Confused

With the Phillies finally playing at a reasonable time, we had the game on in the background as we prepared dinner. We sat down to eat at the beginning of the 4th, just as Tom McCarthy raved about Barry Zito - who at that point faced the minimum (Ben Francisco had a single followed by a double play in the 1st).

"The Phillies need to remember they're facing Barry Zito and start hitting him," Christine said.

Sure enough, Jimmy Rollins homered on the next pitch. They had rallies in the 4th and 5th that yielded only two more runs, but they seemed ready to bust out.

Nope. Amnesia returned, and they let Zito handle them as if he were Cole Hamels or something. Speaking of whom, young Cole must have thought he was Barry Zito - giving up seven runs (six earned) in five innings. I thought he had turned the corner.

Head-scratcher in Baltimore: I thought the sweep was well in hand when I saw the Red Sox were up 7-0 in the 3rd, but the O's put up a six-spot in the 3rd and knocked out Clay Buchholz with another run in the 5th. Although, by then, the Red Sox had already doubled their tally with a seven-run 4th inning. It ended as an 18-10 Red Sox win that left me wondering whether to praise Victor Martinez for going 5-6 with four RBI or complain that Red Sox pitchers gave up 10 runs in his first game behind the plate.

Today marked the official beginning of the end of the Jason Varitek era - I just have to remember that V-Mart's strength is at the plate, not behind it.

More head-hurting drug news: In the latest episode of the Red Sox trying to out-drug the Yankees, it was revealed that last year they fired two staffers, including Jerry Remy's son, for possessing steroids. I can't wait for this big weekend series against the Yankees. Our druggies are better than their druggies. Yea!

SoxandPhils should have been in the bibliography

I read a couple more chapters today of The Rocket that Fell to Earth. It was the part that describes how Roger Clemens made the leap from an awful human being to a cheating drugged-up loser in the mid-1990s, thanks to some help from Jose Canseco.

As he looked around the clubhouse, Clemens surely noticed that he was surrounded by aging and adequate players. What he also noticed was that one older player who seemed to be getting bigger, stronger and better was Jose Canseco.

The book describes how Canseco tried hard to become a B-list celebrity with a fling with Madonna, a 1-900 line and mansions on each coast.

It also noted the 1995 Red Sox yearbook, whose juiced-up contents was duly noted on this blog a year ago. Here's what Jeff Pearlman wrote:

On the cover of the 1995 Red Sox Yearbook, Canseco posed in a black tank top, arms folded, biceps popping (wrote Mark Newman in the Sporting News, "It looks less like a team yearbook than, say, the latest issue of Playgirl").

OK, Newman beat us by more than a decade, but we were the first with the steroid link. And, unfortunately, this is not the cover shot, but one from inside the yearbook. But I think you still get the picture of what he was talking about.

Today's news: Red Sox are off; Phillies play late in San Diego. ... Gannett's furloughs don't exempt sports baseball beat writers. ... Jerry Remy sounds good in an audio Tweet released today. ... Todd Zolecki, not furloughed, reports: Raul Ibanez is now second in All-Star voting; Ryan Howard was co-player of the week; Kyle Drabek was promoted to Double-A Reading; and you shouldn't trust a Tweet from a Phillie other than Chad Durbin or Jamie Moyer.

Unexpected

Any Phillies fan would have love it if I had guaranteed that the Phillies would give up just one run in tonight's game started by the struggling Chan Ho Park. And that's what happened as Park pitched six scoreless innings before Scott Eyre and Chad Durbin yielded an unearned run.

Unfortunately, Johan Santana was a tick better, pitching seven dominant innings and winning 1-0.

And if I had predicted there would be just one unearned run for both teams, who would have guessed it was caused by an error by Pedro Feliz and a misplay by Jayson Werth?

It wasn't the greatest start for the Phils in new Ebbets Field, but if it gets Park on track, I'll take it.

Red Sox: They got whupped by Carl Pavano and the Indians tonight, 9-2. Maybe they're just saddened by the news about Jerry Remy, who announced he has lung cancer. “I hope that disclosing my bout with cancer will reinforce the dangers of smoking to every member of Red Sox Nation, especially children,” Remy said.