Who'd Have Thunk It?

The Sox return to the friendly confines of Fenway, and immediately start assaulting the baseball. Big Papi goes yard and gets the silent treatment, and later the DUSTBUSTER (Pedroia) jacks one into the Monster Seats.

Daisuke continues to struggle with pitch economy, pulled after over 100 pitches in the sixth inning. In the early frames, he seemed to have the changeup going, and later not so much.

Jed Lowrie continues to try to worm his way into the lineup with a pair of solid hits and an RBI, and The Pest (I want to think of him as our Mickey Rivers Version 2.01) finds his way on base and works counts in the annoying Red Sox fashion.

David Aardsma seemed to have worked his way up the pecking order in the bullpen, only to revert to Lost in Space control problems after getting two quick outs in the eighth. Of course, Red Sox killer Frank Catalanotto has a chance to do the deed once again.

Early season observations:

• As much as we talk about the Yankees uncertainty re: youthful starters (Hughes and Kennedy not looking like Drysdale and Marichal), the Red Sox youth haven't reminded anybody of Koufax and Palmer, either
• Jason Varitek remains the Sox most indispensable player
• Sean Casey is a pretty good player.
• Pedroia might just hit .300 again.
• Depth. Nice.
• The "Greek god of Walks" might just be the Jewish god of OBP.
• Manny had to hit that 495 foot homer with his own power. Could Mussina be a homerun derby pitcher for Manny?
• Bullpen inconsistency, thy name is Boston.
• The Sox are 5th in fielding despite six errors from Julio Lugo? Wow.
• Sean Casey defines 'lumbering' on the bases.
• NESN "Helicopter Talk" already. It could be a long season in the booth.
• Where are all the RemDawg pitches for scoresheets, hot dogs, headbands, tee shirts, and so on? What's next, "REMDAWG OIL?"