I didn’t feel like writing much after Monday’s 9th inning debacle. I was hesitant to follow the game today. Fortunately, Koch came in for the ninth and saved a one run game to wash away some of the bad memories of Monday.
I know it’s a long season, but blowing a four run lead in the ninth always hurts. Doing it on opening day hurts a lot. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to blow game six of the NLCS like that!
Anyway, the Sox managed a split to open the season, but wasted a solid opening day performance by Mark Buehrle. Maggs and Carlos Lee are off to strong starts while Jose Valentin is having a trouble making contact.
As you may be aware, Jose has decided to give up switch hitting and will now only bat from the left side. The Sox have started the year against two lefty starters and the early results of this experiment are not promising. So far Jose is 1-9, with six strikeouts. His one hit came off of a righty reliever in Monday’s game. At this rate, the Sox might be better going with his .131 average (2003) as a righty. Or maybe they should platoon Valentin with Uribe instead of platooning Harris at 2B.