Dragnet Sunday Spectacle: Sox at Twins

Being the MLB Sunday game of the week has both its advantages and disadvantages. Everyone in the country gets to watch it on ESPN. That's an advantage. The ESPN announcers are completely insipid. That's a push, because when they aren't so dross that you want to poke your ears out, they tend to spread horrendously inaccurate information or names. Having the game on ESPN brings new camera angles. That's an advantage, though we're still waiting on a roof camera at the Metrodome. Couldn't they hire a high-rise window washer to rig the camera up there or something?


Oh, but there is one horrible disadvantage: The ESPN talking  heads don't talk fishing, so WMYM won't have any clearer idea about when ice fishing season opens after the game tonight than we did before it started. That's a shame.

All of that being said, we're happy to be watching it, and happy that ESPN is slotting the Sox in the 8 p.m. slot on a non-Celtics night, though those have become oddly predictable of late, haven't they (incidentally, when was the last time that you felt absolutely certain a team would win when it was playing at home and almost absolutely sure it would lose on the road in the playoffs? Yeah, we couldn't remember either).

With a late-night flight to Baltimore in the offing, Boston is tossing Tim Wakefield, he of the preposterously efficient three-hitter last Tuesday, against a Twins pitcher named Nick Blackburn. The good news is that Wake is coming off his best outing in years after his whitewash of Detroit, though everyone knows how mercurial he can be from start to start. The bad news is that the Sox have never faced Blackburn, and just as they showed last night, Boston's record against first-time starters against them is not so sterling.

Of course, there was that night last summer of the back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers off a young Yankees pitcher on ESPN Sunday baseball. Hmmmm, and the plot thickens, no?

Well, it doesn't thicken that much. Manny Ramirez is out of the lineup tonight, so any stretch of four straight homers won't include ManRam slugging No. 498. The good news is that Ramirez's injury is only being called a hamstring strain, so it shouldn't sideline him for too long. The bad news is that the injury hardly helps the team's depth tonight, particularly hours after rookie infielder fill-in extrordinaire Jed Lowrie was sent packing back to AAA Pawtucket to make room for Alex Cora, who is starting at short tonight as Julio Lugo sits out a second-straight night following a slightly scary collision. And Bryan Corey, he of the flip-flopping uniforms and waiver-wire status, is headed to the Padres. The Sox traded him after he was outrighted to Pawtucket, with San Diego sending either a player to be named or cash back to Boston. Hard to tell if they'll get the ever elusive "player to be named" out of this deal, since it was no secret that Corey was going to be on the shuttle all year, and at any time could have been scooped up by another MLB club. Still, the improved performance of Craig Hansen likely paved the way for the deal, with Hansen giving Terry Francona and Theo Epstein a little bit of breathing room when it comes to situational righties.

Now, about that Blackburn fellow ...

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