Jayhawk Bill

WooooHooo!!!! 1-0 Boston!!!!

Hmmm...Ellsbury reaches, and a wild pitch to Pedroia.

Jerry Remy is doing the game for Fox.

The game will not be over for at least another nine innings. Right now, I foresee a pleasant but slightly boring game.

Lineups: Red Sox Ellsbury-LF Pedroia-2B Drew-RF Lowell-3B Youkilis-1B Crisp-CF Cora-SS Cash-C Wakefield-SP Reds Bruce-CF Janish-SS Griffey-RF Phillips-2B Dunn-LF Encarnacion-3B Votto-1B Bako-C Volquez-SP Varitek is still down; Manny is achy on his planned day off; Lugo was scratched due to a stomach ailment.

Factoid: the current Red Sox roster has a .500 career batting average against Volquez.

Funny, your name doesn't show up in god font on the active users list. :dunno:

We'll see. Meyer is being advised by Boras, and the Red Sox FO appears to have a "special relationship" with Boras at times. :thumbsup:

Thanks for the kind words! See, everybody, Yankees fans can have their moments of good sportsmanship! *** You're missing the point, though. I didn't search for a better pick--I chose the exact same pick as Venditte was for the Yankees, and the difference in projectable talent between Venditte and Meyer is very significant. The Yankees chose a college pitcher to get swifter payback on their draft pick, but they sacrificed peak potential to do that. Quite seriously, although it's a big draft, I'm not sure that Boston picked any pitcher with an 86-89 mph fastball, let alone a 78-82 mph fastest pitch. Yes, he throws ambidextrously--but it's not as if the hitters can't tell on which hand he's wearing his glove, and most MLB hitters can handle 80 mph pitches easily if they know that a fastball isn't coming (and the 80 mph pitch isn't a knuckleball). Venditte will almost certainly be exclusively a RHP if and when he reaches MLB, and with an 89 mph fastball he'd better have a great variety of breaking stuff as out pitches to survive his first cup of coffee in The Show.

Just one word of advice--this line may work on message boards, but it can really get you in trouble at home. Especially following overseas deployment.

Here's Boston's 20th pick: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/events/draft_report/y2008/index.jsp?mc=meyer 18 years old, already 200 lbs, 6' 7", and throwing 90-93 mph with years to develop into an MLB power pitcher. This guy DOES NOT scream filler. Boston nabbed him in the same round that the Yankees selected Venditte.

From your link: I've rarely heard of a pitcher throwing 86-89 mph in college getting drafted, and I've never heard an MLB team seriously discuss using a non-knuckleball pitcher capable of reaching no more than 78-82 mph.

http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfx/zoneplotn.php?xml=http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2008/month_06/day_13/gid_2008_06_13_bosmlb_cinmlb_1//pbp/pitchers/475416.xml&innings=yyyyyyyyy&s_type=3&sp_type=1&h_size=700&v_size=500

Dangit.

Lowell is Boston's last chance...long opposite field fly ball for Crisp.

Pedroia got a sharp opposite-field single...Drew strikes out. Has anybody considered the possibility that Drew took Dustin's mojo at the beginning of June and that Pedroia just snagged it back?

Bill Hohn's work so far: [table]Team Pitching | Balls Called Strikes | Strikes Called Balls Boston | 1 | 8 Cincinnati | 6 | 5 [/table] + 8 pitch calls for the Reds. That's worth over a run, and it's just a two-run game.

...or down in the system. A groundout to third, a pop up, and a 290-foot pulled fly ball combine to match the definition of "problem," and it's the same problem he's been having.

Mike Lowell follows up with a two-out single that would've scored Manny.

How was not reaching second base on a ball hit past Griffey Jr. to the right field wall awesome? NESN didn't show it clearly--was Manny crawling, not running?

Hey, Bruce is off to the best start of, perhaps, a generation...no shame in one home run in Great American Bandbox.

Harang strikes out Ellsbury to start the game. It might still be rained out...unless ORS shows up, we can just continue here.

Dunno--you could choose between building your fortune, solving the problem of world hunger, or charitable work giving pleasure to the most beautiful nubile women of your community. :dunno:

ORS is absent without leave, but we don't have to start a Game Thread without him yet (which might mess up his boring but potent mojo). This is a rain thread: http://news.bostonherald.com/blogs/sports/red_sox/?p=1945&srvc=home&position=recent