Baby New York
Unfortunately the Red Sox’s visit didn’t coincide with Cole Hamels’s five-game suspension. Suspensions of five games or less are farcical for starting pitchers, but Bud Selig has rarely been about what is actually good for the game but instead supports that which looks good for the game. Hamels the southpaw wasn’t his usual sharp self: Mike Aviles and Cody Ross both managed circuit clouts in the third and sixth innings respectively.
Aviles has six home runs and Ross eight. Both have more homers in 2012 than Adrian Gonzalez, who incremented his home run count to three with a solo four-bagger in the eighth. Perhaps the first baseman needs a friendly cuff on the face like Matt Albers received from Bobby Valentine in the seventh.
Jonathan Papelbon toed the rubber to his replacement song “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metallica and tallied his 12th save. That the song conjures the parallel that pitchers ring up their quarry seems something too clever for Papelbon to have figured out by himself. I wonder if he realizes that the song was inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s novel of the same title? Or that it is about the brutality of real wars, not the merely allegorical battles between baseball teams? And that Hemingway killed himself?
To erase the image of Papelbon pitching for the Phillies from my mind I tuned into the Celtics game. Perhaps they would be the Boston squad to prevail over a team from the Cradle of Liberty. Instead of watching a Hub club triumph I watched the Celtics’ 18-point advantage melt like David Ortiz’s body fat, which allowed the 76ers to tie the series 2-2.
Motownphilly’s back again
Doin’ a little east coast fling
| Game 39: May 18, 2012 | ||
| Boston Red Sox 18-21 |
4 |
L: Daniel Bard (3-5) |
| 2B: Mike Aviles (13), Cody Ross (9) HR: Aviles (6), Cody Ross (8), Adrian Gonzalez (3) | ||
 Philadelphia Phillies21-19 |
6 |
W: Cole Hamels (6-1) H: Chad Qualls (8), Antonio Bastardo (9) S: Jonathan Papelbon (12) |
| 2B: John Mayberry (6) HR: Hunter Pence (10), Freddy Galvis (2) | ||
