A Game That Never Should Have Begun...Matsuzaka To Start Tuesday

The umpires plain old blew it Friday night. Maybe it was bad information from the Red Sox weather service, who knows. After only 23 Jon Lester pitches, the umpire went out to Jon, spoke to him for a few moments and prompty called the game. I don't understand how the forecasters could completely misread their radar screens and not notice the wall of water heading northward from the ocean right to Fenway. It was the same wall of water that went through north central Connecticut on its trek. Jon, after speaking with the ump, threw the ball that was in his hand into the dirt by the dugout and walked off the field, his face fuming. Red Sox manager Terry "Tito" Francona said this about his ace lefty...

“I’m guessing he was frustrated because he probably thought he had lost his turn in the rotation,” said manager Terry Francona. “He looked forward to the fifth day so bad, and then he only throws 23 pitches. I don’t know. I didn’t see it. I jumped up and was starting to get a little wet, so I got out of there.”

And here's Jon himself explaining why he was so frustrated. P.S. I would have been, too...

“It’s frustrating to go out there,” Lester said. “Obviously I wasn’t dominating the inning, but you don’t want the rain to stop and you’re not able to get out of your own jam and somebody else gives up runs and you get a loss for pitching a third of an inning and throwing 20 pitches.

The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader Sunday with the first game beginning at noon and the second game scheduled for 5pm EDT. Josh Beckett will pitch the single game today and Buchholz and Lester, in that order, will hurl on Sunday. Every game is a must-win situation for Boston, who is locked in a wild card battle with the Texas Rangers. GO SOX.

It has been announced that Daisuke Matsuzaka will start Tuesday night's game against the Los Angeles Anaheim Angels. The club hopes he can go five good innings. He'll be needed for postseason play and his last minor league start was a good one, scoring AND velocity wise. It'll be good to see you, Daisuke. Real good.

That's it for this still dark Saturday morning. I haven't heard or seen the weather yet because the news here does not start until 6am EDT on the weekends, but I can tell you that it's still raining, a drizzly, ugly rain but rain the Sox could play in. Boston is 90 miles to the north and east and until a radar picture comes up in about 30 minutes or so, I'm clueless about anything happening that's not right on top of me...literally. I'll link the live radar to the title of this post so if you want to see what's going on rainwise, just click on that title link. See, I made it easy for you!

Have a terrific weekend and as always, BE WELL. I appreciate each and every one of you immensely.