Sports Redux: Gabbard Gabbard Hey

Even though the Devern Hansack experiment went horribly wrong Saturday night, the Sox had no choice but to go to the Pawtucket well again Sunday. So they brought up lefty Kason Gabbard to start Sunday's rain-delayed tilt with the Braves.

And it went as well as we possibly could have hoped. Gabbard cooled off the Atlanta bats, which were still steaming from Saturday's 14-run nightcap, to the tune of five innings pitched, six hits, two runs and seven K's. The Sox game him all the runs he needed in the first, on a bases-loaded Varitek triple and and RBI single from Eric Hinske. Another solid bullpen outing, and final score 6-3.

Now it's time to head down to the Bronx. Of course, it's easy to envision that a Sox sweep will bury the Yankees for good, but the ghosts of 1978 are never far from our minds. Let's just focus on one at a time, OK? Tim Wakefield goes against Chien-Ming Wang of the Yanks, who are riding a sizzling one-game winning streak.

We caught a few minutes of sports talk radio during the rain delay, and were amused about how sedate talk radio is when the home team is playing well. One caller was going on and on about how Dustin Pedroia is playing too much, and how a vet like Alex Cora should be in there more, and the host very calmly asked, "We've lost 13 games this year. How many of those do you blame Pedroia for?". The caller sputtered something about needing to play the vets, but the wind was clearly out of his sails.

Enjoy the Red Sox now, because the farm system looks pretty grim. Or, at least, it did on Friday, when our A-League affiliate, the Lancaster JetHawks, lost to the Lake Elsinore Storm 30-0. That's in the California League, in case you're baffled by the existence of a city named Lake Elsinore.

The Globe takes a look at Bob Kraft's dream to build a mall/entertainment complex/small city around Gillette Stadium. We're optimistic; if Bugsy Siegel could look upon an empty stretch of desert and envision Las Vegas, we think there might be some hope for Foxborough.

Playoff news: the Spurs toyed with Utah to take Game One of the Western NBA Finals 108-100 (it wasn't that close), and the Mighty Ducks grabbed a 2-1 overtime in Detroit to go up 3-2 in that series.

Finally, our Simpsons quote of the week is awarded to the University of Kentucky, which is backing out of a scheduled game at the Garden against UMass. As George Washington told Lisa in her dream, "We had quitters in the Revolution, too. We called them Kentuckians!" We're still rooting for UK over Rick Pitino and Louisville, though.