybody wasn’t preaching patience during his April struggles.

Although the Sox were in the hunt for the World Championship, the fans still managed to get a potential glimpse of the future in September and October, with Pedroia moving down to the 2-hole and another youngster, Jacoby Ellsbury, being installed as the leadoff hitter.³ Provided that Ellsbury’s not included in a blockbuster trade this off-season (the same can also be said for Clay Buchholz — apparently, both the Twins and Marlins would be interested if the Red Sox looked to deal for Johan Santana or Miguel Cabrera, respectively), he would have to be considered one of the front-runners for the 2008 award.⁴ While I was in Tampa, a friend and I were discussing the possibility that we could be watching what could become the Sox 1-2 combination for the next 10 years. It was a very tantalizing possibility.

1. Eric Van’s data goes covers from May 3rd to June 2nd. Using the publicly available play-by-play data, I was able to see that he didn’t play on the 2nd and swung the bat 5 times on the 1st, resulting in 2 foul balls, a line out, and 2 ground outs.
2. How do you tell the difference between a player like Pedroia and an all around schmuck? Well, if you knee your trainer in the groin, you’re probably a schmuck.
3. During the World Series, I was hoping Ellsbury would take home the MVP. Not that I have a problem with Mike Lowell winning the award, but I thought it would’ve been pretty cool to see somebody win World Series MVP before being eligible to win the ROY award.
4. Back-to-back ROY award winners would be impressive, but it wouldn’t come close to the Dodgers run in the early 90s — Dodgers’ rookies claimed the award 5 years running, from 1992-96.

Game-wise, the trip went pretty well. We got to see the Sox victories on Friday and Saturday. Josh Beckett pitched well and Daisuke Matsuzaka seemed to pitch better than he has in the recent past. Were Javier Lopez actually an effective LOOGY, Daisuke would’ve come away with the victory. Of course, Lopez’ failure (giving up a 3-run homer to Carlos Pena) set up the Sox dramatic ninth-inning victory with homers from Jason Varitek and Julio Lugo.

Those homers, combined with the Royals knocking off the Tigers, clinched a playoff berth for Sox, making them the first team to clinch a spot. To be completely honest, I want the Sox to take the division. To be in first place since April and lose it in the last weekend of the season would basically suck. That said, winning the World Series is the main goal. I get why the Sox have been giving injured players extra time and I get why they’ve been trying to straighten out Eric Gagne, but it doesn’t make it any more bearable when they were dropping game to the Blue Jays last week. That said, winning the World Series is the most important thing. Just as winning the World Series as the wild card would wipe out any of the disappointment of losing the division, watching the Yankees win the World Series as the wild card would wipe out any appreciation of winning the division.

Tropicana Field… Hmm… I’d watch another Red Sox game there. We’ll probably repeat this trip next September, or whenever the Sox make their final trip of the year to Tampa. I guess the best way to describe my impressions of watching a game there is this — I wouldn’t trade seats at Fenway to see the Sox play in Tampa, but I’d certainly go in addition to having seats at Fenway.

It’s not a great place to watch a ball game, but there’s other stuff to check out. I’m not usually the type of person to do these things during a ball game (I’d rather watch the game), but the whole Tampa experience has enough of a minor league feel that I somehow took the whole experience less seriously than I took the games I saw at Fenway and Camden Yards this year.

When I say “minor league,” I’m talking more about the stadium atmosphere than the actual Devil Rays. Many of the between-inning and concourse-level activities seemed more like something I’d see at a Sea Dogs game than at a Sox game.

Of all the ideas, College Nights on Friday didn’t work so well. $1 beer in the Party Deck might seem like a good idea when the stadium’s half-full, but it doesn’t work so well when the stadium’s near capacity. The guys sitting in the back of our section clearly had no interest in baseball and were only at the game to drink lots of cheap beer and try to start something with any Red Sox fan they could find. They must’ve mouthed off to every Sox fan within 5 rows of their seats. It wasn’t until the 8th inning that we saw the first sign of stadium security.

Guys, I know you don’t have a lot to do most nights, but you know you’re going to have near sell-outs for the 16-18 games when the Sox and Yankees are in town. A little show of force for those nights (particularly in the $1 beer section) might be a good idea.

Games aside, the highlight of the trip might’ve been meeting Mike Greenwell and Sam Horn at Ferg’s on Saturday. Horn’s probably better known at this point, between the name connection with Sons of Sam Horn and his appearances on NESN, but meeting Greenwell was the big thing for our group of 20-something guys.

