Because It's Never to Early to Start Making Predictions About Next Year

Now that I've had a little time to digest the fact that the season is actually over and there will be no Red Sox to watch for quite a few months now, I'm ready to turn my attention to next year. Although I love watching baseball and miss it I must admit that I really, really enjoy talking about off-season moves. October, of course, is much too early to really make any predictions about next year so all of my outlandish predictions I am about to make are based solely in my imagination and have just a slight handhold on reality.

1. Josh Beckett will return in 2011 as a soulless, pitching monster and rightfully regain his place as the Red Sox ace. This one is really a no brainer. Things can't get worse for Josh, they can only get better. So if one is to assume that next year is going to be better for Josh, let's go whole hog and say not only will it be better, it will be his ultimate year. You thought 2007 was good? It was nothing compared to what 2011 will be like.

2. Jason Varitek will return to the Red Sox for one more year and announce he will retire at the end of 2011. A win-win for everyone. Tek gets to stay with the Red Sox for one more year and leave with the dignity and send-off he deserves. In the meantime, he will continue to be Josh's catcher (thus ensuring Josh of his monster year, see prediction #1), do some great hitting when he is in the lineup, and continue to do an excellent job of backing up VMart. Which brings us to ...

3. Victor Martinez will sign a 4 year deal with the Red Sox for a reasonable amount of money. Victor doesn't want a huge payout, he just wants what he deserves and a little job security to go with it. I predict Theo will see that this is the way to go with Salty not being ready to be the full-time catcher and no free agent or trade available catchers who are better than Victor. Combine that with the fact that Clay loves him and really, I don't see why it is a question whether he should be signed or not.

4. Youk moves to 3rd base and the Red Sox get some new 1st baseman. I'm not ready to predict who they might get to play 1st base but I have a hunch that Beltre won't be back next year and 1st basemen seem more plentiful than 3rd basemen. I prefer Youk at 1st myself.

5. Darnell McDonald comes back as a utility man but Daniel Nava does not. Darnell I can easily see slipping into the Bill Hall role (although hopefully we won't need him as much as we needed Hall) but I think Nava will go on to smaller, greener pastures. I wish him the best of luck.

6. Jacoby Ellsbury will be back in centerfield and all will be forgiven all around. Look, everyone had bad feelings last year about the Ellsbury situation. He wasn't happy, the Red Sox weren't happy, the media wasn't happy (or maybe they were because it made a good story), fans weren't happy. I predict next year Jacoby will regain his place in centerfield, steal a million bases, be a fantastic lead-off hitter, and make everyone forget about this debacle.

7. Lowrie and Scoots will have a knock down drag-em-out fight during Spring Training for the shortstop position. And Lowrie will win. Scoots will be back up. Lowrie is tougher than he looks and could totally take down Scoots.

8. Jon Lester will win the Cy Young award. I predicted this would happen this year but that's not looking like it will pan out so I'm going with 2011 being his year. Now remember, Josh is having a monster year this year so that means Jon has to be a smidgen better. This will make Josh even more motivated for 2012.

9. Papelbon will start the year out as the closer but Daniel Bard will finish the year as the closer. Pap is still good and I'd love to see him bounce back but my prediction is he won't and Bard will be eased in.

10. J.D. Drew will continue to quietly kick ass. Yeah, J.D. had a slight off year in 2010 but I think next year he'll be back to form. No one will notice though because he will be so unobtrusive about it.

11. The Red Sox will win the World Series. Why not?

Prague Ends In a Split

For those that missed the opening Bruins series in Prague over the weekend, it ended in a split, 1-1, against the Coyotes.

It was a good start for rookie Tyler Seguin, who got his first regular season NHL goal on Sunday. Nathan Horton, also new to the team, had a good start himself on Saturday, providing the only 2 Bruins goals of the game.

Tuukka Rask took the start, along with the loss, in the season opener on Saturday. Tim Thomas had the start, and win, on Sunday.

The second game overall was better than the first. On Sunday, the Bruins played with more emotion and grit. This helped lead them to the win.

Though they've only played 2 games so far, and their next game isn't until this Saturday, I'm optomistic that this is the year of the bear. The front office made some needed improvements during the offseason, and they started to show on Sunday.

Hopefully, Marc Savard will recover soon enough and add to those improvements. With a 1-1 record to begin with. I can only see this team going up, and I hope its true.

What are your predictions for the season? Comment below with what you think.

There Was a Time When This Would Have Made Me Anxious

OK, I know that I get anxious about odd things that really have no bearing on my life at all but a Josh Beckett start against the Yankees is a sure bet to get my blood pressure ramped up and my stomach churning. So the one bright spot to the fact that the Red Sox are basically out of contention is that I won't have to worry about that tonight. I don't want Josh to get shelled out there but this isn't going to be edge of my seat, hands over my eyes, game watching tonight. Nope, this is going to be kicking back, enjoying a drink, making fun of Nick Swisher game watching. Feel free to join me this evening.

