Coming Back

Anyway, from this point forward, I’m going to pretend that this weekend never happened and jump right to our win tonight in the bottom of the eighth. Just when I was feeling a little low, wondering, yes, I admit, wondering, what sadness lie ahead for me this season, peering into the medicine cabinet to make sure that I’m well-stocked on gauze, cotton balls, and tape in preparation to catch the many liters of red fluid that will seep through my eyes, the Orioles loaded the bases. Adam Jones, hero that he is, gave wings to a pitch that flew so far, it couldn’t have been more than an inch shy of a grand slam. It bounced off the outfield wall, driving home Huff, Ramon Hernandez, and Scott. Ellsbury rebounded off the wall in the attempt to catch Jones’s near home run, a feat that would have been both impressive and heart-breaking. Meanwhile, Coco Crisp contemplated laying down in the outfield and pounding his legs and fists on the grass in protest, but instead grabbed the ball and continued play, opting to later send a letter expressing his hurt to Adam Jones directly. Andy Fletcher showed up with lollipops in his pocket today in case he accidentally got over-enthusiastic about a call.

In the ninth, our closer Don Stanhouse struck out the first two batters in an exciting moment when I here at Sixteen Gold Gloves thought excitedly, “Could this be?” Then he walked two in order to let Manny Ramirez have one more shot at sending a homerun over the outfield fence at Camden Yards.

Despite breathing a deep sigh of relief when tonight’s game was over, and despite our struggle to produce runs, I’m still impressed that we held Boston every game (yesterday didn’t happen), forcing the game into extra innings. Yes, we need to work on producing more runs, but consider that our pitching held the Red Sox in check. Do you remember what we would have given for that last year? I give the Red Sox credit, they have some outstanding fielding, rushing at each ball with zest and leaping through the air with flair. Even so, we narrowly lost. Narrowly.

We have some making up to do, yes. Here’s my prediction: by the beginning of July we’ll be back in first. Tampa, bless their hearts, is going to have a couple of disabling pitching injuries. Poor Tampa. It’s tragic, really. And Manny. Poor Manny. No more high-fiving Red Sox fans in Camden Yards. He’ll have a tight quad, and 502? That was his last for a while. He’ll go into a terrible hitting slump that everyone will analyze up and down, but they won’t figure out it was the jinx that the Red Sox fans in OPACY cast on him, cause every time a Red Sox fan cheers in Camden Yards, a devil gets his tail and puts another curse on the Red Sox.

Okay, I’ll stop being mean now and return to my true inner, sweet self. Really, I’m a lovely person. I swear.