Former Red Sox slugger returns to Fenway

Lost in the shuffle of the NL West portion of the Red Sox' interleague schedule is the return of a former Red Sox whose exemplary character and offensive contributions are still missed long after he was traded to the National League.

I speak not of Manny Ramirez, whose Dodgers play in Boston this weekend, but of Adam LaRoche, who had an interesting nine-game stint as a Red Sox last year:

The first baseman spent little more than a week in a Red Sox uniform last year, acquired on July 22 and then traded nine days later.

In between, he managed to homer in his first game, stroke a big double to help beat the A's in his third, and move in with teammate and fellow hunting enthusiast J.D. Drew. The arrival of Victor Martinez made LaRoche expendable, so he was traded to the Braves at the deadline for fellow first baseman Casey Kotchman.

LaRoche, now on the Diamondbacks, could be bitter about having been moved around so much, but he's not:

"I see it as a pretty classy gesture on the Red Sox' part," LaRoche said. "When they got Victor in that trade, they easily could have forgotten about me and not tried to trade me. I could have stayed here and been a platoon guy and played a couple of times a week.

"But I remember Tito (manager Terry Francona) calling me into his office and saying, 'We feel bad we got you and now we've got Victor and there's going to be this big circle of guys playing third and first. We’re doing everything we can to get you moved before the deadline.'"

Classy remarks on his part.

The phenom starts again: Yes, Stephen Strasburg makes his third major league start on Friday (another national broadcast, of course), but I'm more interested in Felix Doubront getting his first call-up to make a spot start for injured Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Today's games: Things went well tonight for the Phillies in New York on the 24th anniversary of Jamie Moyer's big league debut. J-Moy didn't pitch well that night, but the young Cubbie was able to beat Steve Carlton and the Phils. Gary Matthews went 2-4.

That was win No. 1. Tonight was No. 265, as Moyer went eight innings in the 6-3 win. (Only two were his; Brad Lidge struggled but allowed only the one run.) Tonight was win No. 700 for Charlie Manuel. I felt good when the Phillies scored six runs in the 2nd and 3rd innings, including their first back-to-back homers of the season (Jayson Werth and Ryan Howard). But I was worried that they didn't keep piling up runs. Baby steps, I know, but you need to be relentless to beat the Empire.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, kept it closer than they should have against former Phillie Rodrigo Lopez and the D-Backs, but they won 6-2 behind seven solid innings from Jon Lester.

LaRoche, who was 1-4 last night, went 1-4 again tonight.

Love and marriage

We had an opportunity to clear out some space on the DVR, so we finally watched Cole and Heidi Hamels on E! True Hollywood Story: Baseball Wives.

If you haven't seen it, don't bother.

It's disgustingly stereotypical and filled with the kind of stuff that just breeds disconnect between players and fans. Although, to be fair, most of the grating stuff comes from the wives.

Some examples:

Heidi Hamels compares her life with that of a military family when Cole actually has to go to work in the spring.

Another wife complains of the long season, which, according to her begins, with spring training in "April" and can last through October if her hubby's team makes the playoffs.

One of the ballplayers, when discussing his long road to the majors, said he didn't know what he'd do if he didn't make it. (Get a real job?)

Maybe I was overly sensitive to this stuff because I was reading Chris Coste's book, and he seemed to understand how privileged a ballplayer's job is compared with the average fan, but some of the stuff in this show was obnoxious.

Today's happenings: After celebrating our anniversary with my "baseball" wife last night, we returned in time to see Jayson Werth's home run to win the game against the Cubs in the 13th inning. That extended their winning streak to 10, but it was snapped today as the Cubs beat Jamie Moyer 10-5.

The Red Sox lost again last night and look to end their four-game skid on ESPN with Clay Buchholz facing Vicente Padilla. And the Red Sox traded two minor leaguers I've never heard of for Adam LaRoche. I know the offense has been scuffling, but I don't quite understand this one. (Although in full disclosure, I haven't been giving baseball my full attention this week, in case you haven't noticed.)

Christine is mad at the Red Sox for breaking up the LaRoche brothers.