Sports Redux: Great Pitching, Wrong Team

It seems like just yesterday that we were reading articles about the Sox home-field advantage, the way the team lights up the ballpark when they make it home to Yawkey Way. After Tuesday's 14-3 slaughter of the Mariners, Sox fans made their way into Fenway Park with cameras (lots and LOTS of cameras with very bright flashes) and the hopes that that advantage and the much-hyped Matsuzaka/Ichiro showdown would make for memorable baseball.

It was memorable. Brilliant one-hit pitching, even. But it Seattle's Felix Hernandez, not Dice-K, who wowed Wednesday, leading Seattle to a 3-0 victory. We first imagined that Hernandez must have been muttering Dice-K and Ichiro's name under his breath as he attempted to warm up before the game. But perhaps he was thankful -- able to fly relatively undetected under the radar, the 21-year-old stretched his run-less inning streak to 17 and shut down the Sox, save one eighth-inning hit given up to J.D. Drew. Hernandez finished the complete game with that one hit, six strikeouts and two strikes.

Dice-K wasn't showing the caliber of stuff he delivered in Kansas City, but it wasn't a poor showing (seven innings, three runs, eight hits, four strikeouts, one walk and some deft fielding). The pitcher said post-game that he's looking to shine brighter when he next appears in the rotation: "The great welcome I received here in my first start, I was obviously very happy to receive that and in my next start I hope to respond to that in kind."

We hope Ichiro's Boston batting woes continue when Tim Wakefield starts for Boston this afternoon. Jarrod Washburn is slated to start for Seattle. If you have tickets for the game, however, check in with the Sox and the weather over the course of the day. Forecasters are predicting nasty weather, hinting at what could possibly be the first snow-out since April 1996.

-- It might have seemed like all baseball, all the time on Wednesday evening, but the Patriots were busy, too. The new schedule was announced, and there are less than five months until the team starts the regular season against the Jets at the Meadowlands. The news gives tailgaters the official OK to start perfecting new dishes, so get to work!

-- The Celtics played at home on Wednesday, stretching their winless streak to five games. This time, it was Philadelphia who beat the Celts (and dealt the latest blow to beleaguered Boston fans), 102-94. There were good moments: an 11-point halftime lead, 26 points from Ryan Gomes and 22 from Gerald Green. But Paul Pierce is officially done for the season and Delonte West and Al Jefferson are iffy at best for the final four games. The phrase "limping to the off-season" has rarely seemed so fitting.

-- Tommy Amaker's heading to Harvard. The recently-fired Michigan men's basketball coach told the Associated Press on Wednesday that he will be coaching Frank Sullivan's old Crimson team. Expect a formal Harvard introduction Friday morning.

-- The Bruins will get the eighth pick in the June NHL draft. The Globe recalls that the last time the Bs picked eighth, they landed Sergei Samsonov.