Toeing the Rubber

Even losses can have a 'star of the game'. I give you Vicente Padilla (Photo by Kelly O'Connor and used with permission)

Yesterday morning there were so many people online who were up in arms about Nick Punto not only starting a game but batting in the leadoff position that you would have thought Bobby Valentine was putting me in the game instead of a professional baseball player.  I was very happy (and entertained) when he went 3-6 with 3 RBI while filling in for Kevin Youkilis.  So Nick Punto is off the hook for yesterday.

Really, most of the team is.  A few comebacks made for quite the exciting game.  Mark Melancon and Alfredo Aceves are still doing nothing to garner any confidence but Vicente Padilla and Franklin Morales gave me hope for the bullpen.  If I have to take a positive from this weekend it’s that the offense never gave up.  Unfortunately the negative is the guys in the bullpen that we’re being told will have the games in their hands haven’t done much to impress yet.

But, as painful as it feels, the season is young.  We stop focusing on what happened last year and focus on the fact that there are 159 games left in 2012.  If we start hemorrhaging all our negative energy now, we won’t have anything, negative or positive left for down the road.

In an effort to try our patience, the baseball gods are following up a season-beginning losing streak with starts by Felix Doubront and Daniel Bard.  This is the part of the movie where the tides turn and everything good starts happening because no one thinks it will.