Sports Redux: The Wakesbury Redemption

Two Red Sox may have moved themselves off the "what's wrong with this guy?" list in Kansas City last night. Well, nothing's really been wrong with Tim Wakefield; although he went into last night 6-8, he's gotten miserable run support and has had to deal with the constant emotional roller coaster that is the lot of the knuckleballer. But he was awesome last night (6 innings, 4 hits, 1 ER, 6 Ks), even though Royals skipper Trey Hillman threw knuckleballs to his terrified charges all day to get them ready. Didn't help, as the Sox won 8-2 again.

Jacoby Ellsbury has been legitimately worrying lately, but he stole the offensive show, going 3-for-4 with a titanic home run halfway to Omaha. And the defensive show, with a fantastic tumbline routine to catch a Mitch Maier fly ball. Also: Jason Bay, 2-for-4 (we're almost ready to admit it was a good trade) and Jed Lowrie, with a two-run double, which means the Sox are about ready to send Julio Lugo on a well-deserved 3-year rehab cruise around the South Seas.

The bad news is that Kevin Youkilis remains a baseball magnet. Everybody turns into early-season Rick Vaughn when Youk steps to the plate. He got nailed in the wrist by KC starter Luke Hochevar and came out of the game, but X-rays were negative. And now the Sox are headed to Chicago, where they're open about throwing at people. You stay safe, Kevin.

Best lede of the day: ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) -- If Sidney Ponson keeps pitching this well, the New York Yankees might be able to get by without injured starter Joba Chamberlain. Yeah, and if we suddenly grew to 6'10", we might be able to get a tryout with a basketball team. No sawbones in New York can figure out what's wrong with Joba, exactly, so they sent him to one of those fancy-pants Alabama doctors for a second opinion.

The Patriots take the field tonight against Baltimore in their preseason debut and their first game since whatever happened that made us black out for a week and a half. Belichick swears he'll do the regular preseason thing and play the starters only a bit, though the temptation to turn on all throttles and start leaving a trail of dead across the nation must be hard to resist.

In other NFL news, the Jets may have landed a new quarterback. You'd think in this age of the Internet and cell phones and Nintendo video games, we'd be able to find out who this mystery man is and where he comes from, but there's just nothing anywhere online about him. Maybe it's that Rockefeller guy.

As promised, the Celtics released their 2008-09 schedule. In addition to the Cleveland banner-raising (goosebumps) and the Xmas trip to LA, key dates are November 21 (KG finally plays in Minnesota, presumably), December 12 (the Hornets and James Posey come to town), and February 15th (Leon Powe wins All-Star game MVP with 23 points and 15 rebounds).