When you meet somebody you grew up watching, there’s always a possibility of a let-down. That definitely wasn’t the case with Greenwell. He hung around our table for about 10 minutes, had a drink, talked with fans, and signed autographs. He was a very down-to-earth guy. He surprised us, though, when he said that Saturday would be the first time he would see the Sox play in person since he retired after the 1996 season. He told us that Horn finally convinced him to make the 2 hour trip to Tampa to catch a game.

Later, we were discussing amongst ourselves where Greenwell was sitting. We figured he and Horn were probably in a luxury box or in high end seats. However, we could easily see Greenwell sitting out in the bleachers and talking NASCAR with anybody in the vicinity. He just seems like that kind of guy.

Grr… When I first posted this, I forgot to mention the one thing every Red Sox fan should make sure to check out while at Tropicana — the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame. When the Williams museum wasn’t able to sustain itself as a stand-alone entity, the Devil Rays made room for the museum within Tropicana Field. The museum features a huge collection of Williams memorabilia and displays for each of the hall’s inductees. I’ve always felt like this belonged at Fenway when the stand-alone museum was forced to close, but I appreciate the fact that the Devil Rays were willing to host the exhibits. Anybody who is a fan of baseball and baseball’s history should make the trip.

If you’ve made it this far, some photos from the trip are up at Flickr.

1. Seriously, I think think this article is just a template; ie, insert home team name here, insert disgruntled player name here. I saw the same article when the Sox were in Baltimore.

I emailed Dan Fox over at Baseball Prospectus to see if he’d run across this before. I was curious if this was a systemic problem, an issue specific to the Fenway installation, or just something that’s popped up in August. Unfortunately, this seems to happen fairly frequently. It appears that the system is occasionally turned off, causing certain pitches or whole games to be missed.

So, would whoever is unplugging the PITCHf/x system to charge their iPod please stop?

Here’s the main reason I brought my camera — Clay Buchholz big league debut. The Sox have been grooming him as their next stud pitcher and I was thrilled when I saw the schedule would line up so I’d get to see him.

This one just amused me. Justin Speier was entertaining fans and bullpen-mates with some mid game juggling. Afterwards, he tossed the balls out to a few fans, including a very excited young boy.

I didn’t bother with the camera for the nightcap, but my friend Dave brought his and posted a few pictures, including the old-timers gathered for Tony Conigliaro Night.

A lot of folks are less than thrilled about this turn of events. Between Bonds’ surly disposition and the rumors concerning steroid usage, many people feel that Bonds’ record is tainted. Personally, I don’t care.

One of the reasons why I don’t care is personal. Back in 1998, my brother was on hand when Bonds hit his 400th home run. He was 15 at the time and he brought his camera to the game. He managed to take a picture while Bonds was hitting home run #400. Being a film camera, he didn’t actually know what he captured until he got the photo back from being developed. The shot was perfect. He caught Bonds mid-swing. For a young kid without a ton of photography experience, you couldn’t have set up a better shot. At my dad’s suggestion, he got 2 5×7s printed and wrote a letter to Bonds. He explained who he was, what the photo was, and said that he’d appreciate it if Bonds could autograph one of the copies and was welcome to keep the second copy for himself. Some time later (I don’t recall how long), Dan received an envelope from San Francisco containing a personalized copy of his picture: “Dan, God Bless. Barry Bonds.”

Many professional athletes won’t sign anything sent to them. They might have somebody return the item unsigned in the SASE or they may provide something pre-signed. For this reason, I will always have at least some positive thoughts towards Bonds.

Beyond my personal reasons for cheering Bonds, I’m glad to see his break the record due to the actions of commissioner Bud Selig. I believe it was Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus who said that Selig was the only person who could make Bonds look sympathetic.

Throughout the run-up to Bonds passing Aaron, Selig’s actions have been distasteful and largely representative of his stewardship of baseball as a whole. First, he hemmed and hawed about whether he would attend games as Bonds closed in on the record. When Bonds tied Aaron’s mark on Saturday, Selig stood with his hands in his pocket like a petulant young boy while most around him were cheering. He issued a press release that denigrates instead of celebrates the game he for which he is responsible. Finally, he chooses not to attend the games after Bonds tied the record, instead delegating the task to an underling.

I realize that Bud Selig grew up in Milwaukee and watched Hank Aaron while the Braves called the area home. As such, he’s probably less than thrilled to see a childhood idol surpassed by a player he personally dislikes. As the game’s steward, however, he needs to put those feelings aside, at least while representing the game in public. You cannot simultaneously claim that baseball has a reliable and successful steroid-testing program while at the same time intimating that Barry Bonds (or any other player) is using steroids. To do otherwise exposes you as a hypocrite.

So once again, congratulations to Barry Bonds on the new record. And thank you so much, Bud Selig, for trying to suck the life out of the moment whenever you had the opportunity.