I'm Digging It

Listened to Sunday's 2-1 win over Baltimore on the radio while toiling in the garden.
Naturally, it occured to me: Listening to baseball on the radio speaks volumes about advancing age.

But now, hours later, listening to Wilco, which speaks volumes about enduring taste, a deeper thought surfaces: The Sox season so far is an awful lot like that soil I worked this afternoon.

And that's good news, because the backyard patch is coming together quickly.

Real ratty-ass to begin with. Leaves and assorted autumnal debris gouged into gullies scoured by winter's icy runoff. The wear and tear of the seasons hits the hips and hydrangeas with equal vengeance. All you can do is get out the sharp instruments, prune here, prune there and get ready for the new buds of spring.

But spring we know to be fickle, at least in the early going. It takes a while to get rolling. But once you grab a shovel, dig around, get a little dirty, mix things up and rake it out nice, a 2-6 dust bowl suddenly seems ready for the first wave of pole beans.

Brethren, today we saw the return to form of Johan Lester.
On this homestand, we have seen the return of the heavy lumber and that old Fenway magic. Once we got a few back in the bottom of the second after falling behind 7-0 on Friday, who among us didn't say, "Shoot, bro, there's still a lot of baseball left to be played in this one; grab me another frosty."

Youk is an absolute felon with the bat (hopefully it's contagious and will infect Papi), the bullpen is an absolute force (with Javier Lopez the only suspect link at this juncture) and our defense wins us games others lose (again, witness Friday night).

Weirdly enough, considering where we were when the season dawned, the prime concern is starting pitching. What are we going to get? Hardly sold on Penny. Who could possibly be? The Diceman?

But this is rich man crying poor, or at least I hope so. Smoltz looms as a nice pocket kicker, not to mention Clay Buchholz. If Ramon Ramirez and Okie and Delcarmen are consistent set-up guys, Masterson becomes more and more viable as a starter.

We'll see how he does today. Based on the long outing in Oakland, you've got to expect good things, especially if the slider's movin' and groovin'.

Just throwing seeds here in April.
Space two inches apart in rows two feet apart, thin to 6-8 inches.
That's what the instructions on the packets say like so many scouting reports. Sun and rain bring more to bear, and the best gardens bear deep into October. Here in April, it's enough to say the soil's shaping up fine.