Maybe I'll Sleep Better When Baseball Season is Over

I had a horrible nightmare Saturday night that Josh Beckett got traded to the Mets for nothing in return. The Mets! My sister woke me up (I was staying over her house so I could go to Fenway Saturday and Sunday) and I mumbled to her "Is it true? Did they trade Josh to the Mets?" My sister says that I need to lay off the baseball because clearly I'm thinking about it way too much. She said that even before I told her about the dream I had the other night that Victor Martinez was working for me and threatened to quit if I didn't fire someone else, and I panicked because you know it's hard to replace a good catcher. So I may indeed sleep better when baseball ends in two weeks but then I get to thinking about off-season moves and realize that those kinds of things may keep me up at night.

Fenway this weekend was glorious, made even more so but the ticking down of days until there will be no more. Josh is starting to resemble himself again which is always good because you know the Mets probably would open him with welcome arms if Theo were to offer. Jon Lester was his usual pitching god self yesterday and Victor was Victor, being as close to perfect as one can get without actually being perfect, since no one is you know.

One more game for me this season, the last one on October 3rd. I'm hoping for a big blowout win against the Yankees just to send them to the off-season on a bad note but  I'll take any kind of good baseball the Red Sox are willing to give.

Hockey Season is Upon Us

Tonight is the first game Boston Bruins game fans get to see at the garden since May. Though it is just a rookie game and "doesn't count", it is a game after all and there will be black and gold. Both of the 2 games will be played against the Islander rookies at the TD Garden, tonight and tomorrow at 7. Tickets are at a great price of $5.

After the rookie games is the preseason, which starts next Wednesday, September 22. Though these games technically "don't count" either, they are a foresight into how the team will be doing during the regular season. Or at least thats the way I see it. And thats why I'll be watching.

Now mind you, there are only a few preseason games. Then on October 9 is the official start of the regualr season for the Boston Bruins. Really not that far away, but it feels like forever. Then again it just might be me. Or maybe not.

I may not be alone in saying that knowing Bruins games are in the very near future makes me extremely happy. But we'll see. I will be at the rookie game tomorrow night, Sept. 16, so I'll be keeping you all updated on twitter of whats going on. I hope to see some of you there.

It's Like Victor Always Says - No One Is Perfect

God, why is no one perfect?

Victor has had a lot of opportunities lately to remind us that no one is perfect. He only took two of those opportunities to actually say it out loud (when DiceK pitched last and after that terrible performance from Clay the other night) but he easily could have mentioned it at least a dozen times more. I honestly don't remember off the top of my head the outcomes of all the games in the last couple of series but I know there was plenty of not perfect playing going on.

John Lackey looked sharp on Saturday night (much sharper than I was since the game started so late) but as is his MO he had one bad inning and blew it. And then Daniel Bard came in and made things worse. I didn't like Bard's explanation that he didn't have enough adrenalin going. You keep that up buddy and I'll get your adrenaline going. Josh Beckett yesterday was both good and bad. Walking 4 batters in a row is never a good thing but he ended up with the win. I can just imagine Lackey thinking to himself that he had pitched better the day before and it was everyone else's fault that he didn't win.

As for me, I'm enjoying fall baseball and watching these exhibition games without looking over my shoulder at the Yankees and the Rays.  Soon enough we will be without.

Let's Just Revel in the Fact that There is Still Baseball on to Enjoy

After last night's loss to the Orioles it seemed as though the Red Sox faced the fact that we fans faced this past weekend - the chances of the Red Sox going to playoffs are close to nil. I had faced that particular demon after Sunday's loss and went into last night's game feeling oddly liberated, free to just watch the game and enjoy it for the game itself. Let's face it, with only four more weeks of baseball to go now is the time to savor it.

I often think that the team doesn't take it as hard as fans do when they lose (see the scene Fever Pitch touching on this same thing) but it seems as though many of them are taking the end of this season particularly hard, and who can blame them? The fact that they stayed in contention despite the rash of injuries, the unpredictability of both the starting pitching and the bullpen, and the lack of help from the front office to right any of these wrong during the season is nothing short of amazing. No doubt many on the team were hoping some of that amazing would keep on going.

My prescient son told me during Spring Training that he didn't think this was the year for the Red Sox. He predicted that they wouldn't even make the playoffs (I kid you not, he did). I scoffed at him then but I'm not scoffing now. For the record, my son also predicted that next year they would win the World Series. That is a prediction that I can get behind.