BY FRANCIS FLYNN
CARVER, Mass – Earlier today out on my cranberry bog I was dragging real bad. Then later on I almost nodded off at a stop light while riding back from True Value. So I swung by the Mary Lou’s and grabbed myself a big hulking pink cup of coffee and a couple crullers. I ignored the younger girl behind the counter but gave the older one a couple innocent winks (won’t be long before she’s a real waitress serving real drinks). Then I mawed down the whole business while I was leanin’ up against my tailgate and staring at the talent filling up at the gas station.
Felt like a million bucks the rest of the day. Served as an omen for the Sox game tonight.
This is what happens when you force the action. The Sox needed offense like no other and JBJ delivered it like he was some strawberry-blond-haired jailbait handing me my 20-ounce Hazelnut roast and a couple of the marble glazed.
Lemme just go ahead and simplify it for you, right here and right now. Some easy math for yous: JBJ = Electricity, pulsating throughout the park, spurring much-needed run scoring. Three hits from Jackie, plus some great catches in right field.
And it wasn’t all Jackie. Three hits for AJ Pierzynski. Even Dan Nava got himself going in the big 8th inning rally. He put on a nice long AB and shot a RBI single to right-field to get himself off the schneid.
Lackey’s got himself in the Cy Young Award discussion early here. Seven more innings tonight with only one run given up. Yous can whine and bitch and moan about it being too early and jinxes and all that, but just remember where exactly yous all heard it first.
Koji had me a little worried putting two guys on in the ninth inning but he’s Koji he got it done. Wasn’t a save situation though so wasted bullets if you’re asking me. Which I guess you are but now it’s time you get the hell out of my kitchen.
Ed. Note: Carver man and friend of the site Francis Flynn is an avid Red Sox fan, Boston-born and bred. Flynn’s day job is maintaining a 10-acre cranberry bog and tract of farmland that has been in his family for three generations. But his passion is following his region’s most beloved baseball team. Flynn watches recently agreed to provide Fenway Pastoral readers with his own recaps throughout the 2014 regular season. All we had to do in return was promise to publish his pieces unedited and to send him a case of Miller High Life (bar bottles were specified) every week.