Sports Redux: An Enigma Wrapped In A Mystery

So...what's the deal with Daisuke? What's he really like? What's his favorite color? And why is he so maddeningly consistently inconsistent?

After winning his last start, we expected good things out of Dice. Better things, at any rate, than his 5 2/3 innings of Texas Rangers batting practice yesterday. Free of the characteristic wildness that made him so frustrating last year, he overcompensated by throwing almost everything for a strike. Which the Rangers were happy to see and slap all over the ballpark. 10 hits, 8 K's, 0 walks...it's not a typical Daisuke line (though the one wild pitch did help establish some familiarity). It's a sign of advanced lack of merihari. Like we've been saying.

"The opponent's batting average is something I would like to focus on," said Dice through an interpreter. He'd better hurry, since John Smoltz is one rehab start away from forcing Tito to make some tough decisions about his pitching staff. Options? Trade Penny...banish Dice to the bullpen to work on stuff...go with a 6-man rotation for now. We kind of like the third, but we're a little unconventional. We'd also like to see Papi maybe play first for a game, since he's tossing and turning all night, wondering what's going wrong. DHing doesn't give him anything to do but stew in the dugout between AB's. Good thing interleague play is around the corner.

The Revolution seem to have some swagger back, which is not coincidentally happening at the same time they have Taylor Twellman back. The franchise player scored his 100th career goal, then his 101st, to pace the Revs in a 4-0 thrashing of the Red Bulls. Twellman says he still doesn't feel great, but at least he feels better. Imagine what will happen when he feels great.

The Lakers won. Grr. To take our minds off that, we'll salute the youth of Wrentham, who played 101 innings of nonstop ball for 24 hours to benefit local charities. Some blessed soul tallied up the game (which was actually a series of hour-long games) and figured out the aggregate final score was 348-339. For a townwide ERA of 61.20, not counting errors. So great job, youth of Wrentham, but work on that merihari on the mound.