A few reflections on perhaps the best weekend for sports post-March Madness:
- April 11-13 is far far far too early for Red-Sox vs. Yankees. As far as I am concerned these two teams should not play each other until mid June.
- While I will not at all complain about taking 2-3 from both the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees, the Red Sox look a little flat. The starting pitching is a little bit shaky as evidenced by the drastic difference between Daisuke’s last two starts, Lester’s lack of command and everyone’s inability to pitch deep into the game. This brings us to our next problem: the bullpen. While, still probably better than most bullpens in the league, beyond Delcarmen, Okajima, and Papelbon I am terrified of having anyone else pitch a meaningful inning. The offense is doing very well considering the abomination that is Ortiz’s early season performance and the 2008 World Series MVP’s DL trip.
- You heard it hear first: J.D. Drew will keep up his early season success and have a monster year.
- While the Red Sox and Yankees shouldn’t play in early April, the Master’s define the month of April for the sporting world (especially now that MLB has pushed Opening Day into March– a rant I will save for another day).
- Trevor Immelman has an absolutely beautiful swing and it was a pleasure to watch his game all week long. As a huge Tiger fan, I was obviously disappointed in his game (doesn’t it say something about his sheer dominance when people are upset with a 2nd place finish in a major?), but that was diminished by great golf from Immelman. I don’t think this is the last time we will hear his name.
- Lastly, to see the non-nationally televised Friday night Red Sox-Yankees game, I went to the ESPN Zone in Chinatown and will never be returning. The service was awful from trying to get seated, to the bar, to our actual waitress at the table. While I understand that a night that had a Washington Capitals playoff game, Red-Sox Yankees, other playoff hockey and important end-of-the-season basketball games would be stressful for a sports bar, an ESPN Zone should have been able to handle it better. The highlight of the evening was a pedestrian burger that was overcooked. I think that ESPN had a great opportunity to make an incredible sports bar with the ESPN Zone concept and royally screwed it up, but that’s for another post.
2 Comments
April 14, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Dude. Spellcheck is your friend. (See “here” vs. “hear,” among others)
April 15, 2008 at 3:28 am
Yeah… clearly I rushed that post… thanks Spencer