Red Sox feast on Baby Bluebird

So what was the magical formula that helped David Ortiz bust out of his streak of 149 at bats without a home run? According to Texy at Out in Center Field it was the “taste of baby bluebird”, also known as the Blue Jays rookie Brett Cecil.

Things were going alright for the Blue Jays until the 5th inning when it started to look like batting practice for the Red Sox. Varitek, Ortiz, Bay and Lowell all took Brett Cecil yard before Cito Gaston decided it was time to pull the plug on the nightmare that was tonight’s start for the young southpaw. I hate that the Blue Jays had to be the team to give David Ortiz his first home run of the season, but at the end of the night he still has a .210 average. Don’t start printing the “American League Champions” apparel just yet.

And it’s not like the Blue Jays weren’t hitting the ball very well. They kept Jacoby Ellsbury employed in center field all night long with a MLB record-tying 12 putouts in tonight’s game alone. If a few of those fly outs drop in for hits, the makeup of that game changes drastically. Just look at the box score: 14 hits for the Jays, 15 for the Red Sox, yet there’s a five run difference between them.

As tough as it was to watch that 6-run fifth inning, it was almost worse to listen to the constant off-the-cuff commentary from the moustache, Dennis Eckersley. When the Red Sox weren’t enjoying “cheese”, they were hitting it to “dead central”. Someone please hand Eckersley a glossary of MLB terms and tell him it’s “dead center”.

Correction: With his wealth of baseball knowledge, Bart Given from Inside the Majors pointed out to me that “dead central” is actually a very common baseball term. I just assumed it was something Dennis Eckersley made up on the spot since I had never heard it before. Turns out Eck actually knows what he’s talking about … my apologies.