Butch_Stearns's Blog

Hey gang, tuning in from Tokyo once again. Right now it is 1:00 pm on Saturday (which is midnight Friday at home). Sitting directly behind homeplate right now in the pressbox at the Tokyo Dome for the Sox exhibition game with the Hanshin Tigers. Bottom of 2nd inning, Sox leading 5-0. Two homers in the first inning. Ortiz jacked a solo shot and JD Drew with a 3-run opposite field laser homer. Buchholz right now is in a little jam. Two on , two out.

The dome is only 3/4 full. This truly is an exhibition game but we've got our first taste of Japanese baseball fans......oops...update for you. Opposite field single off Buchholz by Ikoru Katsuraigi, bases loaded now for Buchholz...

Anyways, Japanese baseball fans are wild. Down the third baseline they are banging drums, chanting and singing on every pitch. It's like a soccer crowd....

Oops again. Nohiro Akaboshi with a grounder hugging the first baseline. Youk went to his knees but booted it, two runs scored. Ruled a hit. Questionable. Youk should have at least stopped it. Would have prevented at least one run. 5-2 Red Sox now. Buchholz again with two on and two out. Men on 2nd and 3rd. Let's see if he can stop the bleeding...

Nope, lined single up the middle by Keiichi Hirano. Two more runs scored. 5-4 now, Here comes John Farrell. Get used to this. In my opinion, Buchholz is going to be a great pitcher but he's still young and we're going to have to live with the ups and downs of him this year. Will be interesting to see if Jon Lester still goes through some of that or if it's time for him to really hit his stride.

Oops again, inning still not over. Hirano stole 2nd. Good throw from Varitek but Hirano got good jump of Buchholz. Hey! Buchholz struck out Takahiro Arai to finally end the inning. 40 pitches after 2 innings for Buchholz. and he did it with a 5 run lead. Again, young pitchers gotta live with them. I'm sure we'll see a few more of those struggles from him this year, hopefully it's not every other game, more like one out of 4?

Anyway, gotta go now. Will be checking back again later. Good to be talking baseball again.

Butchie-son