Sox, Pats, Celts

Doug Mirabelli is officially back in the fold. In other news, I put a shirt on earlier today.
Saw a video clip of Clay Buchholz signing autographs yesterday (he and several other prospects are in Boston for the rookie symposium the Sox put on every year) and while I didn’t notice any growth of an inch (kind of hard for me to pick that out) I did notice he had bulked up some. Still way too thin, but his shoulders are broader and more spread out, which clearly indicates he’s been working out. He still has about 20 pounds to put on (and that probably won’t happen for a couple of years) but he’s getting there. All the concerns about his durability are valid, but when he says he’s never been hurt and the closest he’s ever come to getting hurt was fatigue in his shoulder last year… that bodes well.
Speaking of Buchholz, yes, I’d take him over Joba. Sorry. That’s not putting Joba down — he’s basically a Papelbon clone — but I’d take a topnotch starter over reliever any day and twice on Sundays. Buchholz has three weapons for pitches (curve, change, fastball) and can fall back on his slider. Joba has an insane slider (perhaps the best I’ve ever seen) and can wing the fastball too. Just like Papelbon, however, he has some durability questions and only relies on two pitches which will flatten out and paint himself in a corner if he starts for an extended period of time.
Joba and Papelbon will be the two most dominating closers for the next 15 years, but there’s no way I’d pick either of them over Buchholz (exempting Papelbon’s longer body of work that puts him ahead of the other two once you factor that in).
Some vulgar language in this YouTube video, but all people who have experience leaving comments on blogs will greatly appreciate the humor in this video: Internet Commenter Business Meeting. I also command you to watch the “preview” of the Minesweeper movie.
You know times are good in Boston when the Celtics drop three of four (two straight at home) and it feels like the sky is falling. We get a lot of flak for it in outside circles, but too much has happened to us in the past for us to feel okay with the recent success of all teams. The slightest thing that goes wrong brings back all the painful memories of seasons past, so while everyone else feels like we’re whining, we feel like we’re just scared of everything going back to the way it used to be – the Red Sox doormats to the Yankees, the Celtics an afterthought and Patriots irrelevant.
Good thing the Celtics won last night.
On the MVN Patriots site, Beth brings her take on the current Randy Moss flap. You didn’t think we would get through the entire year without some negative Randy Moss occurrence, didn’t you? It was too much to ask for. In other articles, Brent tackles the San Diego Chargers and how hypocritical they’re being, which I wholeheartedly agree with. They’re furious at how the Patriots acted on their field last year, but they are much, much worse at trashing other opponents.
See you around.