Opening Day Eve

Or Rather...opening day itself as the Boston Red Sox are in Japan to take on the Oakland A's. Diasuke Matsuzaka vs Joe Blanton. I'm not sure how I feel about opening the season in Japan, especially since the team comes back to the US and reopens spring training after two regular season games. How weird. Anyway, I expect Diasuke to have a big day in front of his home town fans.

For the second time in my life, the Boston Red Sox are the defending World Champions. The starting nine from last year is returning 100 %. The main difference is Jacoby Ellsbury will be up for the entire season. Ellsbury made a name for himself in September while Manny was taking a break and later in October. Crisp struggled like there was no tomorrow in the playoffs, and Ellsbury was inserted into the lineup and was almost the World Series MVP. Most speculate Coco Crisp will be traded, and he's been very vocal about not wanting to rot on the bench. The other noteworthy transaction was Doug Mirabelli, Tim Wakefield's personal catcher, was cut in favor of Kevin Cash who stepped in and did awesome last year when Doug was hurt. The Red Sox tried this once before, and ended up trading away Josh Bard and Clay Meridith to get Mirabelli back (who was hitting .172 or something...in the National League...). I hope they stick to their guns this time. Dougie can't hit the ball at all anymore.

The starting rotation is, in my opinion, better than 2007. The one difference is Jon Lester is in the rotation instead of Julian "Automatic Win Day" Tavarez. I expect Beckett to build on the magnificiant October he had. I'm predicting he'll win the Cy Young this year. Schilling's hurt right now, but the Sox have two viable options to fill in for him. The young Clay Bucholtz, who you may recall no-hit the Orioles last year before being shut down with a tired arm, and the veteran Bartolo Colon. I think it might be Bucholtz to start the year, but I wouldn't be surprised if Colon didn't play a big part of the year. The Sox got him dirt cheap. I'm hoping he plays the role David Wells did here from 2005-2006 or Brett Saberhagen did in 1999. I'm actually pretty excited about Colon, and am predicting he'll win 10 games. We'll see if that's true.

Anyway, I'll make some 2008 predictions, but not now. I'd rather wait for the lull between opening day Japan and opening day USA.