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I would have been gone hunting for sharp instruments if Salty lets strike 3 bounce to the backstop and Youk punished us for it.

If CC can throw the offspeed/breaking stuff like he did in the first inning Lester will have to work real hard to keep up. Usually CC is left throwing FB in 1st innings cause he can't really do anything with his breaking stuff yet. Perfect for him is it starts on the plate and finishes in the dirt....like we saw. Lester looks ready though

To funny....in NY they are playing the "Evil Empire" background music from Star Wars as they intro the Sox.

The s*** may well hit the fan but last I heard there are actually 100 MLB names on that BioG client list. I have yet to see a full listing of MLB players from their client list and I have yet to see any Red Sox named. 100 ballplayers is one hell of a lotta' MLers.

Just announced Gomez designated. Breslow, Morales and Ortiz to 15 day DL and JBJ on opening day roster.

I thought it would be Gomez but now I am wondering if they have something more ambitious in mind. Then again, they may have already told JBJ what they are going to do. So he may already know if he needs to be preparing to play or not. I would really be surprised if they left him hanging this late. Would not surprise me at all if they are taking all the time they have to announce how they are going to shuffle the deck though.

Speaking of leaving....it is almost time to kill the 2013 Spring Training thread. Thank God. Bring on the game threads.

I don't want to make a prediction on this nor any other cold water prediction on the eve of the season opener. But I do wonder if the PED suspension rumors especially about the four guys that have been mentioned prominently are real (none are Sox) and if MLB is just waiting to get past the hoopla of opening day to drop that bomb.

Water coolers across New England breath a sigh of relief.:D

Lackey 5th allows them to split up the lefties. Although, the guy in the 5 hole usually end up missing a few turns as well. Even post TJS, you would think Lackey will still be the same bull he has always been. I would expect Felix to run out of gas and not be able to take the ball before Lackey does.

There has been some organizational backpedaling on Gomes since he has proven to need a compass to find LF. But that does not make sense to me. Were they going to play Kalish and Nava with Gomes in reserve? Nava switch hits but is much better from the Left side. Seems to me that Gomes platooning was always the plan and Nava would have been in reserve.

It is very hard to hit in the early spring. Then again by season end, if you are in contention you have to beat the better teams, meaning teams with pitching. By then, they all know how to get your hitters out. A tough road unless you can pitch. I suspect the biggest early challenge for JBJ will be hitting against pitchers that simply do not give in. He has never played at any level of baseball where the pitcher will throw you a 2-1 or even 3-1 breaking ball or off speed pitch. Hitting the off speed/breaking stuff then is an entirely different kettle of fish than hitting a hanging slider when you thought you might get a breaking ball anyway. That is where AAA ball would really help him. At least you get some of that in AAA.

It seems to me that Nava's greatest assets are his versatility, now enhanced by an ability to pick up the 1st baseman's mitt and his consistency. Regardless of whether you choose to think his injury caused him to be an easier out or that pitchers caught up to him, it seems to me that he will give you the same things any times he comes in for these two week to month long stints. What he has is not based on athletic ability or talent, things that can put on some rust if left to sit too long. He has learned how to learn (a invaluable asset) and has learned enough to be a decent ballplayer.... That is pretty amazing when you think about the incredible amount of talent exhibited by your standard ML ballplayer.

Dozier is an absolute adventure at 2nd base for the Twins. He is slated to be their regular season 2nd baseman. That decision may well haunt the Twins all season as he appears lost out there. I would think the Sox will move JBJ to LF from CF today. I would get him as many looks from LF at balls coming off the bat as possible before he has to be in a real game in LF.

A sure sign that the hitters have truly caught up as we enter the reg season......this game today is meandering along at the usual, regular season, 4 hour pace.

Nava has been a very patient hitter which has really helped him. Later in the year we are discussing, pitchers did a better job of getting the ball past his bat coaxing more swing and miss out of him, getting him in more holes in the count. Could have been injury. Might have slowed up his bat speed enough. That to me was the biggest dif in Nava at the plate from start to finish that year. At the end of the day he is a bench/platoon player. I don't think he could be an every day player anywhere in ML baseball for more than a week or two.

I think this is the first game the Sox have played the Twins this spring where they have had Mauer and Josh Willingham in the lineup together.

I don't see the Sox trying to move Nava. Gomez I could see or possibly Ciriaco. If I had to bet I would bet Gomez. The 40 man roster for JBJ was always going to be a problem IF they were going to try to have him there at the start of the season. Neither Sweeney nor JBJ have been on the 40 man roster the entire time.

Oh God.....how can you possibly look at any of this Spring stuff seriously....ahead when the starters were in???? Untouchable against what......Sisters of the Poor???? Suffice to say that at least from the distance we get to view things, Lester and Buch and really almost all of the starters could hardly have "looked" better this Spring. However, I don't care if you were in JetBlue the day of a given game, unless you know what the training intent for given players on both teams was for that day, you have no idea what you were looking at. Heck, nine guys all trying to make a team might have a better chance of "winning" one of these spring games or even doing enough things right to win a game than the usual mix of players would have. The one thing we do know is that virtually anything and everything that is considered preparation for the 162 takes precedence over winning a spring game or even scoring runs or holding a team down from scoring runs. It goes from ST (don't give a rats ass about anything but preparing) to Regular Season (don't care about anything but winning). The chasm between the two is multiple universes wide.

You really cannot from the distance we view things from put much stock in anything we see in ST. We have no idea what the marching orders were for the day. Certainly anything they needed to be working on would supersede any notion of what the score was going to be at the end of nine innings.

I have to admit that I am a little surprised that there did not appear to be more of a sense of urgency regarding these last few Spring games. In each of these last few years they have stumbled through the latter part of ST and then started slowly once the season started, almost sleepwalking through the start of the season. On the other hand. maybe one of the issues arising out of all this effort to finalize the 25 man roster has been less focus on finishing the Spring strong. It would seem to be a bit of an inconsistency to be spurring the guys on when the roster is not as yet set. Still and all, if there are things to work on then they have to work on them. That is really what ST is about. So, they may simply have not been in a position to treat this ST differently. Things always seem more complicated in Boston than they need to be. It would be nice to se that change some day ....I guess today is not the day.

WMB is just not disciplined enough to be a 3. Pedey looks terrific though. If he can stay healthy the whole year I actually expect him to step up and be the star of the show this year.

Really not applicable to the discussion but did anybody see what Verlander got in his extension? His extension gets him $28M per year with a vesting option at $22M.

Are the Twins broadcasting this game today? Just wondering if anybody on the board has got access to their radio. Wondering who the Sox are playing today and what is going on.

If Iggy could ever gets the count to be 1-0 it would be a miracle. His home plate 0-0 is about three feet wide and extends from ankles to neck.