What An Amazing Easter Sunday for Boston

Wake up in the morning to the sun beaming through the blinds in your room, and the morning birds chirping away. Easter Sunday was beautiful. Not only did you probably go to church to celebrate Jesus Christ rising from the dead, but also knowing both the Celtics and Red Sox will be playing their rivals sometime today.

I personally was ecstatic for the start of the baseball season. The Celtics just recently lost a game to the Rockets, so I preferred spending time with my family than watching what could've been an ugly game played by them again. But when I turned on the television to check the score, the C's were dominating.

What I realized I love about this matchup was, both of these teams HATE eachother. I love it. So much complaining, trash talking, shoving, technical fouls. These two WILL meet eachother in the playoffs and it will be a war. The Celtics will get the 3rd seed, possibly either playing the Heat or Bucks and it should be another long, grueling 7 game series. But they should pull of with the win. The next round, they'll take on the number 1 seed, Cleveland.
   We saw a reoccuring theme yesterday, with Boston blowing a lead. Lebron James went on a tear and the fans were saying "we've seen this too many times. But apparently the Big 3 went out to dinner after Friday nights loss, and discussed ways to improve and lead this team to Banner 18. "It's going to be a full meal from now on. Pierce has got the valet, I've got the meal, and Ray's got dessert." ~KG. And Ray did just that. Ray closed  out any opportunity of the Cavs regaining any lead, and he nailed some crucial late 4th quarter shots that gave the Celtics the 117-113 win.
  Can't wait for the playoffs to start. The Celtics showed some fire yesterday, and I have a feeling we'll see that all through the playoffs. Also I can't wait for this season to be over, since all of the players are "bored" with it. So lets see if they can live up to their verbal promises, and take control in the postseason. Looking forward to it.

After the basketball game. My relatives left, my dog had to be taken to the vet because he ate a whole bar of almond dark chocolate, and I had to get back to school. 8:00 was Opening Night. The best rivalry in baseball. Yankees vs. Red Sox.

The pregame ceremonies were great. Pedro Martinez, one of the greatest Red Sox pitchers in the history of the team, through out the first pitch. Him walking from the green monster to the mound made me miss 2004, and the chemistry those 'Idiots' had. His famous point to Big Papi. Where has that gone? Remember the parade after winning the World Series, a fan threw a baseball and hit Pedro in the head. I guess that's our way of thanking an ace for ending an 86 year curse.
The young 5 year old doing the Herb Brooks speech was too funny and adorable. "I'm sick and tired of everybody talking about, how good the Yankees are, SCREW EM." I'll tell you Dice K was loving it. But that was great. And then Steven Tyler singing God Bless America, and Neil Diamond singing Sweet Caroline while wearing a "Keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn" jacket. Neil, sorry to remind you that this is 2010.
  Not only were these amazing Opening Night ceremonies that took place in Fenway, but there was a ball game to play as well.
Josh Beckett took the mound against C.C. Sabathia. Boy was Beckett looking rough around the edges. I noticed it in the first inning, even though it was a 1,2,3 inning every out was hit incredibly hard. So they were obviously knocking his fastball around. And it only took one more inning to prove that. Back to back homeruns from Posada and Granderson. Let me tell you, Posada seems to get better as he ages (3-4 last night) and what a way to itnroduce yourself in your enemies ballpark for Granderson, a bomb to right center field. That was when I knew it wasn't going to be Beckett's night.
The Yankees opened up a 5-1 lead, but C.C. was getting tired and wild by the 5th inning. Getting C.C. out of the game was one of the biggest reasons why the Sox could pull away with the win. What a pitchers duel it was, huh? Beckett and C.C. combined last night: 10 runs 14 hits. Beckett had one strikeout and 3 walks. C.C. had 4 strikeouts and 2 walks. When Beckett gave up those two homeruns, I was hoping that this isn't an early sign of another 2006 year with the Sox (giving up a monster total of homeruns, 36). But I'm sure he'll figure things out and settle down for a solid year this year. Last year C.C. had a terrible first debut in Baltimore, and look where he ended. So if I'm a Yankee fan, I wouldn't be worried about C.C. last night.
One thing I would be worried about, was their bullpen. It just looked bad. Robertson couldn't do the job, Marte threw wild, Chan Ho Park was terrible, and Joba was not lights out like he should've been. Other than Ramon Ramirez for us, our bullpen was squeaky clean. Okajima, Bard, Papelbon, and this new guy Schoenweis, were great. But like I said about C.C. it only matters how you perform from August through October. Anything can happen from here until then, you've just got to play solid baseball.

  And who says we don't have bats in our lineup. I saw plenty. Especially from the new guys. Beltre went 1 for 3 with 2 RBI's (hit every ball he hit extremely hard), Scutaro went 2 for 3, and Cameron went 2 for 3. Pretty good debuts for these guys. I expect to see a lot more. The Sox are strong from 1 through 9, and that will definitely win them some games. I mean, you expect the pitching staff to be solid with Beckett, Lester, Lackey, so it seems like a promising year. Youk and Pedroia killed it last night, doing what the do best. Youk almost hit for the cycle, and Pedroia came through with a huge 7th inning 2 run home run to tie up the game. These players were electric last night, it looked as if it were a playoff game. The only offensive downside was Big Papi. He had a big chance to come through with some RBI's but he was late on some fast balls right down the middle. It's definitely got to be on his mind, how poorly he started last year. So hopefully he can get that first homerun out of the way, and get back to Big Papi form. But as I said, I love the intensity of these guys, they seemed like the wanted the world series, and it's the first game of the season. Keep it up Sox, you're gonna be fierce this year.

We got Lester and Burnett Tuesday, then Lackey and Pettite going head to head, Wednesday. Every win we get against these guys is so big. I know both of them will be neck to neck at the end of the year, so they gotta start off as well as they did last year (8-0 vs Yankees) except the second half of the season collapse.

I like how those Sox are lookin'.